Truman

Truman by David McCullough

Before I read Truman, my favorite presidential biography was Edmund Morris’ The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.  I found it ironic that this one eclipsed Morris’ epic as my favorite since Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman were such different individuals.  To be blunt, Roosevelt was an incredibly exciting character - especially prior to becoming president.  Truman, to be equally blunt, was not.  He was actually kind of a boring human being.  So why did I enjoy this 1,100 page epic so thoroughly?  A large part was due to McCullough’s writing.  This was such an immense joy to read.  The author knows exactly just how much detail to spend on the events of this man’s life, that you get the impression that any retrospective he would pen about any individual would be incredibly interesting.

That’s not to say Truman’s story should be ignored.  This was an incredible figure of the United States history, and he quietly went out and accomplished many milestones for the United States when the country needed a president to do just such.  It’s easy to forget that this man was a crucial part of the Potsdam conference at the end of the European conflict, the decision to drop the secret atomic bomb to end World War II, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the formation of Israel, the creation of NATO, and the (most would argue) correct decision to enter the Korean “Police Action” - although he would end up firing the beloved Douglas MacArthur right in the middle of the conflict.

What I enjoyed most about this book is that Harry Truman never really wanted to be president.  That seems so bizarre in our modern world of power and demagoguery that someone could rise to the highest office in the free world with such a lack of ambition.  Truman doesn’t even try to enter national politics until he’s 50 years old!  Helped with local Kansas City “boss” Tom Pendergast (meaning it was essentially Pendergast and company that decided who would get elected), he’s propels from being a local county judge to the United States senate.

His career as a senator was mostly inconsequential until World War II began.  When the war started, he was asked to lead up the Committee of Military Affairs, which essentially eliminated profiteering and wasteful spending during a time when the country was asked to kick up its defense spending up several notches.  He began to accumulate a reputation of being an incredibly likable fellow, yet tough and uncompromising.  Without going into too much detail, he’s asked to replace Henry Wallace as Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President during the election of 1944.  Even though FDR had served three terms already, this election is going to be a tough one, and the Democrats need someone on the ticket with FDR who’s not necessarily substantial, yet mild and meek enough not to rock the boat.  I found this to be a bit puzzling, since Roosevelt was already very sick, and although the public didn’t know it (no CNN back then, remember), he didn’t seem to have much life left in him.  Sure enough, Roosevelt passes away after about 100 days into his last term.

So now, the most unlikely person is thrust into the role of Chief Executive.  It’s incredibly humorous to read Harry’s thoughts about this job.  Although he doesn’t want it, he’s more than capable of doing what needs to be done, and an awful lot needs to be done.  Usually, when I read presidential biographies, the pages devoted to the time spent in the high office are the least interesting.  There’s only so much I can read about labor strikes, inflation, controversial bills, and egos on Capitol Hill without becoming a bit disinterested.  This is one of the main strengths of this book - that the author knows just how much information to fill the pages to keep things interesting without making a biography sound like a dissertation.

A highlight of the book for me was the “Whistle Stop” campaign for the Presidential election of 1948.  Although Truman really didn’t want the office, he did well enough to feel he was up to the job, yet everyone in Western Civilization seemed to think he had no choice against the Republican challenger, New York Governor Thomas Dewey.  The campaign and race was the perfect illustration for the “Tortoise and the Hare” tale, which ultimately led to a Truman victory, despite the famous Chicago Tribune headline boner.  Truman simply refused to give up, continuing to meet people in town after town, whereas Dewey was essentially a fat cat who didn’t feel the need to campaign aggressively and essentially handed a win over to the sitting president.

When the Korean War begins (known as a “Police Action” or “The Conflict”), the public is very fickle.  At first, everyone rallies around their Commander in Chief, but then when the reality of war hits (i.e. soldiers die), people want to get out of Korea, and get out fast.  Leading the military over in Southeast Asia is General Douglas MacArthur.  MacArthur is everything that Truman is not, (big ego, wanting a lot of headlines, thinks he’s infallible, etc.) and it’s no surprise that the war between these two individuals makes more headlines than the actual war itself.  Truman has no choice but to fire the General of the Army.  This turns out to initially be political suicide, yet after hearings in the Senate, it’s essentially proven that Harry was, once again, right all along.

Truman has no desire to run again in 1952, and General Dwight Eisenhower is elected as the next Commander in Chief.  It’s a bit ironic since many wanted Ike to run for President as far back as the conclusion of World War II (including Truman), yet no one knew much about the man – even if he was a Republican or a Democrat.  As 1952 draws closer, Truman meets with Eisenhower – trying to convince him that he should be the next Democratic President of the United States.  Initially, Ike is disinterested, yet somehow, sometime later, he changes his mind.  Only to Truman’s chagrin, he runs as a Republican.  Despite this, Truman still feels Eisenhower is the best for the job, yet the relationship between these two men is strangely very strained during the rest of their lives.  Truman always wonders (as we do) exactly why.  Regardless, Truman is happy to leave Washington, and the book gives us minor details about Harry’s later years up until his death in 1972.

A great asset that the author had when compiling this work was a vast amount of personal correspondence from Truman that survived.  There are masses of letters (many intentionally never sent) that sums up the man’s personality very well.  The man was very devoted to his mother, his sister, his wife, and his only daughter.  We see many personal diversions from the everyday office with his family affairs, and it’s all very refreshing.  I found myself chuckling out loud during many of the retellings of Truman’s writing and his thoughts.  One I remember was in response to the famed “Give ‘em Hell Harry!” moniker.  Truman claimed: “I never gave anyone hell, I simply told them the truth….which everyone THOUGHT was hell.”

I couldn’t help but wonder how wonderful it would be to have a man like Truman in office again.  Despite your politics, it should would be nice to have a president that really didn’t want the job, but gave it the best he could offer and, for the most part, never really gave a rip about what the polls said about him.  This book was a bit lengthy at over 1,100 pages.  There were times near the end that I thought it could have been summarized a bit more.  There seemed to be a bit too much detail on the renovations of The White House (it was falling in disrepair during Truman’s administration, and he had to move across the street in the Blair house), but this could have been that, like the job itself, things simply aren’t as interesting after one has been the leader of the free world.

I wish that every president in our nation’s history could have such a thought out, easy to read detail of their entire life.  Well worth the accolades.

The Bone Collector

The Bone Collector – by Jeffery Deaver

Imagine that you’re reading a story where two characters are in a room with a large, massive haystack.  A third character puts a gun to their heads and tells them that they have one minute to find a small needle in this haystack.  Somehow, miraculously, without any explanation, the two characters manage to find the needle – with about one second to spare before their life gets ended.  Then, the same three people walk into another room, with another haystack, and the two people are given the same ultimatum.  Again, they somehow find the needle – with no explanation as to how, with only one second to go before the trigger is pulled.  My guess is that after this scenario is repeated four or five times, you would tend to become very frustrated with the story and these chain of events, and tend to write off this tale as being “unbelievable”.

Sadly, I felt these exact same emotions while reading The Bone Collector.  There’s a homicidal maniac on the loose in New York City.  He kidnaps random victims with the intention of slowly killing them, yet leaves just enough evidence (by “just enough” I mean “barely any”) to where the cops show up just in time to save the poor victim’s life.  Usually with seconds to spare.  And then, the cycle begins anew.

This is the first “Lincoln Rhyme” novel that author Jeffery Deaver penned.  Lincoln is a brilliant criminalist who’s able to miraculously string together the most minute details based on almost no evidence, and immediately know where, when, why, and how the serial killer will strike next.  Pretty impressive when we’re talking about a story that takes place in Manhattan with literally billions of nooks and crannies for psychopaths to hide.  Lincoln, also, is a quadriplegic.  He’s not a very friendly guy either.  Because of his condition (he was injured a couple of years ago in the line of duty), he’s confined to his home lab along with an assistant and some other law enforcement type characters to do his thinking and planning.  The local police actually go to him as soon as this lunatic is discovered since Lincoln is the only one that can help solve the crime quickly.  Did I say “quickly”?  It’s amazing just how much happens within a short, 48 hour time frame.  There’s enough crimes, dialogue and clues that would last a normal detective story about six months, but for some reason, the author seems compelled to make a lot (too much, really) happen in a very short time frame.

So innocent people get kidnapped, the “bone collector” (what our psycho is known as) drags them to some bizarre, hidden location, and tries to kill them (or have them killed) in some slow, painful way.  Because this is how he can “preserve” his victim’s bones.  Yep.  He’s a weird one.  Of all of Lincoln’s helpers, the young, ravishing beauty beat cop named Amelia Sachs stands out the most.  And I do mean “stands out”.  She’s the perennial beauty that shows up in most police stories.  You know, the one who looks like she’d be more at home modeling for Vogue as opposed to casing crime scenes.  Well, Lincoln and Amelia end up bonding pretty well.  Their attraction goes much further than your normal professional relationship, yet never too far.  After all, the man can’t move anything on his body other than his neck or one of his pinkies.

So this dynamic duo work very fast, with a lot of obstacles, and somehow manage to save the day.  Author Jeffery Deaver has actually written several novels featuring Rhymes and Sachs, yet this was the first one where we meet these two.  I must say that I’ve read some of the others, and actually enjoyed the others better than this one, but it was nice to see how these two met, and how their relationship began.

I was glad that I already was familiar with these two characters, because too much of the story didn’t sit well with me.  Apart from the plot being so unbelievable, I confess that I’m not a big fan of reading details about innocent people being kidnapped and tortured – regardless of whether the victim is male, female, young, or old (I believe there was at least one of each in this story).  Then, the technical, criminalist jargon was a bit much for me as well. There are a lot of big, forensic words in this tale, so at least we know the author did his homework.  It’s also helpful that he includes a glossary at the back of the book.

Still, it was nice to see how it all began with these two, so overall, I have to say that I enjoyed the story – just not as much as some of the others.  I also need to give the author credit for always knowing how to end a book.  He always pulls a few surprises by the time we get to the last few pages.  So much so, that I was waiting for a nice plot twist near the end, trying to figure out just how I would be duped again by the author.  Not surprisingly, I failed, and Mr. Deaver managed to surprise me once again.  His endings are always so well done, that they always make me add a few “points” to one of his book reviews.  Overall, this book was pretty good.  Not great, not awesome, but pretty good. 

Playing for Pizza

Playing for Pizza by John Grisham

Rick Dockery has to be the biggest goat ever in NFL football.  A third string quarterback who is bounced from team to team ends up on the Cleveland Browns, who are on their way to their first ever Superbowl.  In the Championship game, wouldn’t you know, the first two quarterbacks get hurt, so Rick comes in and manages to throw three interceptions in the last eleven minutes of the game sending his team to a brutal defeat.  He gets hurt as well - he’s knocked unconscious and ends up in the hospital.  The furious fans don’t care though.  As a matter of fact, about 100 angry diehards protest outside the hospital calling for the guys death.  

And you thought Philadelphia had tough fans.

Well, not surprisingly, Rick’s agent tells him that he’s obviously finished.  The only gig he can secure for Rick is in the country of Italy.  Do they actually play football in Italy?  Well, yes and no.  They have something resembling a league, but the local players don’t get paid (they have normal jobs), fans don’t pay to watch the games (on a good day, a few hundred will show up), the field is only 90 yards long (they convert old rugby fields), and there are no cheerleaders (although Rick’s agent lies to him and tells them that there are).  So Rick doesn’t really want to go, but he doesn’t have many choices and he needs to get away from Cleveland as quick as he can.  The “cheerleader” promise is probably what does it.  Rick has a thing for cheerleaders.  Sure, his agent lies, but agents are agents for a reason.

When Rick arrives in Italy, the book details many aspects of the Italian culture that most readers aren’t familiar.  We read an awful lot about the crowded streets, the popularity of opera, the little cars, the wine, and the food.  Oh the food.  Italians obviously love their food - in quantity and quality.  I’d recommend that you skip this book if you’re on a diet.  On the other hand, if you really love food, it wouldn’t surprise me if you plan a trip to Italy on your next vacation.

So washed up Rick is challenged to lead a rag tag group of Italians to their first “Super Bowl”.  It won’t be easy.  Each team is only allowed only three Americans.  At least the Americans get paid.  The vast majority of Americans are over there because, sadly, the life of the majority of football players who are great, but never great enough to succeed in the NFL, seem to make the trip as the options are indeed scant (as I write this, ironically, Tim Tebow is in the news for considering going to Italy to play).

If anything, this books serves as a bit of a redemption story for washed out Rick.  Sure, he’s majorly bummed when he finds out he was lied to about the cheerleader thing, but….well…. Italy is known for beautiful women.  He makes some mistakes on his journey, but manages to hold his head high and bring a bit of excitement to the lives of these ordinary locals.

Like all Grisham books, the author never fails to keep your attention.  I was surprised what a good story this was - both on and off the field.  I seem to recall Grisham giving us just enough play by play for each of the games to hold your attention - even if you’re not really a fan.  He does a really good job keeping things fresh, which isn’t that easy for a “sports” story.  Especially a football one  (I seem to recall his other football tale “Bleachers” to a be a bit too predictable.  It was nice, but it was a story we’ve all read before.)

This is a very quick read.  Those who enjoy reading can probably consume the entire story in one or two sittings.  This would make a very cute and funny movies as well  (unlike Skipping Christmas - the WORST John Grisham ever!)  I would also guess that you don’t even have to be much of a football fan to enjoy the story, either. 

Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

One of Stephen King’s best and well known books was undoubtably 1977’s The Shining.  A lot of the longevity of its popularity is due to the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film, which stands out as one of the best horror films of all time (although some diehards, including King himself, didn’t like the movie because it was “different”.  Whatever).  So it really isn’t a surprise that King decided to pen a sequel, or rather a follow-up, 36 years later.

I remember watching the movie all those years ago with my mother.  I distinctly remember Mom stating at the end of the film, after Wendy and Danny escaped the hotel, “Well.  THOSE two are going to be scarred for life….”  That’s probably true for any character in a Stephen King book at the end of the story, but in this case, it’s a treat to get to see little Danny Torrence grow up. That’s not to say the experience is pleasant. There are too many demons (literally) in this boy’s past.  So normalcy is not going to come easy.

This book actually has about three acts.  Act one follows Danny and his mom Wendy shortly after they make their escape and are trying to live as best they can down in Florida.  The chef from the (now burned down) Overlook Hotel, Dick Halloran is called in to help Danny deal with some horrible things that only these two can really understand.  Act two jumps to when Danny (now Dan) is in his early twenties, and is already a hopeless alcoholic just like his father.  It seems alcohol is the only thing that can stop the Shine.  So Dan basically drinks his young life away - losing job after job, getting battered and bruised in bar fights, and spending many nights with women that you wouldn’t exactly want to take home to meet the family.

Act three is where our story really starts.  We’re now in the present day, and Dan has his turbulent past mostly under control.  With the help of AA, he stays sober and finds a job working as an orderly at a Hospice.  Dan can now finally use his Shine for good.  He’s able to know when patients are about to die, and spends the last few minutes of their life with them, giving comfort as they move on to the next level of existence.  Here is where the monicker “Doctor Sleep” comes into place.  Ironically, though, this really doesn’t play too heavy of a role in the overall story.

We then meet a young girl named Abra, who lives a few hundred miles away.  Like Dan, she has the Shine as well.  Also, like Dan, the Shine is “strong in her”.  So strong that there are some that want her.  No…they need her.  I’m speaking of the evil entities that are in place in this story.  Their name is the True Knot.  They’re a band of ghosts/vampire like beings.  They’ve actually lived for hundreds (and thousands) of years.  They masquerade themselves by driving around the country in large winnebago caravans, and manage to “fit in” as  tourists from all over the country.  Like vampires that need blood to survive, the True Knot needs “steam” from small children who have the Shine.  They must find these children and kill (torture, really) them and feed off their “steam”.  Since all of these characters have some sort of psychic abilities, everyone kind of “knows” what’s going on.  Abra knows she’s in trouble, and the True Knot KNOWS she knows in trouble, etc. etc.  So Abra “reaches out” to Dan - a man she knows because of the Shine, but has never met.  Dan steps in, and the hunt is on.  He must save Abra from the True Knot that need Abra for her “steam”.

In many ways, you can see the roles of everyone mirroring some of the key characters from The Shining.  Abra is obviously the new Danny, and grown up Danny, in many ways, resembles the Dick Halloran character as he helps young Abra.  The True Knot resembles the ghosts and ghouls from the Overlook Hotel.  Sadly, this is one area where this book falls a bit short of its predecessor.  A bunch of middle-aged tourist looking people simply can’t hold a candle to the empty, scary hallways of the creepy Overlook.  You have to remember, however, that the True Knot needs to blend in with their surroundings, so they can’t exactly run around the country looking like a bunch of Nosferatus.

In fact, this book really isn’t that scary at all.  Contrary to what most people think, though, Stephen King hasn’t written that many scary books.  Strange?  Yes.  Bizarre? Definitely.  So I wasn’t disappointed that this story, unlike The Shining, didn’t force me to sleep with a night light.  In fact, I loved it.  I thought it was very suspenseful, and couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.   The climax of the fates of the main characters was a bit weak, but I kept on turning pages, and anytime I can complete a 530 page book in 3 days, it usually means it has to be good.  

It was nice to “visit” the Overlook again.

R is for Ricochet

R is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton

There are few regular fictional characters that I enjoy as much as Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone.  Grafton’s works, dubbed the “Alphabet Mysteries” feature private eye Kinsey, a 30-something, twice divorced ex police officer, who works free lance out of her California apartment.  She takes odd detective jobs now and then to help make the world a safer place and pay the bills. 

These books are told in first person, through the eyes of Ms. Milhone, and overall, author Grafton does a very admirable job making her heroine affable, humorous, and fun to follow along with on her adventures.  The cases that Kinsey help solve aren’t too gruesome nor blood curling.  Quite often, they come across as quite minor.  As matter of fact, as I write this review of her 18th adventure (starting at the letter “A”, obviously), I can’t honestly remember much of any of the plots of the previous 17.  What I can remember, though, is that Kinsey lives alone, was orphaned as a child, raised by an Aunt, has a friendly 80-something year old landlord named Henry, goes on early morning runs, enjoys McDonald’s Quarter Pounders, has one “all purpose” black dress, and is kind of unlucky in love.   Maybe because she only has one “all purpose” dress?

All of this to say, it’s not so much the mysteries that are enthralling, yet it’s Kinsey herself that is so appealing.  I feel like I’m visiting an old friend every time I pick up one of these books.  Kinsey is quite introspective, very observant, and darn good at what she does.  Plus, she has a very sardonic sense of humor and I generally enjoy her wry wit as she tries to track down whatever it is that she’s been paid to do.

In this story, she’s hired to watch over a daughter of a well off, dying older man.  The daughter, named Reba, is just being paroled from prison for embezzling money, and her father wants Kinsey to sort of babysit her.  Doesn’t sound too difficult of a job, especially since Reba is close to Kinsey’s age, not really that bad of a person, and two seem to hit it off quite well.  Well, it turns out that Reba went to jail to cover for her boss/lover, and upon release, she finds out that boss lover isn’t quite the man he led her to believe.  So the intrigue sets in, and the ride begins.

As I’ve mentioned, the stories are kind of secondary, and it’s more fun to just follow along with Kinsey and her escapades.  This might be a drawback for some, since not everything that happens in these stories is necessarily related to the plot.  Some find it a bit tedious when Kinsey rambles on with some of the regulars (as she does in all her books) about nothing in particular, but I confess that I find it somewhat interesting.  In this book, Kinsey spends a lot of time trying to help her elderly landlord (who is quite the fit man for his age) win the affection of a newly acquired lady friend.  He’s competing with, of all people, his older brother.  None of this has anything to do with the story, but as I said, I don’t mind it.

What I do mind in most of Grafton’s books is that she (i.e. - Kinsey) tends to go overboard in the detail department when describing every single new situation that she encounters.  For example: Let’s say Kinsey is going to a restaurant to meet someone for the first time and she’s never been to the restaurant.  Well, Grafton has Kinsey spend an entire page describing the neighborhood where the restaurant is located.  The trees, the roads, the color of the buildings, the people that used to live in the neighborhood, etc.  It’s a bit much.  Then, Kinsey finally gets to the restaurant, and spends another page describing every single nuance of the eatery.  She finally meets the person, and we get yet another page describing the person - their hair color, hair style, shape of the nose, contour of the mouth.  And on and on and on and on.  So we finally think we have all of that behind us.  But, then, a waiter arrives.  So another page on describing the characteristics of the waiter…..  It’s enough to make you yell “Enough already!  Get on with it!”  But this is just how Grafton writes.  Maybe it’s Kinsey’s meticulous observations that make her good at what she does?   At one point, Kinsey and Reba go clothes shopping, and Sue Grafton spends three pages describing the details of the ladies trying on clothes.  Three pages.  Trying on clothes.  I’m not making that up.  I honestly  have to say that these books might be cut by 20-25% if Grafton could learn to summarize.

Another weird thing about these books is that to keep Kinsey somewhat “the same age” through all of her adventures, the timeframe of the book is stuck back in 1987.  That’s really not much of a deterrent, however, it just seems a bit strange reading about a Private Investigator that is always having to use a pay phone and doesn’t have Google handy to do research.

Some of the books are better than others.  I can’t honestly remember any that I was disappointed with, so it’s safe to say that this one is par for the course.  As long as Kinsey keeps being an interesting character, I’ll keep enjoying the books.

Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom: 1940-1945

Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom: 1940-1945 by James MacGregor Burns

Imagine if you will – a giant chess board.  Only instead of it being square shaped with only two players, it’s a hexdecagon (a 16 sided shape).  There are about 16 different people all playing against one and other.  As one of the players, your strategy is to somehow not only be the victor of this colossal chess game, but also ensure some of the players other than yourself manage to beat some of your opponents while never getting the upper hand on you.  Many of your “allies” on this chessboard aren’t really your friends – you just need them to help you beat some of the participants that you really don’t like.  Get all that?

Essentially, this is what Franklin Roosevelt had to do for the United States of America before, and during, World War II.  All of the geopolitical implications of the major (and minor) players in this game are enough to make your head spin.  Yet FDR proves that he’s a master of this chess game.  He manages to play his chess pieces perfectly and although he might lose a piece or two during the match, he proves that he is a genius.

Let me now say that this is volume 2 of a 2 volume series by James MacGregor Burns.  Volume 1 details Roosevelt’s life from birth up until 1940.  I did not like volume 1.  In a word, I thought it was boring.  So I wasn’t that enthused to pick up this next installment.  Let’s just say that I was immensely overwhelmed as to how much I enjoyed this one as opposed to the first.  I’m thinking the subject matter had a lot to do with it.  Reading about the details of the ugliest war in our world’s history is much more interesting than reading 500 pages about The New Deal.   In many cases, you almost forget this is a book about Roosevelt, and instead think you’re actually reading a book about the war.  Yet Burns carefully crafts his telling of history to ensure that everything that happens is happening through Roosevelt’s eyes.

There’s a lot of buildup in the early part of the book to December 7^th, 1941.  The war actually explodes in Europe more than 2 years prior, and the “good guys” (mainly Winston Churchill – the brand new Prime Minister of England) is soliciting help from FDR anyway that he can.  FDR’s constituents, however, want no part of a European conflict.  Why should we get involved of something that’s “over there” when we have enough problems “over here”?  So Roosevelt has to walk a fine line.  Sadly, he and most other intelligent figures in the government know that America will eventually have to be involved in this ugly conflict.  It’s just a matter of when.  Without going into too much detail, relationships with Japan are not good, and you can actually feel the buildup of tension.  Once Pearl Harbor is attacked, no one is really surprised.  There’s almost a sense of “relief” (dare I use that word) that the waiting is over.

So Roosevelt’s job is to motivate his countrymen towards a sense of inevitable duty, and as history as shown us, he does a remarkable job.  We’re not given too many glimpses into the everyday cries of sacrifice and patriotism.  Instead the author focuses on the masterful global wide chess game.  FDR seems to always be thinking of the future, always visualizing the chess board two or three moves in the time to come.  He knows what will happen, and his energy therefore is devoted to what his next moves are to be.  Once the war starts, Roosevelt knows that there will be setbacks.  Yet once we arrive at about 1943, the consensus amongst the major powers is that the allies will, without a doubt, actually win the war.  It’s just a matter of when.

A lot of negotiating and bickering goes on between Roosevelt, Churchill and Joseph Stalin.  These three men want very different things, have different priorities, different objectives and seem to be at odds with each other quite a lot.  It’s a bit interesting seeing FDR’s relationship with Stalin, particularly.  Nowhere in these pages is the man portrayed as the evil butcher that we know he was.  He never comes across as a soft, cuddly teddy bear, but he’s always portrayed here as “one of the good guys”.  Perhaps this is because Roosevelt had to treat him with kid gloves since our ultimate goal was to destroy Adolf Hitler.  In other words, the only reason Russia was our ally in World War II was because Nazi-ism was a greater evil than communism.

The book isn’t entirely about the War.  There are plenty of issues happening within the continent, yet FDR still manages to handle all of it wonderfully.  Still, with all of the problems at home, the war is the main thing on everyone’s mind, and just about everything that is done in the U.S. is geared towards winning the conflict and bringing the boys back home as soon as possible.  Yet there is still a lot of bickering within the halls of congress about just about anything, so things obviously weren’t that much better than they are today.

1944 arrives.  D-Day is a success and there are talks of “ending the war by Christmas”, yet within all of this drama, it’s time for another presidential election.  According to Roosevelt, he doesn’t really “want” a fourth term, but people are obdurate in their feelings and desires.  So he runs again and wins.  Oddly, before the election, FDR starts to have serious health issues.  He pushes them down as best he can, and makes a huge effort to appear presidential, yet those closest to him are worried.  Many times, you have to wonder if his illness may have hampered some of the ongoing relationships with Churchill and Stalin, yet the author maintains that Roosevelt handles things just fine – he just has to treble his efforts to overcome these issues.  I couldn’t help wondering that if the internet or cable television had been around, if FDR would have been re-elected.  Yet since most people couldn’t “see” him frequently, his illness was more gossip than fact among most.

So as the war starts to wind down in 1945, sadly, so does Roosevelt.  He passes away in April, without getting to see final victory in Europe a few short weeks later, and victory over Japan a few months after.  This was really the only minor gripe about the book.  The author just “ends” the story when Roosevelt dies.  I would have enjoyed a postscript that would give a summary of how and when the war ended (it was very different in Europe than it was in Asia), as well as an overview of the state of the world following the end, yet we don’t get that here.  I was actually very surprised. Still, though, this was a great read and well deserved of the Pulitzer that it received.  

After I read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book on Lincoln and his advisors (“Team of Rivals”), I made the comment that I felt that God had placed one of the best presidents of the United States directly into the time when we needed one the most.  After reading this book, I’d like to believe that The Almighty did the United States one more favor eighty years later.  

A truly great man.

Cold Fall

Cold Fall by John Gardner

Cold Fall marked the end of the John Gardner authored James Bond books when it came out around 1997.  After finishing this tale, I’m convinced that Gardner was aware it would be his last, and labored through with the sole intention of finishing up the book as quickly as he could.

This book has some interesting ideas, but never seems to really ever let much of a plot develop.  It doesn’t help when the “story” takes a five year break in the middle of the book.  The only reason that I can think the author does this is so he can make this a continuation (somewhat) from his last novel (Seafire), but he needed too big of a background to set it up properly.  So the second half of this novel takes place at the conclusion of his last book.

Not that any of this really matters.  The “continuation” I speak of revolves around his love interest from the last novel.  The Bond Girl ends up pretty mangled in the last effort, and since Bond really “cares for this one”, we can’t really just let her fade off into the post-Bond Girl sunset.  Speaking of Bond Girls, I think there’s a total of three former ones that show up in this story.  I’m not entirely sure about that – as the books don’t stay in my memory as prevalently as the movies do.  Plus, add one or two more consequential ladies to the story, and you have a lot of women running through the story with names like “Flicka” and “Sukie”.

The plot revolves around a terrorist group called C.O.L.D., which stands for Children of the Last Days.  They’re one of those morally righteous groups that think the only way the earth can get any better is to bring mass destruction everywhere so society can essentially start over.

This book also is supposedly the last to feature the original M.  M is getting old.  He was pretty ill in the last book, and now the powers that be are pushing him towards retirement.  There are hints of the new M.  It’s a (gasp) female M.  This is probably because this book came out right around the time the Pierce Brosnan movies started when Mme. Judi Dench reprised the role.

Had this book been fleshed out a bit more, it might have been more enduring.  It’s very short in length, yet as I’ve mentioned, it seems like this is what the author was trying to do.  When we finally get to that obligatory point in the Bond story where the villain is describing his plot to overthrow the world, the reader can’t help but notice that the book only has ten more pages of content.  It can’t be that big of a deal if Bond only gets ten pages to save the universe.  On a related note to James Bond villains everywhere: Don’t ever consciously keep James Bond in the room with all of the bad guys when you describing your fiendish plot.  You see, this gives 007 an advantage as he’s trying to save the world since he’ll now know exactly what he needs to do.

Gardner had a pretty good run.  Some of his books were really good, some of them were really not good, most were in between.  This one could have been better had he put a bit more care into it.

Simple Genius

Simple Genius by David Baldacci

I’ve read some really great books by David Baldacci, and I’ve also read some really bad ones.  This one seems to fall right in the middle.  This is one of his “King and Maxwell” novels.  Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are a crime solving duo.  They’re both single, “very good looking”, yet their relationship is purely platonic.  We see that a lot, don’t we?  I didn’t realize it, but the first Baldacci novel I ever read (Hour Game) featured this dynamic duo as well.  I seemed to recall liking that book a lot better.

The main plot involves our heroes’ trying to solve a murder mystery at top secret plant close to our nation’s capitol called Babbage Town, where scientists are trying to come up with advanced “number codes” that will help put a nation’s technology years, if not decades, ahead of anyone else.  There’s also a nearby clandestine CIA facility right across the river to Babbage Town, and one day a code-breaking scientist is found dead on the CIA property.  Well, as you can imagine, there are lot of shady government characters around these events, and when King and Maxwell start poking around, things only get worse.  Had more focus been placed on this Babbage Town place, and what and why the scientists were doing and what they were hoping to accomplish, I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot better.  It seems like this book could have rivaled a Michael Crichton novel in terms of technological complexities.  Sadly, though, Baldacci tends to go into too many different directions, with too many silly characters that tend to only dilute the entire experience.

Example: at the beginning of the book,  we meet the female half of the team, Michelle.  She’s very pissed off for some reason, walks into a bar in the worst part of town, and picks a fight with the biggest guy she can find.  Even though she’s tough enough to beat him up pretty bad, she’s the one that ends up in the hospital.  Why does she do this?  Well, apparently she has “issues with her past” so Sean checks her in to a mental hospital so she can work through her problems.  Let’s just say that had this whole episode been left out (it’s a big, big diversion from the story), the overall book would have fared much better.  Her whole mental hospital excursion almost warrants its own story in an entirely different book (and it really wouldn’t have been a very good one).

Then, there’s this problem in that none of the characters are ever really forced to think particularly hard.  It’s almost as if anytime one of the characters needs something, Baldacci just rubs a literary magic genie to bring his creations exactly what they need, exactly when they need it.  To try to illustrate this, imagine, if you will, two people that are stranded in the Sahara dessert about to die from heat and thirst, and then suddenly, a refrigerator appears in the dunes stocked full of ice cold beverages.  Unbelievable?  Absolutely.  We see a lot of things like that within these pages.  There are far too many times where Baldacci manages to conveniently pull a literary needle out of haystack to help his characters, or dramatically alter the direction of the story.  There was simply too much unbelievability.

Still, I managed to keep turning the pages, and the backgrounds and atmosphere was enough to keep my somewhat entertained.  Still, hoping for a better one next time.

Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990

Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973 - 1990 by Stephen Ambrose

After I finished volume 1 of this trilogy, I actually grew to admire and like Richard Nixon.  At the end of volume 2, my admiration turned to bitterness and anger towards the man.  Now that I’ve finished the entire series, I simply feel sorry for the man.  Oh, what a great man and president he could have been!  A man who was incredibly intelligent - possibly the smartest man to ever occupy the Oval Office - was sorely lacking in the likability department, which caused many to dislike him, which caused Nixon to bite back at his critics while, at many times, breaking the law.

This third volume picks up right as he is inaugurated for his second term as president.  The fact that such a hated man easily swept his Democratic rival in the 1972 president election tells you just how divided our country was at the time.  So his second term doesn’t begin any easier and, with the election now “out of the way”, the media focuses (it seems) solely on Watergate.  Watergate, Watergate, Watergate.

75% of this book takes place from January 1973 through August 9th, 1974, the day Nixon was finally forced to resign the Office of the President of the United States.  So, yes, we read an awful lot about Watergate.  Depending on how familiar you are with this egregious time in the country’s history, may help or hinder your enjoyment of the book.  There’s a lot of detail here, and a lot of names.  The main players in the tragedy get a lot of stage time here.  Names such as Bob Haldeman, John Dean, John Mitchell and Howard Hunt have plenty of page space devoted to them. You’ll also be widely exposed to many of the minor players as well such as Donald Segretti, Dwight Chapin, Fred LaRue and Hugh Sloan.  So if you’re not that familiar with many of those individuals, having Wikipedia nearby might be handy.

Even if you think you’ve “heard it all” as it relates to Watergate, it’s refreshing here since the focus is always on Nixon the person, as well as Nixon the president.  You feel all of the turmoil, confusion and struggles that he, and his family, were going through.  This isn’t a book about Watergate, though, yet like his Presidency, anything else that is discussed seems a bit of a distraction.  No matter how much Nixon would try to steer the focus of the country to matters such as detente with Russia, inflation, and solving the country’s energy crisis, all anyone wanted to talk about was the tapes, and why we weren’t allowed to hear them if they supposedly would clear the president.

So we relive the nightmare here.  The resignation of his top aides, the John Dean testimony, the Alexander Butterfield revelation, the Saturday Night Massacre, the release of the “transcripts”, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Like the children’s book about Alexander, who had a no good, horrible, rotten day (or something like that), absolutely nothing seems to go right for Nixon during this ordeal.  It’s almost lost to history the fact that ten months prior to Nixon’s registration, his Vice President, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign his office due to prior wrongdoings as Governor of Maryland.  Gerald Ford is nominated as successor, and the thought by many is that it’s only a matter of time before Ford is the new Commander in Chief.

So August 1974 arrives, and Nixon finally resigns since it’s “best for the country”.  He then begins his road to recovery which almost serves as a coda to this story as opposed to a major part of the book.  It’s very tough on Nixon and family in the immediate years after his involuntary exodus, but he slowly starts to recover and slowly starts to reappear in some of the most imperceptible places.  Well, time heals all wounds, and whereas Nixon is never completely forgiven, nor forgotten, he starts to gain more respect in his latter years, penning several books about the state of affairs in the political world, and becoming an advisor, to some extent, to future presidents.

Perhaps the thing that will always doom Nixon is that he never apologized for his wrongdoings.  He never admitted he was wrong, and never took any responsibility for, not only theWatergate burglary, but for the massive coverup that was clearly one of the worst constitutional crises of our country.  Had he done this, history would be kinder.  But Nixon was never an apologizer.  Men from his background and his time in history simply didn’t do such things.  As coarse as that sounds, it does seem that most people, upon reflection, realized this about the man, and moved on. 

A sad story of history, but one that really shouldn’t surprise any. During the Watergate crisis,  Nixon himself countlessly wonders why he was being picked on for doing what “every other world leader” always did.  Even the foreign superpowers at the time can’t fathom why Americans cared about such a trivial thing  (China wonders why Nixon simply didn’t take out his detractors and line them up and shoot them).  But I’ve always believed that this is what makes America great, and just because “everyone else does it” doesn’t make it right.

Stephen Ambrose mentions in the forward to this book that he “loved writing this book”.  I wish Mr. Ambrose were still alive so I could tell him how much I loved reading it. 

Lost City

Lost City by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos

For those who have never read a Clive Cussler book, his novels are a heckuva lot of fun.  Cussler started writing novels in the early 1970s using the same central cast of characters for all of his books.  His main protagonist was Dirk Pitt, A handsome, dark-haired, green-eyed swashbuckler who was a member of the fictitious National Underwater Marine Agency (NUMA).  Dirk and his cronies always found themselves in a midst of some oceanic crisis - some natural, most manmade, some a combination of both.  The baddies in these books are always really bad, and Cussler always included a lot of gruesome details in what these meanies were trying to do to bring the world to its knees.  But these villains never heard of Dirk Pitt.  Pitt always saves the day, with his rugged good looks, ability to kick the bad guys’ ass, a wealth of smarts, and usually a beautiful girl or two in his arms that he would always save from some peril within the last few chapters of these stories.  Think of an American James Bond surrounded by a lot of water.

For whatever reason, starting around the early 1990’s, Cussler introduced another warrior as a central character in many of his books named Kurt Austin.  Kurt is basically exactly the same character as Dirk Pitt.  The only difference that I can tell is that Austin has “Platinum blonde hair and Coral Blue eyes” as opposed to Dirk’s black hair and green eyes.   These characters don’t live in parallel universes either.  Like Dirk Pitt, Kurt Austin works for NUMA, and their paths may cross occasionally in some of the books.  I’m not sure why Cussler decided to start doing this.  Maybe Dirk Pitt was having too many adventures?  Possibly, as Cussler still continued to churn out Dirk Pitt stories at a frantic pace as well during all this time.

So this particular story is a Kurt Austin adventure (many Kurt Austin books, including this one, are co-penned with Paul Kemprecos), but I honestly can’t see any difference between one of these books and a Dirk Pitt novel.  Like Pitt, Austin has a similar “supporting cast” of brains and brawn that help him through his adventures.

Adventures?  You better believe it.  In this particular book, there are several different plot lines  going through the story, and Cussler ties them up nicely at the end, as he usually does.  For what it’s worth, the plot revolves around Dirk…..I mean Kurt, finding himself up against a strange, autocratic family that have made their money creating and selling the latest weapons of technology over the past several centuries, going back as early as the spear.  There’s another story here about some poisonous oceanic plant called Gorgonweed, that is multiplying at a lightning pace, and if Dirk…..I mean Kurt and company don’t move quick, it’s likely to turn the entire oceans to a murky sludge.  The plot is mostly irrelevant, however.  Again, it’s the thrill of the ride the entices you in one of these yarns.

Again, there’s usually something like this in every Cussler novel.  The one drawback to these escapades is that these adventures seem to always take place in or around some sort large body of water, since this is where our hero's spend the majority of their time in their jobs.  So sometimes the catastrophes can wear thin and get a bit redundant.  For example, when we’re introduced to an oceanic laboratory that somehow exists about 80 feet under a glacier (yes, you read that right), and we’re then led through the erie, damp, dark, claustrophobic hallways near the beginning of the story….well, you know something’s gonna happen soon, and it ain’t gonna be good.

Also, in order to really enjoy a lot of Cussler novels (especially this one), you really need to suspend your disbelief and throw out every notion of reality.  These books are flat out imaginative, wild and are an incredible stretch of the imagination.  I find that I have to usually “pause” a bit between these books.  They can be a bit too far fetched and repetitive at times, but I would definitely recommend  most of Cussler’s books for all.  Including this one.  I’m glad Kurt and company save the planet one more time.

Franklin Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox 1882-1940

Franklin Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox 1882-1940  By James MacGregor Burns

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was arguably the greatest president of the United States during the twentieth century.  I’m guessing that if most historians didn’t rank him as the best, they probably would have him listed in their top three.  Sadly, after reading this book by James MacGregor Burns, you would have never known that.

First, let me confess that there are a multitude of biographies out there on FDR.  The only reason I chose to read this one, was because Amazon ran a “Kindle Special” on part 2 of this two part book series for a very cheap price.  I figured that, before I read volume 2, I’ll first read volume 1.  I now wish that I had not.

This book was incredibly drab and dull.  I couldn’t believe how lifeless this piece of work was.  Reading this book reminded me of one of those hour long lectures that you sat through in college with a particularly bad professor.  You would walk into class, telling yourself that you WILL pay attention to the day’s lecture this time, yet you find yourself nodding off five minutes into the day’s oration.

This book does tell you what the man did up until 1940.  I just feel as though I never knew the man.  I never learned what made him tick.  Why was he so popular?  What were his fears?  His joys?  His relationship with Eleanor and his children?  His polio infliction?  None of this is answered.  Instead, the author plods directly into his accomplishments.  First at school, then as he enters his life into politics.  Why FDR went into politics, I have no idea.  Maybe the book does tell you, but I honestly have no recollection.  The fact that his distant cousin Theodore was very successful may have had something to do with it.

In 1920, Roosevelt was actually chosen by presidential candidate James Cox to be his Vice-Presidential running mate.  Vice President!?  Pretty exciting stuff.  Yet to hear Burns tell the story, you feel about as excited as reading about someone picking out what pair of socks they want to wear during the day.

So time goes on, a depression hits, Roosevelt runs for President in 1932, he wins on something called “The New Deal”.  Ah….The New Deal.  It seems as though 80% of this book is about the New Deal.  Mainly that Roosevelt wanted it, many of his opponents did not.  This goes back and forth and back and forth.  In detail.  In way too much detail.  Fortunately, Roosevelt become likable.  The country never actually gets back on track (it would not until World War II), but the country makes enough progress to where most love him.  His big fiasco while in office was to try to change the way the Supreme Court was run, and “pack” the court with “New Dealers”.  It does backfire in his face.

What is (slightly) more interesting is when the worldly affairs are discussed.  There’s a tinderbox in Europe, and soon a major war is started.  Our country wants nothing of this European war, and even through you feel that deep down Roosevelt knows we should be involved, he can’t resist public upheaval.  So he keeps us out as best he can.  Well, even though this book “ends” in 1940 (the second volume details the war years), the author feels it necessary to write an afterward that does tell what happens from 1940-1945.  It’s like he’s giving us the Cliffs Notes version of his second book.  Why the author does this, I don’t know.  Perhaps he didn’t know at the time he’d be writing a volume 2?  It seems a bit of a shabby way, whatever the reason, to end this book in this fashion.

There are plenty of other gripes I had with this book as well.  This author seems to take for granted that his readers already know many of the minor characters that he introduces, so there is often no background whenever someone of importance appears on the pages.  I found myself having to constantly turn to Wikipedia to find out who the author was talking about.  In many cases, he doesn’t even give us a first name of the individual.   I am somewhat familiar with President Woodrow Wilson (the U.S. President during World War I), yet when the author referred to him at one point as “now being an invalid”, I had to, again, do my own research to figure out what the author was referring to in the passage (my research led me to discover that President Wilson had a stroke in 1919 that left him severely incapacitated.  Why the author doesn’t briefly share this, I have no idea).

I did not realize this when I bought the book, but this biography was written over 50 years ago (1956).  Not that this should really matter, as Roosevelt died in 1945, but I can’t help but wonder if the “style” of writing is just a tad too archaic for modern readers such as myself.  I felt a similar wave of disappointment when I read Ted Sorenson’s “Kennedy”, which is also about half a century old.  I think modern audiences want a bit more flair and excitement since our attention spans aren’t what they used to be.  Whether or not that’s a “good thing” for us doesn’t change the fact that it definitely hindered my experience.

Speaking of styles in writing, the subtitle of this book is “The Lion and the Fox”, but I confess, again, that I really didn’t know that the author was using both of these words to describe Roosevelt himself.  Yes, you can kind of figure that out after several hundred pages, but it just seemed peculiar that comparisons between the 32nd president and these two animals was never really emphasized at all.

One more gripe: The book also contains illustrations and several political cartoons scattered throughout the pages, yet the transition to the Kindle format doesn’t work that well.  The illustrations are almost impossible to see, and you can’t magnify them with your Kindle either.  To be honest, though, I simply didn’t really care.

I would recommend trying a different retrospective of FDR.  To be fair, though, there were several readers that rated this book highly on Amazon.  Perhaps I’m just grumpy today….

Al Jaffe's Mad Life

Al Jaffee's Mad Life by Mary-Lou Weisman

There was about a three year period for me growing up in the 1970s when MAD Magazine was the bomb.  From about 3rd grade until about 6th grade, nothing brought me more pleasure than a trip to the grocery store, heading towards the periodicals, and seeing that the new, bi-monthly issue of MAD was out.  Not to mention all of the books, “super specials” (you’ll know what that is if you’re a fan), calendars, games and other memorabilia that celebrated irreverence so well, without ever really crossing the line.

I still remember the names of many of the contributors.  Don Martin, Sergio Aragones, Frank Jacobs, Dick DeBartello, and who could forget Dave Berg’s “The Lighter Side Of...”?  My favorite, though was Al Jaffee.  Nobody could make me break down into hysterics better then Jaffee.  If you were a casual reader, Jaffee was the one the contribute the back cover “fold-ins” as well as the immortal “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions”.   Never knowing that much about the comings and goings of the magazine, I was eager to read this biography that came out only a couple of years ago.

Although this was a very well written, and interesting look at the man’s life, it sadly fell short of my expectations.  What I was really wanting, was the majority of this book to be about the goings on at MAD Magazine.  This book actually covers very little of that frame of Jaffee’s life.  It’s about 90% “pre-MAD” and 10% MAD.  Of the “Pre-MAD” portion, most of that deals with Jaffee’s childhood.  It’s a very interesting (and a bit sad) childhood.  Growing up in a Jewish family in rural Georgia in a fairly well-to-to home, Jaffee’s eccentric mother, for whatever reason, takes Al and his little brothers away from their father rather abruptly to move to the “old country” of Lithuania.  Lithuania, according to Jaffee, was about a “century behind”.  The situation was rather tough, yet Al and his clan managed the best they could.  Still, there were a lot of trials and tribulations in a very strict Orthodox Jewish family, and you can easily see where Jaffee gets his warped sense of humor.

So without going into too much detail, only the last chapter or so deals with his tenure at MAD, and to be blunt, it isn’t very interesting.  You learn a few snippets, but not really that much.  To be fair, though, there probably isn’t that many interesting things that happened behind the production of the magazine, so the author can’t really write about things that never happened.  An example of the eventlessness: Supposedly most of the writers and artists didn’t even work at the MAD office.  They simply did their work from home, and got paid on a “per page” basis when they submitted their work.  It seems as though it was a grim existence, and the humor at MAD probably surfaced much more on the pages in the magazine than it did behind the scenes.

So it was a nice, well-done story about a man that many probably aren’t that familiar with.  if you’re a fan, it’s worth the purchase.  It’s not too long either, and Jaffee even illustrates much of the book giving the reader a nice, visual description of the escapades.

Several years ago, there was a CD-ROM collection of every MAD magazine made up until the late 1990s.  I’ll still have it and view/read it from time to time.  It would be great if such a retrospective could be released in a similar fashion of all of Jaffee’s “solo” material.  There was a lot, and it was all great!

A Maiden's Grave

A Maiden's Grave by Jeffery Deaver

A school bus carrying 8 deaf girls, ages 8 to about 18, is traveling through rural Nebraska on its way to a performance for the hard of hearing in a distant city.  There’s a wreck on the road.  The bus stops to investigate.  It turns out the wreck was caused by three escaped convicts.  The convicts pounce on the girls (and chaperone) and hold them hostage in a nearby slaughterhouse. 

Arthur Potter is a retired hostage negotiator.  He’s one of the best.  He’s flown in from the east coast to work his magic.  The story begins.  The story is a good one.  Not great. But good.  One of the goals of the author is to educate the reader on what it takes to be a hostage rescuer/negotiator.  In many ways, you could argue this novel could serve as a “What To Do” book, or, “Hostage Negotiating For Dummies”.  Or something like that.  We’re exposed to all of the drama from the front lines.  Including the media, the governor, the local yokels.  etc. etc.

I confess that I’m not really familiar with what a slaughterhouse looks like.  Based on the descriptions here, it sounds pretty gruesome.  This would probably make a very effective setting for a movie.  Especially as the day/negotiation wears on through the night.  Inside the slaughterhouse, we meet the unfortunate young girls.  The focus is on Melanie.  She’s one of the older ones (about 16), and much of the story is told through her eyes (and ears).  It seems she wasn’t born deaf, but suffered through an infection at a young age.  So Jeffery Deaver also educates the reader on many aspects of the life of the hard of hearing.  He’s definitely done his homework.

So the day, and night, go on.  There are several unnecessary distractions in this book that seem a bit silly.  Plus, it does get a little wearisome to hear Arthur constantly lecturing everyone and anyone in his vicinity about how clueless they are about such a situation.  He’s rather condescending - but in a somewhat nice way.  The convicts?  They’re pretty ruthless.  I won’t go into details here, but let’s just say that their crimes are far more serious than petty larceny.

So a lot of the book seems to drag on a bit.  Fortunately, as I’ve discovered about Deaver, he does an outstanding job in the department of plot twists and story endings.  He doesn’t disappoint here.  Sadly, many authors I read can be just the opposite.  They tell a great story, but can’t seem to wrap things up satisfactorily.  So my advice for this one is to stick with it, and don’t let the disturbing, macabre scenes force you to give up.  Not one of his best, but better then a lot of what’s out there.

Richard Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962-1972

Richard Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962-1972 by Stephen Ambrose

“I’m not going to be the first President of the United States to lose a war.” – Richard Nixon

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…” – The Who

After reading the highly enjoyable first of three books of the life of Richard Nixon by Stephen Ambrose, I was delighted to pick up the second volume, and I immensely enjoyed this work with the same fervor as the first.  This one immediately picks up where the first volume ended, Nixon’s failed run for Governor of California in 1962, which in a sense, was a bigger defeat than his first run for President two years earlier in 1960.

At the infamous press conference after he lost the governor’s race, he informed the press that it would be his “last” press conference, and that he was, so to speak, retiring.  Those close to the man knew better.  Although he does go into a successful practice as a lawyer in New York City after his defeat, it’s very clear to everyone close to him that the man is nowhere near finished with his political career.  Being the smart politician he was, he knew just what to do to keep his name “alive”.  Realizing (correctly) that he has no shot at the 1964 nomination, he spends the years preparing for 1968.

Well, anyone who knows anything about history in the 1960s knows that this was the decade of Vietnam.  Before Nixon becomes president, Vietnam is already a tangled mess of a nightmare, and the counter culture of American youth has never been so exasperated.  Nixon realizes that he’s to win the election, he needs to speak about all of the wrongs of the current administration’s handling of the war, and what needs to happen differently.  Without knowing it, this begins his downfall.  Simply put, he never really knew what he wanted to do differently in Vietnam.  Yes, he wanted to end it, but so did the Lyndon Johnson administration.  So his plan was shaky at best, but being the politician he was, he made a lot of lofty promises that sounded awfully good.  He’s elected over Hubert Humphrey (Johnson’s VP) by a slim margin, and the long awaited presidency begins.

And sadly, this where the Nixon story sadly deteriorates.  First, as I mentioned in my review of the first Ambrose biography, there were many that hated this man because of his ruthlessness.  The fact that he was never a warm, fuzzy kinda guy, meant that his mudslinging and name calling seemed much worse than it actually was.  It didn’t help when the youth of the day distrusted him from day one, and had their feelings justified shortly after Nixon took office.  Ending a jungle war in Vietnam “with honor” was not as easy as it sounded.  In many instances, you could forget that this book was about Nixon and, instead, about the war itself.  There are many immaculate details of all of the plans, talks, strategies and ideas to bring the war to a conclusion throughout these pages, that one can easily get a bit lost.  It seems as though nothing can go Nixon’s way.

What makes things worse is that Nixon takes all of the criticism that is heaped upon him incredibly personal.  So much that he directs his “inner circle” of advisors to sabotage those in the press and the left-wing that are out to get him.  Each day, Nixon reads a briefing of what is being said about him and his administration, and simply makes notes to have those that are “harming him” to be discredited.  It’s amazing the length and frequency of what President Nixon will do.  So much so, that when there’s an order to bug the DNC chairman, Larry O’Brian’s, telephone at the Watergate hotel, it really isn’t a surprise when Nixon later stated that he “couldn’t recall” giving such an order.

Watergate is only briefly touched here, and the scandal doesn’t unfold until after Nixon wins re-election.  With all the turmoil, it’s almost hard to imagine how Nixon could win a re-election.  He manages quite well, however.  As the 1972 election draws closer, he manages to reduce the fighting in Vietnam significantly as well as open up relations with Communist Russia and Communist China.  It didn’t hurt that the Democratic Party was in a bit of a mess themselves and were deeply divided.  Their nominee ends up being South Dakota Senator George McGovern who manages to actually swallow his feet several times during his own presidential campaign.

So Nixon is back for, what appears to be, four more years.  The press are starting to talk more and more about Watergate, but Nixon and his crew aren’t the slightest bit worried.  These things, after all, happen all the time in politics.  So the second volume concludes after Nixon’s re-election.

Unlike the first volume, I actually began to immensely dislike this man.  Once he became President,  he was simply too paranoid, too untrusting, and never good at understanding why so many were against him.  He knew how to win, but when he lost, even in public opinion, he never handled it well.  So with “dirty tricks” abound, the man simply plays hardball a bit too feverishly and alienates many around him.  It really is a shame that a man that was so smart in areas of foreign affairs and world government could be so helpless and baffled while trying to do something relatively simple, such as  make small talk with a group of students.  A tragedy indeed.

Eagerly awaiting to read the third, and final installment.

Sullivan's Justice

Sullivan’s Justice by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

Nancy Taylor Rosenberg is not an author that is necessarily familiar to the masses.  I came across a novel by her about 15 years ago called “Trial By Fire” and really enjoyed it.  A decade and a half later, I picked up my second book by her, this one, and was a bit underwhelmed.

This is one of those “crime” novels.  Our hero is Carolyn Sullivan who is a probation officer somewhere in California.  All of these crime novels tend to be quite similar.  They seem to always revolve around those in the law enforcement community trying to make the world a safer place.  They’re all overworked, underpaid, drink a lot of bad coffee, and don’t seem to have any time for a home life - so everyone is divorced or single.  Sullivan isn’t any different, but she’s committed, she’s driven, she’s very good at what she does, and she’s trying her best to be a good single mother of two teenagers.

The actual plot, or storyline here is pretty satisfactory, and I must say that Rosenberg did keep me turning pages to find out what happened next.  My problem with this book was the overall sleaze factor.  I’ve never read a book that contained so much sex, drugs, warped people, sex, adults abused as children, suicides, and more sex.  It became pretty nauseating after awhile.  This book reminded me of a trashy pay-cable show that only comes on late at night that is 60 minutes long that contained 20 minutes of plot and 40 minutes of sex.

Let’s just take one (of many) of our characters in this story as a case study.  Melody Asher is a voluptuous blonde who’s romantically (well, “sexually” would be a better word) involved with Carolyn Sullivan’s brother.  I wouldn’t exactly call them a “couple”, but they do have a lot of.....well....sex.  Melody has problems.  Big problems.  It turns out that she’s very smart, yet plays the “dumb blonde” so that men will do anything for her.  How smart?  Apparently she has an advance degree in mathematics or something.  Yet based on her actions and dialogue, she doesn’t even seem capable to serve an order of wings at Hooters.  You see, not only does she videotape all of her sexual encounters at her house and then “get off” on watching them later, but she somehow manages to break into the house of every lover she’s ever had (and there are many), and install an intricate video system so she can watch her lovers have sex with “others”.  How anyone can actually pull something off like this is beyond me.  Of course, she can then use these tapes as blackmail etc. etc.  Like every (and I do mean “every”) other character in the book, Melody has personal issues, so we’re supposed to somehow feel sorry for this monster, and the book moves too quickly between having us despise her and then supposed to “root” for her.  I still couldn’t figure out at the end of this story what I was supposed to feel.

Did I mention there was a lot of sex in this book?  Well, it seems the author has to somehow insert irrelevant details about the character’s perversions and fetishes every chance she can, even though they don’t have the slightest relevance to the story.  Do we really need to know that one of Sullivan’s partners, an older divorced man, needs to watch pornography every now and then to “make sure everything is still working”?  Or, is it really necessary to tell the story about when Sullivan was an adolescent, she “blossomed over night” but her mother was too busy to notice and buy her a bra so the young girl had to manufacture one herself out of a garter belt??  So, yes, this book is chocked full of sleazy instances such as these.

I must also say that I was dissatisfied with the conclusion of the book.  The ending seemed to be a bit far fetched, and Rosenberg tries to tie up too many loose ends too quickly without giving the conclusions much thought.  It’s almost as if she was under a tight deadline to finish the book, so she haphazardly throws in a few sentences that are supposed to “wrap up” major details of the story.  In addition, there are too many unanswered questions at the end as well in terms of character motivation and separating truth from innuendo.  Sometimes, a good story will do this to you to get you to think or to motivate discussion.  In this case, the story was so lame that it just left you frustrated.

I believe Rosenberg has written a few other “Sullivan” books, yet I doubt I’ll be reading them anytime soon.  I would recommend “Trial By Fire” by this author, however.  I would hope the majority of her work is more reminiscent of that one as opposed to this one.