American Assassin

American Assassin by Vince Flynn

As I mentioned in my last review of a Vince Flynn book, these tales by this author all focus around one character, and the stories, while somewhat enjoyable, are basically the same.  Mitch Rapp is a clandestine CIA operative who sniffs out bad guys at home and (mostly) abroad, and is dispatched to do away with these evil threats to decency and the American way of life.  

What makes this story slightly different (emphasize the word “slightly”) is this book goes back in time, and details how Rapp first became involved within this group of freedom fighters.  He’s recruited by CIA employee Irene Kennedy (in latter books, she becomes Director) and she sends him to “training” with other potential bad-asses in the unknown hills of Virginia.  This training won’t be easy.  It’s designed to “break” you, and only the strong survive.  The training is headed by Stan Hurley, a combat veteran who’s in his late fifties and has a “Tom Selleck” mustache.

Don’t let Hurley’s age fool you, he’s a tough, whiskey drinking, cigar chomping, sonofabitch who can easily take down any of these punks, regardless of the size of their biceps.  Hurley’s not happy that Irene Kennedy has recruited this “college puke” without his knowledge, and as soon as Mitch Rapp arrives, Hurley would love nothing better than to send this green kid home crying and screaming.  He’s determined to make an example out of this kid.

Well, if you know anything about Mitch Rapp, you know that nothing ever goes wrong for him.  So when the two have an immediate, impromptu spar, let’s just say that Rapp whoops his trainer in a bad way.  Hurley can handle the bruised body parts, but not so much the bruised ego, so a lot of testosterone banging and clanging go on for the first third of this book.

Well, Rapp gets a pass after all the bickering, and is sent overseas for his first mission.  The powers that be need to see if this kid has “what it takes” to be a killer.  So Rapp finds himself in the dusty, dirty terrorist laden streets of the Mideast.  His first task is to “scope out a target” that will eventually be eliminated by Rapp and company.  Well, Mitch being Mitch, he decides not to wait, and he immediately sneaks up and brutally slays the adversary before he supposed to do anything.  Not good.  Well, maybe it is good.  After all, doesn’t this mean the kid has “what it takes”?

Within Vince Flynn’s books, there’s always one of those subplots that shows up about some rich, hypocritical, Muslim, evil terrorist and the obligatory plot of how they’re about to bring America to its knees.  It seems they’ve captured some American agents, and they’re torturing them whilst the agents are hemorrhaging information.  A few of Stan Hurley’s team are called in to assist.  Hurley being one, Rapp being another.  Then Hurley gets captured and they try to torture him as well.  Hurley’s too tough to be tortured, though.  I mean, the man laughs when they pull his finger nails off one by one.

All this is kind of irrelevant, however.  What is important is that Hurley needs to be rescued, so Rapp fakes a capture of himself by the same terrorists, acts cowardly - crying, pleading, etc., whatever he can do to get closer to Hurley to perform a heroic rescue. If you’ve read any of these books by Vince Flynn, let’s just say that you already know the rest.

So Vince Flynn once again delivers.  Everything is predictable.  The naysayers will groan (yet they won’t even read the book, so the author is safe), and the fans will cheer that Mitch Rapp has once again made the red, white and blue a bit safer - even if this story takes place 15 years or so in the past.

(NOTE:While I was reading this book, Vince Flynn passed away, losing a two year battle with prostate cancer.  I know there are at least two more of his books that he completed before his premature death.  Very sad, as always, to hear such news.  Despite many of the shortcomings within his stories, I have to honestly say that I’ve enjoyed his works.  After all, I would have read them all had I not!)

The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - by William Shirer

One of the most well known historical pieces of work from the latter half of the twentieth century, and for good reason.  I confess I’ve always been intimidated by this book.  Simply the shear size of this volume (over 1200 pages) was always scary - and no pictures to boot!  Well, for those who know how owning an Amazon Kindle works, you know that from time to time, you can find great bargains to add to your library.  So when this one was advertised at $1.99 for a period of time time, who could pass that up?  Certainly not me.  It always helps when Amazon has a large number of positive customer reviews as well of a particular piece.  Of course, I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy the volume, nor if I would even have the tenacity to finish such a formidable body of work.

One of the ways I can tell when I have thoroughly enjoyed a historical piece, is when, upon finishing the book, I want more.  Such was the case here.  For starters, the most appealing factor of this book, is it was written by journalist William Shirer, who was actually there in Germany, covering the stories, as they happened.  The book is so well written, that it was very easy for me to forget that the book was written and released back in 1961.  Having a first-hand witness to so much of the pomp and ceremony in Germany during the volatile 1930s is a huge asset for the reader.

There are so many aspects and side tales of this time in history, that it’s very easy for any author to go off on a rabbit trail, and lose focus of the topic at hand.  Although this might actually be desirable, the author does a great job of keeping the main thing (The Third Reich) the main thing.  Example: As World War II starts, some of the events are told in thorough detail, yet other events seemed to be glossed over (i.e. Japan’s involvement) and you almost feel cheated.  Then, of course, you have to remind yourself that this is not a retrospective of the War, yet only Germany’s involvement as it pertains to Hitler and his band of devout goons.

Speaking of Hitler, he’s obviously the main character in this tale.  And again, there are times when we want more.  I’ve never read a book that detailed Hitler’s early years as much as this one (although I’m sure they exist), so it’s commendable when Shirer shows discipline within the narrative.  Then, when we get to the “Fall” of the Third Reich, it isn’t told in as much detail as I would have liked.  It happened very quickly, as history tells us, yet I would have loved to have much more details around the Nuremberg trials.  Again, though, I’m sure that episode warrants a book by itself.

You could make the argument that, more than 50 years after this book was first released, that there really isn’t anything new within these pages for the modern reader, and that’s true.  In fact, I’m sure there have been many revelations around the atrocities of the parties since then that were unknown barely 15 years after the walls of the 1,000 year Reich came crashing down.  The detail, however, is incredibly impressive.  The only part that seemed to be a bit dry was during the 1920s when the Nazi party was coming into power.   The Nazis were battling all of the other, existing political entities at the time to try to bring Germany out of its embarrassment and ruin after its defeat during the first World War.

Also worth mentioning is that the hatred of minorities, German arrogance, and the desire for a “pure” race through Darwinian methods were not Adolph Hitler’s original ideas.  Sadly, such behavior was very commonplace for centuries amongst many.  Hitler was just the only one who could pull off such a thing.  Yes, the man was a lunatic.  But sadly, he was a very smart lunatic.  So we witness Germany becoming a “great nation” once again under Hitler’s direction, while most citizens simply look the other way when Jews, Gypsies and Communists are brutally humiliated, ostracized, and eventually killed in brutal form and fashion that was hard for many to believe shortly after the events were revealed.

And, yes, a detailed account of The Third Reich simply cannot be told without details of the Holocaust.  For me, anyway, I was a bit relieved that Shirer only spent one chapter on the details of such monstrosities.  I accept that it’s an important part of the story, but it sickens and saddens me to read the details of such events.  When you read about the sadistic behaviors of many of the “doctors” and the bizarre experiments done to human beings, you simply can’t only fault a maniac such as Hitler.  Sadly, evil is much more widespread.

Speaking of evil, it must be said, that there were several of Hitler’s top generals that realized the man had an elevator that didn’t quite go to the top floor.  There was a lot of talk and planning of assassinating the former Bavarian Corporal, yet for the most part, these plans never came to fruition (to be blunt - the plotters chickened out), and when there was a serious attempt by Von Stauffenberg and company (the Tom Cruise character in the movie Valkyrie), it, sadly, failed, and the perpetrators were brutally tortured and killed for their actions.

So as the war progresses, things which were at first rosy for Hitler, start to falter.  Hitler, being the megalomaniac he was, simply refused to acknowledge that his superior race could ever be defeated, so he pressed on, ignoring his leaders, and letting his empire slowly fall to ruin.  We see his cronies (Goehring, Himmler, Goebells, et. al) feverishly holding on to some sort of twisted ideology that the Reich will prevail, whereas cooler heads seemed to know the terrible destiny that awaits (I was not aware that General Rommel aka “The Desert Fox” was not a supporter of Hitler, and was part of the talks to have him eliminated).  There are a lot of characters here, yet careful reading allows the uneducated reader enough detail to separate the wheat from the chaff in determining who the true crackpots are amongst the major players of the evil Axis.

A great piece of work, yet a sad reminder of the evil that exists in the hearts of many people, and the result of when such behaviors are unchecked.

The Christmas Train

The Christmas Train by David Baldacci

I’ve never read one of those Harlequin Romance books.  I’ve heard about them, but never read one, nor do I ever intend to.  As I read David Baldacci’s second “non thriller”, I had two thoughts: 1) this is probably what a Harlequin Romance is like, but 2) A Harlequin Romance, however, can’t possibly be this bad.  This book was awful.

Let’s see if I can regurgitate the plot:  The story centers around Tom Langdon, who is a foreign correspondent (or journalist or something).  He lives in Washington D.C. and is going to see his girlfriend in Los Angles who is a famous “voice over” actress for popular cartoons for Christmas  (I didn’t even realize there were famous voice over actors and actresses).  He needs to take the train, because he’s banned from flying since he had a recent altercation with airport security somewhere, so train traveling is new to him.  

Now, I’ve never taken a train across the country either, so I confess I have no idea what it’s like, but Tom’s traveling experience can be bluntly expressed in two words: Ridiculously unbelievable.   This story was so idiotic, that I literally expected the character to “wake up from a dream” at the end of this story since all of these fantastical events couldn’t possibly happen in real life.

First, all of these strangers seem to immediately bond with one and other.  Each time a passenger strikes up a conversation with another, it’s not like they’ve known each other for two minutes, but rather two decades.  I’m sorry, I can accept that traveling by train is “different” and perhaps “cozier”, but people simply aren’t this revealing about such personal matters to total strangers.  This, I guess, is so Baldacci can tell his tale a little easier, but it simply reeks of being unbelievable.  Sadly, the situations only get more preposterous.  

As Tom begins his journey, he starts to reminisce about his life up to this point in time (lots of free time to think on a train), and he regrets many of his choices, especially around some relationships.  His only other “real” relationship was with a gal named Eleanor, that he lived with for a couple of years while he was overseas.  He thinks a lot about Eleanor.  He almost proposed, but chickened out at the last minute.  Their relationship ended rather abruptly, and Tom isn’t sure why.  He sure does miss Eleanor.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, speaking of unbelievability, who do you think Tom meets on this Christmas train???  Did I mention this story was rather ridiculous?

Well, as Tom and Eleanor reluctantly reconnect on this cross country ride, it’s apparent that there’s still a lot of bad blood, hurt feelings, forced conversation, and arguing.  It’s pretty pathetic.  I seem to recall several arguments that went something like this:

Tom: You still never told me why you left me!

Eleanor: If I had to tell you, it was obvious that our relationship would never work!

Note to couples everywhere that are starting out in a relationship: This is not a good way to resolve conflict.

Anyway, we don’t feel too bad for Tom because, after all, he does have someone new that he is going to see in Los Angeles.  Well, we then see them talk to each other a few times over the phone during the train ride, and it seems Tom’s new love interest is a bit of a shallow, whiney bint.  In case you’re wondering, dear reader, this is so that when Tom and Eleanor do reconnect and rekindle their relationship, you won’t feel too bad for this broken relationship.  His L.A. actress girlfriend then actually manages to meet Tom on the train halfway through the trip and join him rather then simply wait for him in Los Angeles.  I guess this is supposed to make the story more interesting.  To me, it just reeked of implausibility.  

The other aspects of the story aren’t any better.  You see, Tom actually has to connect with another train in Chicago before he can continue his journey to Los Angeles, and for some reason, 95% of the original passengers somehow have the same final destination.  Anyone who’s ever travelled with any type of commercial carrier knows how idiotic this situation would be.  The author casually eliminates the characters that aren’t needed to advance the plot, yet conveniently takes everyone else to California.  Then, somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, the train gets stranded in an avalanche.  Yet our hero Tom boldly goes on a risky rescue mission (with one other passenger - I’ll let you guess which one), and manages to save everyone.  This takes up about 2 1/2 pages.  Yeah.  Right.  Time and time again, you tell yourself that this story simply can’t get any worse.  But it does.

Here’s another note to travelers everywhere:  If there is a “thief” on a train, and the thief continues to steal throughout the long trip over and over again without getting caught, you might want to, you know, lock your door on your compartment.  Or at least safeguard your valuables.  To think that these brained damaged idiotic passengers have the nerve to be surprised when they get their stuff stolen after the third or fourth incident.

By the way, how does a very large python end up on a train outside of a cage or with no apparent owner nor origin?  

Well, our characters essentially end up being dragged to a happy ending kicking and screaming, and you can’t help but think that after the final pages of this story, that their problems are far from over.  I think if I were a college professor and one of my students wrote this story as part of an assignment, I’d give them an “A” for grammar, yet a “C-” for the story.

Being that this is all sappy and romantic, it wouldn’t surprise me if this has somehow been made into one of those movies on the Harlequin channel.  If you do come across this rendition in movie format, I beg of you not to watch.  Do yourself a favor and switch the channel and watch a rerun of “Cosby” instead.  Better yet, just turn the television off and read a book.  Just don’t read this one.

Theodore Rex

Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

Sadly, I would have to file this book under the heading “Mildly Disappointed”.  

Immediate Background: Author Edmund Morris pens a Pulitzer Prize biography of Theodore Roosevelt back in 1979 titled “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt”.  It chronicles the man’s life from birth until he becomes Vice President of the United States under President William McKinley.  It almost seems ironic to write a biography about a president that tells nothing about a man when he is the actual president, but the book is phenomenal and well deserved of the prize.  So........

President Ronald Reagan arranges for this genius of an author to write his biography.  The problem is, well, Edmund Morris can never quite figure out Reagan, and, apparently isn’t given too much insight from the wealth of resources and key individuals that he has access.  The biography ends up being a somewhat fictitious first-person narrative of Reagan called “Dutch” and, well,  let’s just say most were highly disappointed.

So after that ill-fated project, we finally get the sequel to the first Roosevelt book about 20 years after his first one set the literary world on fire.  It’s not that this book is bad.  No, it’s actually very good.  It’s just that this particular yarn only focuses on Roosevelt’s presidency from 1901-1908.  So whereas the first retrospective focused on about forty years of Roosevelt’s life, this one focuses on seven.  Part of the appeal of the first book is that Roosevelt had an incredible, varied life.  The man had limitless energy and accomplished enough in his lifetime that would rival as many as ten or twelve great men.  He simply did it all.   Well, when you’re President of the United States, even though it’s arguably the most auspicious job in the entire world, you’re somewhat limited as to what you can do.  At many times, it felt as though I was reading about a stallion confined within a tight fence - just aching to break out and run.

However, Roosevelt rose to the occasion of President very well.  I’ve learned that any time you read a book about a truthful account of the presidency, that there will be a lot written about the down and dirty mud slinging aspects of politics, and this book is no exception.  At times, the pages containing this material tended to weigh it down a bit, but since this, unfortunately, is such a large part of any politician’s life, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.  Another area I found a bit cumbersome to read was the liberation of Panama.  It seems as though the building of The Panama Canal could only be possible with a freed Panama, so meticulous details is paid attention to the comings and goings surrounding this event.  Then when the canal starts to undergo construction, there’s almost nothing within these pages that describes the details.  I was hoping for more (although in all fairness, the canal wasn’t complete until many years after Roosevelt left the office).

What is well covered is the country’s obvious backwards mentality concerning issues of race.  There’s a lot of that in these pages.  Apparently, shortly after Roosevelt became President, he had the nerve to invite a black man (Booker T. Washington) to the White House over for dinner!  What was even more “scandalous” was that Roosevelt had the nerve to have his wife at the dinner table with him.  Although Roosevelt was very progressive at the time in manners of race, you wish that he could have done more, and have been a little firmer about various rights and wrongs, but, sadly to make such proclamations would be political suicide.  There are several such instances within the pages about grave injustices that just make the reader angry.

Another highlight was Roosevelt’s intervention in the Russian-Japanese war at the turn of the century.  A lot of details are covered, and Roosevelt would, himself, receive a Nobel Peace Prize as the arbitrator between these two stubborn countries.  This seemed a bit ironic, since our country had such a highly isolationist view back then.  But Roosevelt pushes on and works wonders.

He easily wins a second term, and despite the pleadings of the masses, he refuses to run for a third (there was no constitutional amendment limiting the President at this time in history.  Also, he wasn’t really “elected” to his first term, he succeeded President McKinley very shortly into his second term after he was assassinated).  There are other fun, anecdotal moments within the pages as well.  I would invite you to Google the origins of the term “The White House” as well as the background of the “Teddy Bear”.

I must say that this was a very pleasant read.  As stated, my disappointment stems not from the author’s writing and/or research, yet simply due to the fact that this period simply wasn’t as exciting as what is covered in the first volume.  You almost wish the author could have somehow combined this work with the former book making it one large biography, but that probably would have been a tad too long for most readers.  Also, in 2010, there was a third (and final) biography from Morris about the man’s life after the presidency.  I have a mental note to read it very soon.

The Litigators

The Litigators by John Grisham

I’ve read just about every book that John Grisham has ever written, and every time I reach the conclusion of one of his books, I always ask myself the same question:

Why would anybody ever want to be a lawyer?

Although Grisham has definitely payed his bills writing legal thrillers, you can’t help but wonder just what it is about the law that fascinates him.  Perhaps it’s the darker side of the profession - he was once a practicing lawyer, so I guess he just enjoys the morbid aspects of it.  If you’ve read a lot of Grisham’s books, you can’t help but feel as though you’re wandering in familiar territory whenever you read one of his newer releases.  I guess there’s only so much you can write about crooked lawyers, sleazy tort attorneys, long hours in the law office and the occasional “good” guy that gets fed up with the system and has some sort of moral epiphany and then tries to change the world.  

Such is the character of David Zinc.  Zinc is a young bond attorney in his early thirties with a beautiful wife and no children.  They don’t have time for children.  No one in this fictitious Chicago firm does.  They work too many hours, don’t have time to eat, and are discouraged from even looking out the window (how can you bill a client for an hour if you’re wasting time looking out the window?)  So one day, David snaps.  He then goes on a late morning drinking binge, and then finds himself at the doorstep of Finley & Figg - a classic bottom of the barrel law office where the two attorneys deal with the lowest of the low on Chicago’s south side, and literally fantasize about the sound of an ambulance.  David isn’t needed here.  Heck, the two sleazeball lawyers couldn’t even afford him, even if they wanted him.  But he makes a cozy enough arrangement, agreeing he doesn’t need to be paid much, and that he’ll bring in his own business.

Of these two nutcase litigators, Wally Figg is the more dynamic of the two.  Dynamic in  that he’s always looking for the big break, the next big class action lawsuit, the next dangerous drug where he can bring about a damaging case, instantly win millions and retire from this gruesome profession for good.  He sort of takes David under his wing, and the action begins.  They get a “lead” about a cholesterol drug called Kraayox that has a bit of an unsavory reputation, and so the fun begins.

So Grisham takes us on a wild ride into the territories of David fighting Goliath.  Goliath in this case, probably in any case, is a large pharmaceutical company that regularly keeps a cupboard filled with high priced lawyers of their own to handle such distractions, as they do happen quite a bit.  So we watch the process unfold.  This is where Grisham’s true gift as an author really lies.  It’s not the subject matter that resonates so well with his readers, but his story telling ability.  Grisham knows how to keep the reader engaged and to keep them turning pages well after bed time.  There have been many times where I have been dissatisfied with an ending of a Grisham book, but I’m rarely disappointed while the ride is still in motion.  Although, as I mentioned, he doesn’t paint the legal profession very kindly, you always enjoy all of the plot twists and turns and the majority of characters that come alive through the pages.  Grisham even manages to make you laugh quite a bit, and this book seemed to be one of the more humorous ones in his catalog.

So needless to say, this book isn’t that much different from everything else the man has written in the last quarter of a century (yes, it’s been about that long), but if you’ve enjoyed the majority of Grisham’s novels, this one is right up there with the rest in terms of enjoyability.  Odds are, you won’t remember much about the story a few years after you’re done with the book, but it’s a nice journey all the same.