Mistress of Justice

Mistress of Justice – Jeffery Deaver

One of Jeffery Deaver’s earlier books. According to the Forward in the book, Deaver tells his readers that he’s actually “rewritten” the book. He was satisfied with his original story, but experience must have told him that he could have done a bit better -maybe make it a tad more suspenseful, flesh out the characters, and incorporate elements to suck in the reader a bit more. Regardless, whatever he did worked. Although I never read the original version, this book has all the elements that make the story a great thriller.

Now, I THINK that this original book was written before the days of John Grisham. I mention this because this book is a “legal” thriller, and it might be tempting to say that Deaver ripped off a lot of lawyer factoids and legal legends from Grisham.  Whenever we read a John Grisham book about the profession, we read about people who care more about making gobs of money than actually being a crusader for law. Everyone works hundreds of hours per week and learns the secrets of manipulating the legal process etc. etc.   We get a bit of that here, but those who know Jeffery Deaver know that he’s a very thorough researcher of his subjects, and if the original book was written back in 1992, we can safely say that Deaver “got there first”.

Our protagonist is Taylor Lockwood. She’s a late-twenties, single paralegal working for one of those mega Wall Street firms where power and cocaine rule.  The firm is about to undergo a major merger that will affect the way the firm does business, as well as probably sever some payroll. Strange things start happening, and one of the smarter young lawyers, Mitchell Reece, can feel that unscrupulous behavior is in the air. When a crucial document goes missing, Mitchell “hires” Taylor to play detective to uncover the facts.

Not sure if such a situation would ever happen in the real world, but give Mitchell credit. He hired the right person. Taylor is hard core, and plows right into her ‘assignment’.  We also get to learn and understand more about Taylor. Her overly ambitious lawyer-father, her moonlighting as a jazz pianist, and her calm resilience of who she is despite swimming in a sea of piranhas.  Had this been a true story, I doubt if anyone could have been as successful as Taylor – she moves from point A to point B throughout the story quite fast, but truth belongs in non-fiction.

This book is also a lot less ‘creepy’ than many of Deaver’s works. True, we meet some characters that make us shudder a bit, but unlike the Lincoln Rhyme books that deal with demented psychopaths with strange fetishes, this one is rather harmless in comparison.

Although this is one of his earlier works, it’s definitely Deaver. If you like the majority of Jeffery Deaver’s books, this one won’t disappoint. I’m somewhat curious, however, to know how this ‘revised’ version stacks up against the ‘original’.

The Grand Delusion - The Unauthorized True Story of Styx

The Grand Delusion – The Unauthorized True Story of Styx – by Sterling Whitaker 

This is by no means a “serious” biography. This is essentially a book written by a fan for the fans. Styx was one of those bands that had a long history of moderate success until they exploded with popularity in 1981 with their album Paradise Theatre. All of the sudden they were on top of the world. They didn’t enjoy the view for long. Their follow up album contained the song “Mr. Roboto”, which like the Apollo 13 mission could be deemed “A Successful Failure”.  In addition to the quirky song alienating a chunk of fans, there was a lot of internal squabbling going on among the band members as well.  So Styx faded into obscurity rather quickly as the 80s wore on.

They took everyone by surprise with a highly successful reunion tour and live album in 1996, but the wounds and egos persisted and the next thing you knew, front man Dennis DeYoung was basically kicked out of his own band. This book was written several years into his exodus, with remaining members Tommy Shaw and James ‘J.Y.’ Young taking the lead and trying to keep the name ‘Styx’ relevant by persistent touring.

Sterling Whitaker is a fan and music journalist who puts together the best thing that the fans of this band have if they want a biography. This book is patchy, and not well written, but that really doesn’t seem to be the point. 90% of this book is interviews with key people in the band’s history. The author basically includes the entire transcript of the interviews as he goes through the band’s history. Other than Tommy Shaw, none of the key members of the band are interviewed, but isn’t that usually the case with “unauthorized biographies”? Even Tommy’s interview was done sometime in the early 90s, but there are plenty of well known and respected people that were close enough to the band’s inner circle to give this book the credit and authenticity it deserves.  Included are interviews with record executives, band managers, road managers, and current ‘filler’ members to give the book the detail it needs.

‘Detail’, though, tends to be this book’s weakness as well as its strength. The interviews within this book should have been edited and presented to the reader with information that is only interesting, or at least relevant, to the readers.  Example: There’s one lengthy interview with Michael Cartelone (the drummer of ‘Damn Yankees’, Tommy Shaw’s other band) where Cartelone talks about drum fills for an entire page of the interview, and Whitaker includes it all. Oy.   There are a lot of instances like this here.  Then, we even have interviews with other fans that probably shouldn’t be included. There was one series of interviews with a guy who, to my knowledge, may have interviewed members of the band himself at one time, but his only claim to fame is that he hosted a Styx Collector website.  He presented his opinions as fact and just rubbed me the wrong way.  I can tolerate James Young sputtering such nonsense as “Cyclorama is the best thing that Styx has ever done”, but when an ordinary fan spews out such sloth, it’s a bit much.  I felt like I was reading the ‘comments’ section on a Facebook page. Then, when the author himself includes such things as his juvenile reviews of each album that are basically a one-line sentence about each song included, it seems rather unprofessional.

Still, though, there really is no better source for the fan than what author Whitaker provides. You feel like you’re going through all the motions that the band experienced from the very beginning all the way through the various ups and downs of their latter days.  You won’t find as much detail about this band anywhere else. So give Sterling Whitaker credit for meticulous research and journalism. I just think he could have benefited by an editor, or at least a professional co-author.

Band of Brothers

Band of Brothers – Stephen Ambrose

When it comes to books written about war, I tend to enjoy the high-level ones that give overviews of the big picture and don’t go into too much detail. Usually, the more detail, the more I get lost. So when I read a book about the intricacies of a battle along with names of soldiers, names of towns, names of divisions, etc. I tend to get lost and overwhelmed.

This book seemed to be about 50/50, as it focuses not on the overall big picture of World War II, yet a select group of Airborne infantry – The Easy Company of the 101^st Airborne division.  Back in the thick of the war around 1942, someone had a bizarre idea: Why not have a host of soldiers jump out of an airplane with a parachute right into the thick of battle? This sort of idea is only for the toughest of the tough, and when the soldiers begin their training, they don’t actually see combat until D-Day. There’s a lot of preparation for such a tactic.

Once we’re in battle with Easy Company (in addition to D-Day, the other major skirmishes they jump into are Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge), the author manages to keep the story more focused on the human element of battle as opposed to strategies and objectives.  This is mostly a good thing. It’s good because it makes a much more compelling story. It’s not good because a ‘compelling story’ doesn’t mean it’s a happy story. This is a war.  In fact, I’ve never read a book that describes the horrors of the battlefield quite like this one.  Yes, there’s the horror of bullets flying over your head at all times and seeing your best friends killed in front of your eyes, but there’s also the horror of lack of food, dysentery, weeks of living in filth, and foot ware so inadequate that your forced to endure soaking wet feet in subzero snow.  It’s impossible for men to live through this without changes to the fragile psyche.

Strangely, I never felt connected to anyone in particular in this book. The cast of characters in this drama is huge, and it was incredibly hard for me to keep track of who was who. Some names stayed consistent throughout the book, but in a war, sadly, a lot of men get killed, so it seemed that every pause in the action meant that there were several fresh faces and names for the reader to assimilate.  Again though, this wasn’t a detriment. Suffering is suffering, no matter whose name is attached to it.

Easy Company also plays a pivotal role in the eventual capitulation of Berlin in 1945. The European war is over, and the soldiers go way off the deep end with their alcohol intake and debauchery. Things get very uncomfortable in some circumstances. Too much whisky and guns don’t mix well. As I mentioned, though, such inhumane conditions cause one’s spirit to become tragically altered.  Why should soldiers care about kicking a German family out of their house so they can live in relative comfort?  Wherever this family ends up won’t be nearly as bad what they endured for months in a slimy fox hole.  And it WAS their side that started the bleeding war.  So….

I came away with tremendous respect for any solider that has ever been in combat. True, that respect has always been there for me, but when a tale is told with such gripping realism, it makes you appreciate the sacrifice all the more.  Kudos, also, to Stephen Ambrose for telling the tale so well.