Mystery

Mystery by Peter Straub

I’ll bet there are tons of readers out there like me.  Readers who probably never would have heard of Peter Straub had he not co-authored a couple of novels with Stephen King.  For decades, I’ve always wanted to read one of Straub’s novels.  I mean, if Stephen King respects him enough to write two books with the man, he must be good.  Right?  Fortunately, I felt very satisfied with my first Peter Straub novel.  Not only do I see what Stephen King likes about the guy, but I also see a lot of similarities in their styles of writing. Peter Straub has the ability to hook you in and make you pay attention to whatever it is that he writing about - regardless of whether or not he’s telling you anything relevant to moving the plot forward.  This takes skill, and as I get older, I realize how few authors can pull this off well.

Our story takes place around the late 1950s on one of those fictitious Caribbean islands.  Sure there are a ton of indigenous people that live on the island, but there are also a lot of rich Americans that reside there in one of their many “vacation” homes or whatever.  Our protagonist is a ten year old boy named Tom Pasmore.  As the story begins, Peter Straub seems to blend a bit of the supernatural around Tom.  We’re shown and told a lot of images and descriptions of “weird” things that surround the boy.  It’s almost as if some supernatural being or entity has a plan for young Tom.  This belief solidifies when Tom is hit by a car and has one of those “near death experiences”.  You know, the kind where you float towards a bright light, feel an incredible sense of peace, and are able to see what is going on down on earth surrounding your accident.  Well, as many of these experiences end up, Tom is reluctantly revived, and is now back in the hospital on a very long journey (at least a year, I think) back to recovery.

During his recovery, Tom meets a peculiar older man on the island named Lamont Von Helitz who seems to have a bizarre second sight when it comes to solving crime.  These two are united because it seems that Tom has a similar unique ability after his accident, and we quickly fast forward about seven years to where Tom is still, theoretically, a child, but old enough for our story to progress in a manner that it needs to. It seems that this island where they live on as had quite a few murder mysteries that have occurred recently, and not so recently.  With Lamont’s help, Tom is sort of sucked into the mysteries past and present to not only try to solve the crimes, but to discover some hidden truths that need to be revealed.

It seemed to me that as the book progressed, we didn’t really read about Tom’s “gift” anymore, and the story seemed to detour into a much more straightforward tale of Tom trying to solve these particular crimes.  This is not, however, a strict murder mystery tale.  No, Peter Straub goes much deeper than this, and we’re allowed to learn much more about Tom, his family, and his life in general.  It seems Tom is one of the many privileged on the island, and he’s surrounded by very wealthy friends and family that have more money than they know what to do with, but everyone is hopelessly miserable.  It’s ok to be miserable as long as you have gobs of money.  Right?

So much of this story looks at the very wealthy with a very unkind lens, and you can sense that Tom definitely doesn’t want anything to do with this farce of a life.  It doesn’t help when your grandfather is basically the richest, most powerful man on the island and considers it his duty to “plan” young Tom’s future.  So in addition to trying to solve a particular crime that happened many years before he was born, Tom is thrust into a life that he basically wants no part of, but is forced into because of his standing.

After reading this book, I realized that there were a lot of parts within this book that didn’t really connect as I thought they should have.  I never felt “lost” but felt “misguided” as in “why is the author taking this bizarre detour with the characters?”  Still, though, I loved the author’s style of writing, and I was never bored.  I breezed through this book rather quickly since I found it very engulfing.  Everything made sense in the end, but it just seemed as though there were quite a lot of events that didn’t really connect with me as I thought they should have.  I still must say that I would highly recommend this book - especially if you like Stephen King and have maybe only read the couple of books that the two of them did together.

Python Speaks

Python Speaks by David Morgan

How does one actually describe the humor of Monty Python?  It seems as though you cannot find a more diverse set of opinions.  On one side, you have the devout worshipers who seem to relish in the fact that they have every scene from every show and movie memorized.  On the other side, you have multitudes that just never “got it”.  You can’t deny the influence nor their longevity, however.  It’s also a bit odd that even though the group came into existence 47 years ago, they’ve actually only spent a very small amount of that time working together. There was a BBC television show that lasted about 5 years, 3 movies that probably took up a total of about 18 months of the team’s time, and a couple of live “tours” (the most recent was a very successful 2014 reunion featuring the 5 surviving members.  This book was written before that).

All of the Python projects have been well documented.  There’s almost more material out there about the team than there is actual original material.  That’s a bit where this books suffers.  Yes, it’s chocked full of interview snippets from the group, as well as those closely associated with them, but you can’t really help feel that you’ve read most of this stuff before.  The author wisely chooses the chronological approach.  We first read about the pre Python days when all of the members were working on various television projects in Britain. We then read about the successful “Flying Circus” television program.  Then, we transfer to the brief times from 1974-1983 and read a bit about each of the three feature films.  There’s some focus on the individual projects (there were many), but not really that much.  After all, this is supposed to be about the group, not the individuals.

The interview process throughout the book also seemed a bit haphazard.  There were periods in the team’s history, where it seems only one or two people are being interviewed.  Many times this person wasn’t even a Python member.  I seem to recall one stretch of several pages  where the only person interviewed was the author Douglas Adams (“Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”).  So it does seem oddly uneven at times.

There were also parts of the book that I simply didn’t find as interesting as I had hoped.  When we get to the time period featuring “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, for instance, it seems as though 90% of the interviews dealt with the describing the differences between the two directors, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones.

You do learn a bit more about the personalities.  John Cleese seemed to be a bit insufferable once he became bored early in the television program, Terry Gilliam seems to now only enjoy comedy about anarchistic tendencies to blow everything up, Graham Chapman seemed to be aloof and lazy, and Michael Palin, fortunately, seemed to be a very likable, amiable fellow.  Speaking of Cleese and Gilliam, it also seems from this book that the two really didn’t get along very well.

This is a good read if you’re a fan, but it is by no means a “must” read.  The history of this comedy troupe has been so well documented in so many formats that you’ll only pick up a few things that you didn’t already know.  For the diehard fan only.

Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream

Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream – by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin is fast becoming one of my favorite historical authors.  One of the things that I find appealing about her works is that she doesn’t go the strict biography route when writing about one of her subjects, yet rather focuses on key idiosyncrasies or nuances about an individual, and how such characteristics shaped their overall destiny.  When she wrote about Abraham Lincoln, she focused on his diverse cabinet and how Lincoln was able to play to everyone’s strengths and weaknesses and uniting his team for a common cause.  When she wrote about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, her aim was to show how different, and sometimes incompatible they were, yet use their talents and gifts to unite and redefine a country.

Her approach with this book is basically the same.  It might seem a bit bizarre that she would choose Johnson as a subject matter, but we must remember that this was her first book, and she actually worked for Johnson for a few years after his presidency.  It was this experience that probably got the author’s creative juices flowing and made her realize she was more than capable to tackle such an endeavor.

Her focus isn’t so much on the history of the man, but rather the man’s personality and what he had hoped to achieve.  We read about how his brash tactics and cunning nature allowed him to ascend in the world of politics was also responsible for his ultimate demise once he had finally made it to the very top.  History has shown us that Vietnam was Johnson’s ultimate failure, but Goodwin shows us that it really isn’t quite as black and white as that.  We are allowed to delve into the man’s psyche and see what his motivations were, and how things might have turned out a bit different had LBJ played his cards a bit differently.

If you’re looking for a biography of the man, this really isn’t the book for you.  Instead, I would recommend Robert Caro’s outstanding tetralogy (there’s at least one more book to be written).  I had to force myself to stop making comparisons.  After learning so much from Robert Caro, there were times that I felt Doris Kearns Goodwin was skipping too many things and zooming too fast through Johnson’s life.  I haven’t done a page by page comparison, but by the time Goodwin was describing Lyndon Johnson’s first run for congress, Caro was still describing Johnson’s grandfather’s earlobes.  Whereas Robert Caro spend almost an entire book devoted to the congressional races where Johnson infamously opposed Pappy O’Daniel and Coke Stevonson, Goodwin devotes merely half a page to each.

Again, though, this isn’t to be classified as a biography in the strict sense of the word.  No, once LBJ makes it as president is where this book kicks into high gear.  This is where we see things start to slowly unravel.  LBJ’s pet project, “The Great Society” is what gives the president the energy and excitement that drives him.  Although he makes some great strides, putting legislation as enormous as this in a position to succeed isn’t as simple as signing a few bills and making a few speeches.  There are too many other factors to be considered, and based on Johnson’s background, he really didn’t have the knowledge nor the patience to paint by the numbers.

The main drawback, again, is Vietnam.  But Vietnam really isn’t a main player in this book either.  We learn an awful lot about Johnson’s cautious nature when the conflict begins, and hindsight shows us that perhaps many leaders (even John Kennedy) may have inadvertently got us involved in this muck just as deeply as Johnson did.  We learn he’s smart enough to not want to make the same mistakes as Neville Chamberlain did a quarter of a century prior (being extremely pacifistic), nor does he want to “drop the big one” since that might bring in China and Russia and start World War III.   In many ways, Johnson sees this conflict in Southeast Asia as a basic nuisance to his Great Society.

Because of all this turmoil, he’s forced to deal, face to face, with the American press and the American people.  Something, again, that he’s not used to, nor is he very good.  This sort of interaction is a far cry from the smoke filled Senate cloakroom where backs are slapped, deals are made and favors are swapped.  It truly is a tragic downfall.   After his presidency, the author includes (published?) writings from LBJ where he fiercely tries to defend himself and explaining his actions during his presidency.  He sadly comes across as misdirected, misinformed, and just out of touch.  It really his sad.

It most also be said that this is not a “warts and all” book either.  Although the author does show pros and cons of the man, she doesn’t go too far in either direction.  There were SO MANY things about this man to love and hate him for, yet we’re steered away from the majority of those instances.  Instead Goodwin stays focused on her primary topic- “The American Dream”, specifically what this was for LBJ and how he ultimately failed in achieving it.

Open Season

Open Season – By Archer Mayor

It might be due to the fact that this author is not very popular, but for some reason, the Joe Gunther mysteries have never ever been on my radar.  I discovered this author via a “Kindle Deal” and decided to give him a try.  I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the book, and a bit baffled that I had never heard of the author nor this series.  I’ve read a lot of “best seller” stuff that wasn’t nearly as good as this book.

I believe this book was written in the late 1980s, and a Wikipedia research tells me that the author writes about one book in this series every year.  As of 2016, he’s still going.  This means that I have a lot of catching up to do if I want to, someday, read all of these books.  If all of them are as good as this one, I certainly wouldn’t mind adding this author to my “to do” or “bucket” list.

Our protagonist is Police Lieutenant Joe Gunther.  A 50 something widower who walks us through his day to day life focusing on a present case at hand.  I was slightly reminded by Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone although Gunther isn’t nearly as sardonic as Kinsey and author Mayor isn’t nearly as descriptive as Sue Grafton (a good thing.  a VERY good thing).  In addition to focusing on a particular case, though, we start to learn about Joe Gunther the man, as well, and I’m sure future books probably dive more into his character and his personal interactions  at a deeper level.

This particular story begins with random violent acts starting to pop up around Gunther’s sleepy (fictitious?) small town.  When Gunther does some digging, he uncovers the fact that these crimes (including a murder or two) seem to somehow all be related to a murder trial that occurred a few years ago.  Many of the people who are victimized, it seems, served on the jury for that trial.   So, what is exactly going on?  Why is it the jury members?  Is someone trying to send a message that the wrong person was convicted?  So Gunther and team go into action.

There are a lot of minor players here.  A tad too many for my taste.  Many seem to be somewhat one dimensional, but with this many people, the author really doesn’t have time to delve too deep into all of their characters.  I’ll bet many of these folks show up in the later books, so we’ll probably learn more about all of these support players each go round.

The pieces to the puzzle probably fit a bit easier than they would had this been a real, true  crime, but the action is still somewhat believable.  The author really isn’t trying to “fool you” a la Jeffery Deaver.  There aren’t many “ah has” and when the book ends, you don’t necessarily feel overwhelmed by a fantastic tale with a lot of plot twists and turns, yet you do feel very satisfied with the entire story and how the events progress.

It will be interesting to see if the books grow and/or change in the future.  Give this author a try if, like me, you had never heard of him before and you’re looking for a good new series to discover.

The Hope

The Hope – by Herman Wouk

Before reading this book, the only other books I read by this author were “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance” -  a two volume saga of a family engulfed by the second world war.  With this book (and its follow up “The Glory”, which I have not yet read), it’s very obvious that Herman Wouk is copying the exact same formula and using it here.  This book details the Jews’ struggle after they returned to their homeland in 1948, and all of its bullying Arab neighbors that want to evict and annihilate their neighbors for the sole reason that they’re Jewish.

Being that the author is Jewish himself and was alive and well during these events, it’s very obvious that he’s a perfect person to write about such events which take place from 1948 up until the 6 Day War in 1967.  It helps that Mr. Wouk is an outstanding writer, as he does the narrative justice by incorporating fact with fictional characters.  Like the previously mentioned books, he also adds some of the famous Israelite figures to his story.  Some of the major ones include David Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and Golda Meier among several others.  This book really isn’t their story, however.  He doesn’t use these people as mere historical references in the book.  No, they actually interact with the main (fictitious) heroes of the story in order to give to reader a better understanding of the feelings and the conflicts that existed.

Our two main heroes are young, twenty somethings at the beginning of the story (this is so we can grow old with them through this books’ 20 year tenure as well as the follow up book).  Zev Barak and Don Kishote are our protagonists.  Actually “Don Kishote” isn’t his real name – he has several names/monikers throughout the book – a Hebrew thing, I guess, and I really don’t remember his many other labels.  We see our two heroes on the battlefield, with the above mentioned real people, and their limited home lives as well.  All of this is good, but it’s the personal lives of these two individuals that sapped a lot of the enjoyment out of this book for me.

SPOILER ALERT: Now, perhaps my standards of morality are higher than many, but I don’t like reading about characters that I am supposed to admire get engaged in frivolous infidelities.  Zev, for example has a beautiful wife and beautiful children.  Well, one day when Zev travels to the United States, he meets an associate that has a 12 year old daughter.  The young girl is obviously very smitten with this young chap about 10 years her senior.  So, she follows him around, corresponds with him and makes sure she’s available every time he visits the States to confer with her father.  As the years go by, she’s no longer 12, and the innocent infatuation seems to turn into an unhealthy obsession.  Zev is aware of it.  Does he put an end to it?  No, he does not.  So obviously, as history teaches us time in time again, her feelings are eventually reciprocated and Zev is well down the path of marital infidelity.   What’s really sad is it never seems to really bother him, and there never seems to be any unhappiness with his wife that would warrant such unforgivable behavior.  Oh sure, he knows it’s wrong and he wrestles a bit with his conscious from time to time, but I lost a lot of respect for this character that I’m supposed to like.   

Don Kishote has somewhat similar romantic issues as well, and at times it feels like Herman Wouk feels he can’t quite tell a great story without involving elements of sleazy soap operas (this happened as well with his two World War II books).  The whole romantic tryst element seemed to make me appreciate this book a bit less than I had hoped.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy personal stories with the action, I just wish his characters could have had a bit more moral guidance with some of their choices.  Maybe I’m a prude, but I don’t find myself thinking this after many books.

My conclusion is that this book was “good” yet not “great”.  Sadly, I’m in no real rush to read the follow up novel any time soon.  I would recommend that you start with “Winds of War” and then “War and Remembrance” first.  I seem to recall that each of those books were either close to, or more than 1,000 pages.  They were worth it though.   This work was only about 650 pages, and, sadly it seemed a lot longer.