Born to Run by Christopher Mcdougall

This is a non-fiction work recommended by our blog ghost, my nephew, Boedeker. He is not often seen or heard from, but occasionally, his spectral presence is felt.

Mcdougall’s premise is that were are literally born to run, not sit on the couch all weekend and watch NFL games while guzzling beer. He successfully writes himself into this semi-autobiographical work, and he includes a cast of remarkable characters that do ultra marathons. He gives the history of the very secretive group of Mexican Indians of the Sierra Madres, the Tarahumara who are known as unbelievable distance runners but who typically have no interest in showing up to prove it to anyone. They reluctantly allow the presence of El Caballo Blanco (the white horse) whose identity is eventually revealed to the reader. Mcdougall (and that is how he spells his name) brings in another cast of unique characters, but this is more than a book about running. He weaves in archeological information and eventually presents a new take on evolution based on skeletal and pulmonary ideas. He gives the history of ultra marathon running and builds the information on his various characters through that, starting with the Leadville 100. Also, he writes in detail about his opinion that Nike essentially used all of us runners as suckers, touting their shoes while causing an increased number of injuries. Here’s an observation I made after my last marathon. I have never gotten into a conversation with another runner without talking about injuries in the first several minutes. Mcdougall says that every runner gets injured multiple times every year, and it is only the rare one who does not get hurt. EC Don will agree with me since we are both mostly former runners who dealt with repeated injuries until we could not do it any more. The author was the same, but he gives us hope that a return to running, even ultra marathon running is possible. As a former runner, it is most exciting for me to identify with the writer and his struggles to overcome what seemed to be a permanent case of plantar fasciitis. The book ends with the race that El Caballo Blanco has dreamt of for many years, and Mcdougall plays out this true event out with great skill. The essence of the book is the love of running, not doing it for titles or money.

Nephew, I actually starting reading this with some concern since my inability to run for the last several years has been emotionally painful, and I thought it would dredge up some old frustrations and resentments. It did not do that, whatsoever. Thank you.

WC Don

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Once again, Robert Langdon is the main character, and the plot for discovering the meaning of hidden symbols takes place in Washington, D.C., rather than Rome, like The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. The primary characters with whom Langdon interacts are a brother and sister, Peter and Katherine Solomon, who come from significant old money and political influence. The story revolves around the history of the Masonic Lodge and the fact that many of our founding fathers, including George Washington and Ben Franklin were Masons. According to Masonic beliefs, there are Ancient Mysteries that contain the knowledge of the ancients who knew all, but their knowledge was lost and forgotten by mankind or hidden by those who had kept the knowledge intact for the time when man was ready to know it. The good news about this book is that the first half was good in terms of holding my interest, and it will probably make a good movie. The bad news is that the second half of the book was uninteresting and too convoluted. Those who want to destroy the Ancient Mysteries in order to keep mankind from being enlightened do battle with Robert, Peter, Katherine, and others, including the CIA. Throughout, Brown lets it be known that some new information has been gleaned by the characters, but he holds out from delivering that information to the reader. My response was, once the information was revealed, was one of disappointment. The end of the book, for the taste of this atheist, had too much Bible and too much god. I would not have finished the book except for my OCD approach to most things. My advice – wait for the movie.

WC Don

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins

Our REAL AUTHOR friend, Charlie Stella recommended this book that he thinks is not only one of the best of its genre ever, he also thinks it could be one of the best novels ever. Now I am not literate enough to make a statement like that, but I will say that this is one seriously good story. No kidding.

Eddie Coyle is due to go back to prison, but maybe he can cut a deal by exchanging information for some leniency. The story revolves around the various low life characters and crimes that frequent Eddie’s life. Really, that’s the story and Eddie isn’t even all that present as an upfront character. But you would be wrong if that doesn’t look interesting because Mr. Higgins seems to be the source of so much of what we see in today’s crime dialogue, plotting, and story telling.

Look at the authors we have posted here; books by Charlie Stella, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, Ken Bruen, Michael Connelly, T Jefferson Parker, and more. Look at the dialogue and economy of description and I dare you to say that you can’t see elements of the Higgins style. It’s a master class that has many students. I used to think one could point back to Dashell Hammitt’s Maltese Falcon, but that was different from this. Higgins’ pacing and dialogue kept me hammered to my seat. If all those people with their head stuffed in the latest Dan Brown book (including my son…WCDon expected because you do read other writers!) would read the Higgins’ novels recommended by our friend Stella, they might see how real dialogue is written (I did a little search on Dan Brown reviews and the common complaint is mind numbing dialogue). I found out first hand just why crime novels are continually compared to Higgins. Thanks to Mr. Stella for steering us in the right direction. Now to see the DVD to see how well/bad Hollywood treated it . . . and to read the other two Stella recommended Higgins books: Digger’s Game and Cogan’s Trade.

East Coast Don

The Renegades by T. Jefferson Parker

This was another book from Boedeker who seems to have a phobia about writing posts.

Parker’s cop/sleuth is Charlie Hood. (This guy chooses great names as in Hood for a cop and Laws for one of the bad guys.) Hood had a recent encounter that led him turning a rogue cop over to Internal Affairs, and as a result, he has chosen to leave the desired detective unit at the L.A. Sheriff’s Department (as opposed to LAPD), and take a transfer to the Antelope Valley, a place where he can be out of sight and out of mind by the main body of the department. Instead of being a detective, he’s back on patrol with a partner. The Renegades is a reference to a prior group of cops that had been good cops that were eventually turned by a couple bad guys, so the group was banned from further existence by the department. There are two primary bad guys in this one, an officer, Terry Laws, and a reserve officer, Coleman Draper. Draper is the one who wants to reestablish the Renegades, and he draws Laws into a deal in which they take over the delivery of substantial amounts of cash to a drug lord in Baja. To do that, they have to take the cash south of the border every Friday, but it nets each one of them about $7k for each trip. So, there is the tension between good cops trying to do bad things and bad cops trying to look okay and keep their side job going. There are tensions within each group as Hood is not always sure who he can trust and is not always ready to divulge what he knows to his superiors. You’ll have to read about the conflicts within the drug cartel and their doubts about their delivery boys. Of course, there is a beautiful DA with whom Hood interacts, and there are some other very interesting peripheral characters, some of whom float back and forth between the good and bad sides of the story. The ending was very well written – I did not see the final twists coming. This one is a good distraction – not great literature, but worth the read.

WC Don

The Hunted by Brian Haig

Brian Haig has a running series of legal mysteries set in the Army that follow Army smart aleck lawyer Sean Drummond, but this is not the latest in the Drummond series.

It’s the early 1990’s. The Soviet Union is teetering on the verge of collapse. Alex Kornevitch is a college student with an entrepreneurial spirit and a really sharp eye for making money . . . a whole shit load of money. He gets run out of college by the government because his capitalistic tendencies run counter to the old ways. Problem is that this golden boy is now the face of the new Russia and a target of the Russian Mafiya. To protect himself, he hires a former honcho from the KGB to be head of his security team. Probably his one bad decision.

Some communist holdovers work out a plan to discredit Alex and his wife, steal all his money and companies, kidnap and torture them before finally killing them as an example to others of his ilk; and just guess who is behind the plan . . . his head of security. But Alex is not only smart; he is a very quick thinker and manages to bluff his way to a position where he and his wife can escape, but where to? The old KGB network reach extends all over Europe and Asia. There’s always the USA.

Once in the US, Alex picks up where he left off, scoring big and leaving a bit of a trail that the KGB bad guys eventually find, but Alex manages to hide behind US legalities. In the meantime, the FBI director meets with Kremlin higher ups about placing a few more agents in Moscow to track the Mafiya in the US at its source in Russia. He is surprised to learn that the Russians are more than eager to allow this intrusion on their soil and suggests the FBI put an even larger force than the Director asks for with one catch – give us Alex Kornevitch.

The Director, through the immigration service, manages to put (notice I didn’t say ‘arrest’) Alex in prison on a technicality. But Alex is quite bright, managing to survive and even thrive no matter how deep a prison hellhole he is placed. In the end, we can’t wait to see Alex’s day in court and the eventual comeuppance to the FBI Director and the folks who attempted to bring Alex down.

Just because this isn’t a Sean Drummond novel doesn’t mean it’s to be skipped. I guess this could be called a political mystery-thriller. In the end, this is first-rate legal fiction easily on a par with John Grisham or Scott Turow, at least in my mind. The story is fast paced and the plotting is both ingenious and believable, partly because this is a fictionalized account of a real circumstance.

East Coast Don

Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva

This book officially starts my five months of a planned focus on Russian reading, in one form or another, both fiction and nonfiction, all aiming toward a visit there in July. Can’t wait.

For me, this is a re-read. The first time was 3 ½ years ago, in the early months of the blog, and then, I wrote little about the actual plot. At the start of this story, Gabriel Allon, the Israeli assassin has finally married his long-time lover and fellow agent, Chiara. They are on their honeymoon in Umbria, Italy, sequestered in a private estate where he is restoring another painting. When old time spymaster Ari Shamron learns about a plot involving the newly rich and powerful from Russia, the source of his information is a Russian reporter who will only tell all of what he knows to Allon. All it requires from Allon is a quick trip to the Vatican where a meeting has been arranged – just a momentary diversion from his honeymoon and the painting, but of course it does not turn out that way. Instead, in the middle of the Basilica of St. Peter, the reporter dies in Allon’s hands before he can reveal any information. Allon is enraged and, despite causing significant distress to Chiara, he abandons the honeymoon to pursue this matter. The Israeli’s learn through another back channel that the Russian tycoon and arms dealer, Ivan Kharkov, is planning to sell missiles to Al Qaeda. Maybe the sale has already gone through. The back channel is Kharkov’s wife who accidentally discovered her husband’s evil intent and found herself unable to live with the notion that she allowed it to occur. Of course, by betraying her brutal husband who has no real interest than profit and expanding his own empire, she puts her own life at risk. Silva paints a most horrible portrait of President Putin and the FSB, the security force that replaced the old KGB. The plot unfolds from there, and that’s all you need to know.

As usual, Silva’s character development is superb, and the plot is entirely believable – it does not require any suspension of belief to think this story could actually take place. It’s not impossible to put this book down and get a good night’s sleep, but it isn’t easy to do so. In this international spy thriller genre, Silva stands alone as the best contemporary author at his craft.

Re-read and re-posted on 2/9/13

the Kill Artist by Daniel Silva

You know that I think Daniel Silva is the best, so I’ll make this short since you know I think it is worth reading. Gabriel Allon, the art restorer, has been out of the intelligence operative game for a while, but he gets pulled back in to deal with a Palestinian zealot. It just so happens the guy played an important, very dark part part in Allon’s early life in the trade. There is great and believable international intrigue. Enough said, don’t pass it up.

WC Don

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

You all know I get some book suggestions from Entertainment Weekly. A couple weeks ago, EW presented their preview of fall movies. Turns out that John Krasinski (Jim of The Office) had obtained the rights to ‘Brief Interviews…’ with his first real paycheck for The Office and the movie opens later in September. So, I thought I’d check it out.

This is a series of essays on all kinds of odd topics. Like 4-5 pages describing a noted poet lounging by the pool (or was it the beach?) . . . it was maybe 10 long compound sentences that seemed to never end. Then there was the story of a young boy waiting in line for his first attempt at the high board at the neighborhood pool. Of course, there was the story of the young wife worried that her sexual techniques (or lack thereof) were somehow doing harm to her husband’s thingy. Or the boy getting his soup bowl haircut. The title states ‘interviews,’ but the actual interviews are few and the reader only sees the responses, never the questions. And the interviews are transcribed out of order, mostly about the interviewee’s relationship with women.

Apparently, Wallace is a bit of a cult figure who battled severe depression throughout much of his adult life. He actually taught at Illinois State University while I was on faculty there, but the English and PE departments were literally and figuratively on opposite sides Main St. During a period of trying to revise his medication in 2008 while he was teaching in California, he took his life.

The jacket liner uses the work ‘hilarious’, but I didn’t see the humor. I guess you had to work at it and all I want when I read most things is to be engaged and entertained. You can’t discount the creative genius in keeping a reader’s attention when a sentence can run beyond an entire page. Given his personal history, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the stories had some autographical basis, but I could be wrong. I guess there is a lot of truth in the desperation of the men being interviewed.

Sometimes I like to read a book that has been made into a movie to see how Hollywood (usually) manages to screw it up. It’s the rare movie that’s as good as the book and ever rarer with it’s better. I read the book Schindler’s List was based on and the real genius was the screenwriter because the book, while important, had little of the story development and depth of presentation of the movie. To read the book then see the movie would have one walking out of the flick saying, “how in the heck did they get this movie from that book?” The movie was far better. Same with the book the movie Jeremiah Johnson was based on. I will probably go see this movie just to see how in the world Krasinski (he’s the screenwriter) manages to make this watch able. Guessing it will be very talk-y, more like a play put on film. As an exploration into the mind of men, I think WCD might be better equipped for this one than I.

East Coast Don

Cheapskates by Charlie Stella

Today’s foray into the mind of Charlie Stella is his 2005 release, Cheapskates. After his reply (2 times!) to this blog, I had to get another story to confirm that his mind really is as pleasantly twisted as I thought after reading Charlie Opera. Again, we need to meet the characters and maybe you’ll get the idea of the storyline from this description. Or maybe not, and if you don’t, it’s my fault, not Stella’s.

The good guys:

Peter Rizzo-being released from Fishkill Penitentiary after serving 2 years for assault. He broke the jaw of a guy his wife was seeing. Was this an act of jealousy or did his wife set him up? His lawyer said he could get Rizzo off, but Peter wants to do the right thing and serve his time. He says his ex-wife beat him out of $50K in the ensuing divorce and he wants it back, with interest (he’s not greedy. He’ll accept bank rate). While in jail, he meets . . .

Reese Waters-former NYC bus driver also doing about 2 years for car theft. When a friend pleads for Reese to drive a car somewhere, the car turns out to be stolen and the police are watching it, catching Reese in the act and was found guilty of trying to help out a friend steal cars (some friend). While in jail, Reese saves the local Nation of Islam big gun and in doing so, Peter gets his stomach sliced open. Reese and Peter become cellmates, friends, and the Nation of Islam owes Reese a big favor. Peter wants Reese to talk to his ex about the money.

Vincent Coleman-bus driver friend of Reese from back in the day.

The 2 get released and Peter ends up being killed by a professional hit man that very day. A low life guy tries to take out Reese by shooting through a door and misses because Reese bent over to pick up a St. Jude medal given to him by . . .

Laney, a friend of Reese’s mom sort of being set up to meet and get to know Reese.

But Reese and Peter just want to do what's right. With Peter dead and Peter’s family not wanting to pay for a burial or cremation (at least until Reese comes up with some $$ to release the body), Reese takes it on himself to get the money to get his friend buried from Peter's ex.

Belzinger, Greene and DeNafria-The first 2 are detectives tracking Reese trying to figure out just what in the world is going on. The latter is on the organized crime task force, currently on leave, but helping out his ex, Belzinger.

The bad guys:

Janice Barrett-Peter’s witch of an ex. She’s an exec of some sort, planned the confrontation that lead to Peter arrest knowing how he’d react, cheats him out of money, runs around with mob guys, tries to get Reese off his high horse about a burial. She is daughter and sister to . . .

Michael and Alex Barrett-in construction and in bed with the mob to occasionally launder money.

Jimmy Valentine, aka Jimmy Wigs-consigliere to the Vignieri family and soon to be hauled in by the organized crime taskforce. Janet’s current fling, possible financier to a new business, with a flair for wearing wigs. His dialogue read to me like he was always talking with his mouth full.

Johnny Mauro-low level hood, 2-time loser, carried out the failed hit on Reese.

Tommy Burns-a pro, carried out the successful hit on Peter with a penchant for distributing pre-paid cell phones and currently driving for some car service.

All Reese wants to do is the right thing and bury his friend. But he has no money, his mom dies a day or two after his release, Laney is trying to steer him away from all the potential problems, and Peter’s ex, Janice, wants nothing to do with Reese’s request. She had Peter killed, wants Reese to disappear, keep the money, and open her own agency. But to do all this, she needs Jimmy Wigs, and other assorted mob types, to shut this whole thing down. But Reese works out a plan (with an assist from the local Nation of Islam chapter), Jimmy Wigs works out a plan, muscle from the Nation has a plan, but just when the plans are about to collide, Janice goes ballistic and starts shooting, Coleman drives a bus over the Nation thug, Jimmy implicates Janice in Peter’s death, daddy Barrett and Mauro both end up dead, Reese ends up with the money keeping only what’s needed for the burial giving the rest to Laney to divvy up amongst some churches.

Got that? Two good guys caught up in things beyond their control. Another wonderfully twisted plot from Charlie Stella. And in the book, he manages a reference to one of his other books, Jimmy Bench-Press, which I HAVE to get now. Mr. Stella and graduated from an engaging diversion into a convoluted world of innocents and the mob and jumped right up into my power rotation that includes Robert McCammon, Brad Thor, Lee Child, Brian Haig, George Pelacanos, David Hagberg, and Ken Bruen. I wonder why such inventive plotting and interesting characters flies below the radar of current readers of modern crime?

And Tommy Burns was last seen driving south through Georgia, still hawking pre-paid cell phones.

East Coast Don