Drawing the Line by Richard Whelan

Reading a multitude of presidential histories that took place during the twentieth century aroused my interest in several  worldwide events of the particular times and events, one of them being the Korean War (or Korean “Conflict” as it was known).  Wanting to read a general overview compendium of the event posed a bit of a problem since, doing a search on Amazon didn’t reveal that much of a selection.  There were plenty of volumes about specific events during the war, but I couldn’t find a book that represented a nice, broad summary of the entire event.

I then remembered that I bought this book about 22 years ago, and never got around to reading it.  I found it on one of those “bargain book tables” when I worked for Hastings for about $3.99 (my employee discount probably knocked another dollar off).  At the time, the book was only a year or two old, so it was a bit of a puzzle that it was already a cut-out piece of product  (“cut-out” is industry jargon for “it didn’t sell well, we produced too many copies, so we’re trying to get rid of it by selling it dirt cheap”).  I probably figured, at that time, that maybe one day I would get around to reading it.  Well, I was right, but I never would have guessed that “one day” would be 22 years in the future.  Even now, I was curious as to the overall quality and readability of the material.   Well, all this to say, that I’m happy to report that this was a very enjoyable read overall.

The author, Richard Whelan is (or was) a university professor, and sometimes his writing style reflects this.  That’s not to say the narrative is dry by any means, but perhaps not as engulfing as some of the more popular, well known authors.  He sets out to do exactly what I was wanting - a broad overview of The Korean War.

So much of the history of this particular war is “behind the scenes”.  There really weren’t that many well known battles nor places that this particular war is known for, so the vast majority of the narrative talks about background, histories of the relative nations, and negotiations.  Since many people don’t know (nor did they back then) the important history of the country of Korea, Whelan does a good job giving us a thorough overview starting around the turn of the twentieth century, about 50 years before the conflict began.  Apparently, Korea has always been a bit of a goldmine, and was a much desired territory back in the Russian-Japanese war that occurred around this time (Korea is, in a sense, geographically in the “middle” of the two).  Without regurgitating much of the details here, the country remained a much sought after prize at the conclusion of World War II with, again, the Soviets and Japanese wanting a big piece.

Well, for those of you that remember history during World War II, the Japanese were the “bad” guys, and the Russians were the “good” guys.  That immediately flip-flopped after the war, so when Russia decided they should be entitled to this piece of property, Harry Truman and the U.S. felt they had to get involved.  We couldn’t let Joseph Stalin do in 1946 what Hitler started doing in 1938.  So essentially, the U.S. steps in to try to help Korea in the late 1940s.  We leave after a couple of years, thinking we’ve done a pretty good job, but after we’re gone, North Korea (essentially controlled by Russia) invades the South.  So America (and the United Nations) had to step in, and push the commies back.

It’s here where the one major battle of the Korean War, the Battle of Inchon, is highlighted.  Essentially, Commander in Chief Douglas MacArthur launches a very respectable D-Day-ish invasion to push North Korea back, and it works triumphantly with very little casualties for the Americans.  General MacArthur then pushes the enemy all the way back, back to the border of China.  Well, then China (also a “bad” guy) enters the war, and pushes the good guys back to the 38th parallel.  And here’s where the war comes to a geographical stalemate.  All of this happens within the few months of the war, and not surprisingly, about 70% of the book.  So by early 1951, the peace negotiations begin.  And go on and on and on.

One of the areas where this book succeeds is that it describes quite well the tumultuous relationship between Truman and MacArthur.  Apparently, MacArthur had quite the ego (especially after the highly successful Inchon battle), and was a bit of a loose canon, wanting to do things his way, and not listening to his boss.  Truman actually wanted to get rid of him much earlier, but really couldn’t due to politics.  Even after MacArthur is relieved, he comes back home to a hero’s welcome.  There are public appearances, ticker tape parades, and women are even fainting as he rides by.  I’m sure this didn’t set well with Truman’s ego.  Fortunately, a Senate Committee was appointed after MacArthur’s dismissal to review the allegations, and it essentially proved that Truman was right all along with his decision.  Sadly, this event isn’t told in much detail here - only a couple of paragraphs, so a reader may not grasp the entire picture of the particular event.  Perhaps the author thought it would be too big of a distraction from his main topic.

So the war drags on.  American’s back home are frustrated (when aren’t they during a war?), and when popular Eisenhower is elected president in 1952, he manages to bring the conflict to an end shortly after in 1953.  That’s not to say he should get most of the credit.  He essentially had the same plans as Truman, but Ike being a “war hero”, people were more comfortable going along with his proposals.

Another part of the book that I really enjoyed was the introduction to the persona and makeup of the Asian enemy.  The Chinese and North Koreans were unlike any enemy the United States had ever encountered, and their fierce jungle tactics, willingness to fight to the death, and the ability to survive for months only on rice after their supply lines and villages were bombed beyond recognition made them a very formidable enemy.  It’s a fascinating read since America essentially faced the same type of foe in Vietnam a decade later, yet we didn’t seem to “learn our lesson”.

Perhaps the only drawback about this book was the continuity factor.  Many times the author would stray a bit, and talk in detail about events that had happened in the past or would happen in the future, and I would get a bit lost in trying to maintain my focus on what was actually happening “now”.  Example: The Battle of Inchon is told in its entirety, beginning with the planning of the battle shortly after the war started.  So at the conclusion of this particular narrative, the author then goes on to describe events that happened before the battle, and you become baffled as you’re reading about events that you thought had concluded, yet hadn’t actually begun.  To be fair, the Battle of Inchon was only a few months into the war, but as I mentioned, about 70% of this book is focused on these particular few months, so I became a bit lost at times.  Even the inserts of the pictures in the middle sections of the book seem to be thrown in haphazardly, with no focus on presenting the events in a linear fashion.

All of this is a minor digression.  Overall, I felt the book was an excellent retrospective about the “forgotten” war, I learned a lot, and would recommend to anyone wanting an overview of why we were there and what our goals were during this horrible conflict. 

The Camel Club

The Camel Club by David Baldacci

After reading a couple of David Baldacci’s “sweet and mushy” books, I was really anxious to get back to one of his good ole’ political thrillers.  The Camel Club definitely does not disappoint.  This was one of my favorites (so far) by this author, and it was great to see him return to form.  Yes, the plot is a little silly, but it is, after all, a work of fiction.  Even though it’s a bit farfetched at times, the story definitely kept me hooked.

The story centers around a group of four, somewhat bizarre, eclectic characters living in Washington D.C. that call themselves “The Camel Club”.  They’re definitely what most would consider oddballs.  I don’t remember how the story tells us how they all originally got together, but they’re essentially conspiracy theorists that look under every nook and cranny every time the American government does something that doesn’t wash well with this group.  Our story mainly focuses on the “leader” of this bunch, who goes by the moniker of “Oliver Stone”.  Surprise surprise.

Well, one night, when it’s very dark and foggy, the Camel Club is meeting in one of its secret locations out in (what they think is) the middle of nowhere, and they just happen to witness a suspicious looking murder.  Scary?  Definitely.  Exciting?  Much more so.  The Camel Club springs into action!

There’s actually a lot more going on in this story.  So much that it’s a bit easy to get lost in the early chapters of this book, and you almost give up with all of the new faces cropping up every chapter or so.  Patience is required, and it’s well rewarded as well.  One of the main characters in the story outside this fearsome foursome is none other than one of the government’s secret service agents, who just happens to pass by “Oliver Stone” from time to time.  It seems as though Stone has a “protest tent” (or something) and he spends a lot of his free time camped out across the street from The White House along with an assortment of other peculiar regulars.  So the story casually allows these two parties to meet and combine forces.

Then, it seems as though there is a terrorist plot by some Mid-Eastern characters in the state of Pennsylvania.  The President of the United States is due in the state shortly.  He was born and raised there, and a celebration is about to take place whereas his home town will be renamed after him.  So a lot of time is spent with these terrorists as they plan their diabolical deed.

This is actually where things get a bit interesting.  Unlike every Vince Flynn novel, we feel for these terrorists.  They’re not a bunch of brain washed zealots that hate America for no reason other than to hate America.  They have legitimate gripes, and Baldacci is careful to spend time detailing what a lot of grievances these folks actually have.  So much time, that many readers find this book a bit on the unpatriotic side.  I think that’s a stretch, as we find out as the story unfolds.

So all of these human trains that seem to be going in all different directions on all different tracks manage to collide near the end of the story, and I felt that the climax of the book was very well done.  To be honest, there were a bit too many “coincidences” amongst the revelations of some of these characters’ past, but all of that was a minor sin. This book would make a good “thriller” movie.  If done right, that is.  It was nice to have Mr. Baldacci “back”.

Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962

Nixon - The Education of a Politician 1913-1962 by Stephen E. Ambrose

I seem to be subconsciously drawn towards presidential biographies that need to be told over multiple volumes.  In the past year, I’ve read four books detailing the life of Lyndon Johnson (the fifth hasn’t been written yet), as well as the Edmund Morris trilogy on the life of Theodore Roosevelt.  So I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me, that when I wanted to read about Richard Nixon, I would somehow get sucked into another multi-volume chronology.  Perhaps it was because these works by Nixon were penned by Stephen Ambrose - an author who I have not read yet, but know by reputation.  Safe to say that Mr. Ambrose deserves his reputation.  This book was excellent, and I’m eagerly waiting to finish, not only the other two retrospectives on Nixon, but many of Ambrose’s other works as well.

Perhaps one of the best things I enjoyed about Ambrose’s writing, is his ability to be somewhat succinct.  He never babbles on uncontrollably over details.  Whereas the Lyndon Johnson biographer, Robert Caro, would spend pages just describing LBJ’s grandparent’s facial features or the texture of the grass in Central Texas, Ambrose seems to give you just about the right information that you need to paint a good, overall picture of the settings, and then move on.  This is not only true when discussing the subject’s upbringing and background, but also when he is in the thick of important politics.  A perfect example that comes to mind is that the LBJ story spent probably over 100 pages discussing the intricacies of the emasculated Civil Rights Bill of 1957, whereas Ambrose seems to cover it (very well) in only a few paragraphs.

After reading the first volume of the future President Richard M. Nixon, I’m left with two overall impressions of this man:

1. He was a very hard working, honest, sincere man, that wanted to do an enormous amount of good for his country.

-and-

    

        2. He was a ruthless politician.

You might then ask, how can a “ruthless” politician have ascended as quickly as Nixon did in his rise to become one of the youngest Vice-Presidents in history?  Short answer: see #1 above.  More on that later.

The book, fortunately, does not go into too much detail of Nixon’s upbringing.  There’s not much in the early chapters that we don’t already know.  He was raised in a very poor environment, by tough, but sincere Quakers.  He lost two of his four siblings to disease at a very young age, and worked very hard throughout his studies as a young man.  Although he was well respected by being such a smart, articulate young man in school, his peers found him aloof, odd, awkward, and simply not very sociable.  He rarely ever had a “good time” as young kids are prone to chase, and his early nickname was “Gloomy Gus”.  He seemed to never have any interest in dating either.  It’s almost a miracle that he hooked up with beautiful future-wife Pat when he did.  You have to wonder what she ever saw in this man.  Of his awkwardness, the Martha Mitchell character in the Oliver Stone movie seemed to sum it up best when she said to him “Your smile and your face never seem to be in the same room at the same time”. (Whether or not the real Martha Mitchell actually said this, I have no idea)

The fact that his personality was so dry, was probably the reason why he was accused of playing dirty politics.  I never found his accusations to be any worse than any of his contemporaries, but perhaps if these zingers had come from someone a bit more charismatic and likable, they never would have stung his opponents as strongly as they did.  Needless to say, as much as many loved this man, there were many who hated him throughout his political life for this very reason.

As mentioned, he moved up the political ladder very quickly.  The first time he ran for congress, he handily beat incumbent Jerry Voohris.  The very next election, he plowed into his first Senate race against the very popular (and very beautiful) Helen Gahagan Douglas.  He easily won that election as well.  Then, a mere two years later, he was selected by General Dwight Eisenhower to be his running mate as Vice President.  It’s not really that difficult to see why.  Without going into too many details, Nixon was rallying up a frenzy during the communist scare of the post World War II era, eventually bringing the spy Alger Hiss to justice.  He was seen as a young hero by so many at the time.  Fortunately, contrary to what many post historians believe, Nixon was smart enough to distance himself from some of the wackos such as Joseph McCarthy that managed to create undue hysteria during the “red scare” error.  So Nixon seemed to be a great choice for Ike.

Now, it should be mentioned that author Stephen Ambrose has written several biographies about the life of Dwight Eisenhower, so it times, it seems like strays a bit too far from his main subject here, and focuses too much on Nixon’s boss.  However, upon closer examination, such a digression is necessary as Eisenhower was, without really knowing it, a huge factor in the successes and failures of Richard Nixon in the years to follow.

We must remember that Dwight Eisenhower was the biggest war hero on the planet in 1952 (yes, bigger than Douglas MacArthur).  So when rumors started to swirl that he might run for the highest office in the country, people were already sold on him.  For awhile, nobody even knew whether he would run as a Democrat or a Republican.  It simply wouldn’t have mattered.  Ike was Ike - and he was liked.  This actually gave Eisenhower a huge advantage over any of his contemporaries, because he never had to pander to any of the political demagogues.  He could get away with saying whatever he wanted, and people ate it up.  Example: He “got credit” for ending the Korean War in 1953, yet his policies were identical to his successor, Harry Truman’s.  The difference?  People loved Ike, and they were ready to drink whatever kool-aid he served them.  Truman, like 99% of any other politician that ever lived, was loved by most in his own party, yet hated by most who were not.

So whereas all this was a tremendous advantage for the former D-Day hero, it didn’t help Nixon in the slightest.  Ike actually had Nixon do a lot of his politicking for him, so Nixon would say what needed to be said, yet people who disagreed with the administration, would usually find a scapegoat in Nixon.  Then, when 1956 came around, Ike thought of dropping Nixon from the ticket.  It wasn’t that he disapproved of the job that he was doing, but he felt Nixon would gain more experience with a Cabinet position.  Although in theory, Eisenhower was right (a VP is a pretty worthless job), it would have been political suicide for Nixon had this happened in any shape or form.

So Nixon proceeds to be, arguably, the greatest Vice-President ever.  Obviously, he’s the front-runner to run against John F. Kennedy in 1960, yet sadly, Eisenhower does absolutely nothing to help his second-in-command.   What makes things even more difficult is that Nixon and Kennedy seem to have so many of the same ideas, beliefs and solutions for the country.  Difficult because even though Nixon shares Kennedy’s ideals, Eisenhower does not.  So during the campaign, Nixon can’t say such things publicly.  Oh politics!  Well,  during the 1960 presidential race, anything and everything that can go wrong for Nixon does.  Had these events happened to anyone else, Kennedy would have whipped his opponent in a landslide.  Instead, Nixon ends up with half the country’s votes.  How he pulled this off with all of the turmoil is amazing.  Not to mention most historians believe the election was actually stolen for Kennedy by some of his shadier supporters.

It probably would have been best had this first volume ended after the 1960 election, but the book continues as Nixon tries to go back to “normal” life in his home state of California.  He quickly gets sucked in to running for Governor against popular incumbent Pat Brown in the 1962 election, and, again, everything goes wrong for Nixon.  Unlike 1960, these mishaps can only be blamed on Nixon himself.  Nixon tries to run for Governor like he ran for President and he ends up looking like a proverbial bull in a china shop.  He simply needed to tone down his rhetoric to have any effect, and he ends up miscalculating in a very bad way.  Not to mention that more and more people simply dislike the man by now.  At the conclusion of the race, his infamous concession speech tells the reporters that he’s gone and they “won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore”.  Of course, those in the know simply knew he would be back, it was just a question of when.

And that’s where the first volume ends.  This was an incredibly satisfying read, and I was pleased to find out that the author was not a fan of Nixon when he set out to write his series of biographies.  Yet the tone is never malicious.  You end up liking Nixon to some extent, and you actually feel sorry for the man knowing his eventual outcome.  Had his face and his smile simply been in the same room at the same time, history would have probably been much different.  And different for the better.

Seafire

Seafire by John Gardner

Another John Gardner penned James Bond book.  As I’ve mentioned in earlier reviews, my main goal when reading these books is to just get through them - as my OCD tendencies won’t allow me to read the Raymond Benson books dealing with 007 (which are supposed to be pretty good) until I finish the ones by Gardner.

Well, my reviews haven’t been too kind to the author’s offerings as of late, so I honestly wasn’t expecting much here.  What I got was a big surprise.  This is arguably Gardner’s best Bond book ever.  The author has been (unfairly) criticized by many since he “took over” around 1980 from Ian Fleming, who passed away in 1964.  Gardner, the critics claim, doesn’t spend enough time on the detail of the characters and/or situations, and tries to make the books more like the movies.  I would agree with that assessment, but I must say that I truly enjoyed the first few Gardner offerings, yet after the first three or four, he seemed to lose his groove, and the books became too much alike  (to be fair, there are many that would say the same about the James Bond movies).  But for whatever reason, this one simply seems to work very well.

There are lot of Bond cliches here.  He has a faithful “Bond Girl” by his side.  This one is named “Flicka”.  She’s a repeat from another Gardner book (can’t remember which one), which seems odd, but Bond is “serious” about this gal.  As I mentioned in my review of the last Bond book, it’s never a good thing for a Bond girl’s destiny when the super agent falls in love with her.  Then we have the Bond villain.  He’s a multi-millionaire German guy named Max Tarn, who was born right around the time of the end of Hitler’s dominion.  So this villain is out to resurrect the Nazi party and create “The Fourth Reich”.  OK.  How many times have we seen this happen in thrillers as of late?  Then, there’s the Double O section itself.  The powers that be are trying to dismantle MI6 as it once was.  The world has moved on, and it doesn’t really need an enormous agency of clandestine spies to attempt to keep the world safe.  So Bond’s role has “changed” much to his dismay, and he has to convince the higher ups that they’re going in the wrong direction, and they simply don’t know enough about the big, bad world as Bond and company do.

We also have M, who, at this point, the author might be trying to gracefully kill off.  M is old and feeble this time around, and a lot of the pages center around him at his home in bed as he tries to help his favorite agent combat the evil outside (and inside) the organization.  (NOTE: Like the movies when Pierce Brosnan took over, the Raymond Benson books had a female M, which leads me to the speculation that the Old M’s days may be numbered).  

Another character who’s absent from the John Gardner books is Q (or, as he’s referred to in Fleming’s novels, Major Boothroyd).  In his place is a female “looker” named Anne Reilly, who is affectionately known as “Q’ute”.  Q’ute and Bond seem to have an on again, off again romance throughout the books, but for the most part, the relationship is mostly business.  For whatever reason, her presence never works as well as the original Boothroyd.  True, she manages to furnish Bond with a tool or two that seems to somehow be exactly what he needs later in the story to save himself from impending doom, but if you think about it, that’s always been the case with Q’s gadgets in the movies as well.  I guess it was always fun to see the Desmond Llewelyn character make an entrance and do his obligatory quibbles with Connery on the big screen.  It never works that well with Q’ute in the Gardner books.

Yet despite all of these drawbacks, this book seems to work better.  Perhaps it’s because the plot never gets bogged down with unnecessary situations and keeps moving at a strong pace.  Gardner also manages to “leave the reader hanging” at the conclusion of most of the chapters.  This has always been his trademark, yet when you’re not enjoying a story, the effect is somewhat minimized.  Since this story is much stronger, the temptation is to keep going when you come to a stopping point at the end of a chapter.

On a slightly strange note, I’m curious to how fans of the books picture the secret agent of the Bond books.  Do they picture Sean Connery in the role?  Pierce Brosnan?  Or do they have a different personality altogether recreating all of the scenarios of the most famous super spy?  For myself, believe it or not, I always pictured George Lazenby.  For those that don’t know, he only lasted one picture, didn’t do that great of a job, and faded into oblivion after his fifteen minutes of fame.  Why Lazenby?  I guess it’s because the characteristics described of the make-up of James Bond by Ian Fleming seemed to closely match Lazenby’s looks. (There was a great artist’s rendition of what James Bond looks like many years ago that I came across in one of the James Bond compendiums).  Well, all of this to say, that I recently forced myself to forget Lazenby, and now picture current actor Daniel Craig in the role.  As weird as this sounds, this seems to help me enjoy the books a bit more.  Even the initial reaction to Craig taking over the role in the films was incredibly hostile, he’s since won audience’s over big time, and brings a sense of realism to the character that nobody else, even Connery, has been able to demonstrate.  The books have always diminished the invulnerability of James Bond, and rather making him larger than life, they’ve always focused on the more human side of his character.  Weird, I know, but it just works better for me.

So despite the familiarities that we’ve seen over and over again, in both the films and (especially) the books, this one works better than most. and managed to surprise me immensely.  I have one more Gardner to go, and am hoping for a repeat of the enjoyment factor.

Colonel Roosevelt

Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

Edmund Morris’ third and final installment of the life of Theodore Roosevelt.  His first dealt with the life of TR from birth to his Vice-Presidency.  The second, while he was president, and this one, his life after his residence in the Oval Office.  So the author has his subject broken down in nice, digestible chunks in terms of his subject’s milestones for these separate works.  All three books were brilliant, yet I found the second to be a minor disappointment compared to the first (which won the author a Pulitzer Prize).  Whereas I’m not sure if this one is as good as the first, it’s definitely better than the second.  As I mentioned in my review of the second (titled “Theodore Rex”), it was not necessarily the writing that was inferior, but the fact that the man’s life was a bit constrained during his presidency.

If you were to ask “How can a biography about a President be constrained when it talks about the years when he was president?”, well, you’ve never met Theodore Roosevelt.

The man had prodigious stamina, a wide variety of hobbies, boundless energy, and an incredible will to live his life to the fullest.  Now that he’s done being president when this book begins, he’s somewhat free to going back to being the man he once was.

That’s not to say it’s easy.  It seems that everyone wants him back in office as president (his successor, William Howard Taft, managed to mess thing up quite a bit once he took over in The White House), and although Roosevelt doesn’t really want to go back to being president, he almost feels obligated.  Without going into too much detail, he’s dragged back into the race of 1912, yet he has to form a third “independent” political party (The Bull Moose Party) if he has any chance of succeeding.  He doesn’t succeed, but what third party candidate ever does?  Because of his strong impact and showing though, Taft loses the election, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson is elected.  I couldn’t help but be reminded of the 1992 election when Ross Perot took a lot of thunder out of George Bush’s engine, and some argued opened up the door for Bill Clinton to win the race.  Anyway, more on Woodrow Wilson later.

This was really the only tedious part of the book.  After reading so many political books of presidents of late, I tend to grow weary with all of the details surrounding the campaigns, the conventions, the mud slinging, the delegate counts, etc.  Such details don’t make an exciting read.  Fortunately, it’s a minor portion of the book, and Roosevelt almost seems a bit relieved when he’s not elected.

Well, Roosevelt being Roosevelt, he soon decides to embark on another worldwide adventure.  This time, he’s heading to South America to the Brazilian jungle.  Along with son Kermit, and a team of other explorers, they set out on a borderline suicidal journey into the deep, forbidden unknown.  As this team of dedicated explorers trudge through areas that were literally unexplored by any at this point, you have to ask yourself, “What exactly was the appeal?”  The author goes into great detail of the piranha infested, diseased laden climate, and the reader almost gets sick himself as he hears of all of this misery that the travelers endure.  At one point, you wonder if the explorers doubt their own survival, when they appear hopelessly lost with supplies running down to a bare minimum.  Well, most do survive, and Roosevelt even manages to discover an unknown river that is aptly named after him.  The episode is quite an exciting read, and the events almost warrant a spiel in, and of, itself.

The second half of the book is where the book really picks up steam.  Tensions are building up worldwide amongst the superpowers in Europe during the second decade of the twentieth century.  Roosevelt knows that a major war is around the corner, and after the Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, is assassinated, it’s no shock that this event eventually plunges the continent into “The War to End all Wars”.  The question then becomes, “What role does the United States play?”

For obvious reasons, the majority of the country takes the isolationist view, and President Wilson is only too happy to stump this particular ideology.  The Colonel (what Roosevelt is now known as during his post presidency) knows better, however.  He knows that the U.S. will have to step in at some point, and his thinking is that the sooner the U.S. enters, the better off everyone will be.  So a lot of name calling and cries of incompetency are now heard from The Colonel about the current president.  Not surprisingly, it makes for a bit of an icy relationship with the current occupant of The White House.

If you could criticize anything about Roosevelt, it’s that he was a bit too hawkish when it came to war.  Remember, this was the man who charged up San Juan Hill with his group of Rough Riders a couple of decades ago bringing a swift end to the Spanish - American war.  Roosevelt, like many of his contemporaries, saw war as a necessary evil that all would probably have to endure during some juncture of their lifetime.

When the U.S. is brought into the conflict in 1917, not only does Roosevelt want a commission to lead some of the fighting, but he’s also insistent that all four of his sons join the war.  He wants them on the front lines, not in some cushy behind-the-lines duty out of harm’s way.  We never really know what his boys feel about this attitude, yet there’s never any grumbling, and you have to assume that they were all ready and eager to follow in their father’s footsteps.  Sadly, the youngest boy Quentin - a top notch fighter pilot, is, in fact, killed in action and the event scars Roosevelt and his wife Edith deeply.

You have to wonder why he was so gung-ho about his insistence when it seemed to hit him and his family so hard.  Whether this event had any impact on the failing health of this ex-president is pure speculation, but as we read in the final chapters, right around the time the war ends, Roosevelt is fading fast.  He’s lived an incredibly full life, and his body is simply worn down at this point, and it can’t recover from all of the past punishments.

So TR gracefully passes away at the age of 60, and the book spends a lot of time (well, one long chapter) talking about the after effects, and the man’s legacy.  Of course, any political figure will have those on opposite sides of the fence arguing about the legend of the individual, but from reading the three volumes from Edmund Morris, you walk away with the overall impression that Teddy Roosevelt deserves the accolades that were heaped on him, and not only was he one of the best president’s in the country’s lifetime, but arguably one of the best, energetic human beings that modern history has known.

Praying For Sleep

Praying for Sleep by Jeffery Deaver

This was one of those books that, after I had read the first chapter, I came to the realization that I had already read it some time ago.  Although the scenario was definitely familiar, I realized that I didn’t have much of a recollection of the intricacies of the story, yet I remembered that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  So, I was at a crossroads - do I discard it since I had already “checked it off the list”?  Or, do I indulge once more since I had largely forgotten the details?  Well, I chose the latter, but it was not an easy decision.  Not when you have dozens of books on your “read as soon as possible list”.

Well, if you’re not an avid reader, I’m sure you’ve watched one of your favorite movies multiple times, as well as a t.v. episode, so the idea isn’t as crazy as one might think.  Plus, those “really good books” will be read multiple times by true fans.  So I plundered on.

This is one of those “dark and stormy night” (literally) stories.  Michael Hrubek is a psychotic schizophrenic who manages to escape from a mental hospital.  He’s very big, very scary, very unstable, and very.....well.....psychotic.  He was institutionalized (this time) because of his threats towards Lisbonne Atcheson, who testified against him for a murder that happened at a State Park.  Michael is headed towards Lisbonne, and with “the storm of the century” coming, it’s going to make things difficult for all involved trying to warn and/or help her.  Not to mention it’s going to be a laborious task to track this lunatic.

So the wheels are set in motion for a thriller, and author Jeffery Deaver succeeds in a big way.  Once you get past the cliches such as “A storm is coming, and it’s going to be a bad one!” etc. over and over again, he manages to gives us a very enrapturing tale.

The title of this book is derived from the two main characters, Lisbonne and Michael, and the fact that they both have trouble sleeping due to their circumstances, and they only time they’re truly at peace (especially Michael) is when he is, in fact, asleep.  Actually, it’s quite irrelevant because there are so many other things going on here.  There are a lot of players here in this chase.  In addition to Michael and Lisbonne, we have Lisbonne’s husband and her sister, a few members of the hospital staff with different ideas and motives, a laid-off cop who’s out tracking the killer with his reliable hound, and some assorted other characters.

One thing that Deaver does in this story, which many find annoying, is he spends a lot of time with all of these characters.  He dives into their histories, their situations, and their motives.  Yes, it can be a bit of a distraction from the story, but he makes these diversions interesting, so I never felt as though my time as a reader was being wasted.  I guess you could argue that these diversions were unnecessary, but it certainly didn’t take anything away from my enjoyment of the story.

The one downside about the fact that I had read this story before, was that even though I didn’t remember the bulk of the details, I somewhat had an idea of a few of the twists in the story that Deaver is famous for, so my shock value was not quite the same as when I read it the first time.  Regardless, this was a great thriller, and I would highly recommend to all.