The First Assassin by John J. Miller

This is a work of historical fiction which takes place in Washington, D.C., and is about an early attempt to assassinate the newly elected Abraham Lincoln. The author uses some real figures, like Lincoln, Winfield Scott (hero of the Mexican War, just riding out his time until retirement), and John Hay, Lincoln’s chief of staff. The book is loosely based on some facts, but the assassination attempt is entirely fiction. Miller gives a pretty good view of the hatred of Lincoln by the Southerners and the hope of the slaves for Lincoln to bring them freedom. Lincoln is a lovable, gregarious, and charismatic figure who is saddled with the suddenly divided nation, as well as the mundane aspects of running a government. Miller creates one plantation owner, Langston Bennett, who funds the effort to kill Lincoln, as well as the beautiful seductress, Violet Grenier, a woman with southern sympathies who uses sex to get secrets from the Union soldiers and White House confidants to pass onto Bennett and other Southern leaders. The assassin is a one-named mystery man from Latin America, Mazorca. Miller depicts the lives of the slaves on Bennett’s plantation, who are treated better than most slaves. One of them is Portia, who escapes the plantation in an attempt to inform Lincoln of the plot on his life. I think East Coast Don will appreciate the descriptions of 1861 Washington. While this book was endorsed by our favorites Brad Thor and Vince Flynn, I found it disappointing. Flynn likened it to “Day of the Jackel,” just written in an earlier period, but First Assassin did not move nearly so fast as that. Actually, it took me almost a week to work my way through this one and I really only finished out of my usual compulsion to do so. There were no real surprises at the end – all of it was very predictable (but then, I knew Lincoln did not die at the very start of his presidency).

The Capital Game by Brian Haig

There I was, easing my way through an early Bob Lee Swagger story getting a lot of the backstory on how Bob Lee came to known as The Nailer during his Vietnam years when the library notified me that one of my requests was in. Dang it. I knew it would be a 1 week loan. So, Bob Lee had to be put aside.

The wars in the Gulf continue to take American lives. But this isn't about the wars, this is about Wall Street, Washington, DC, and the politics of hostile takeovers and government contracts, about manipulation, and intimidation, and ultimately about overwhelming greed losing out to people who believe in their role as watchdogs of the public trust....and make a few bucks at the same time.

Jack Wiley is a Wall Street shark who has worked his way through a series of firms making millions for his bosses and himself. His research turns up a chemical company one step short of bankruptcy, but on the cusp of a major discovery that could turn the tide in the Gulf. But this company doesn't do high risk takeovers, so Jack goes shopping for a firm that might test the limits of ethics to get this product and start producing it fast so they could make billions.

Enter the Capitol Group; a major player in the defense contracts game that is not beyond stretching their legal bounds and throwing some serious money around to get what they want. Jack sells them on this company and it's wonder polymer, which when painted on humvees and everything else make them impervious to IEDs, rocket propelled grenades, and other preferred weaponry of the bad guys. CG bullies the takeover, ambushes a rival company by buying influence on the House Armed Services Committee, pushes the polymer through the Pentagon's procurement maze, gains a $20B contract and starts painting the army's vehicles.

Problem is they didn't do their due diligence on testing the polymer and it seems to have a bit of a defect. Oh, it works, but it doesn't age very well. Enter Mia Jensen, #2 in her class at Harvard Law, on the fast track for partnership at one of those mega-firms, who up and quits her six figure salary job and joins up with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service to do the dirty work of trying to maintain integrity in the dirty world of defense contracting (she has a good reason, you just have to wait until the last few pages to find it). She smells something and starts flexing her authority with the Capitol Group. Naturally, they think they can use their influence on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon to squeeze her out and keep the polymer printing money for them.

We then witness the legal haranguing that probably goes on every day in DC with threats, intimidation, more threats, mysterious tapes, counter threats, bribes, swindles, lawsuits, 60 Minutes, perp walks, and the 10% reward (that's 10% of the original contract) for whistleblowers, like Jack Wiley. Hey, it's OK to get rich bringing down jerks like CG, right?

Now this likely doesn't sound like a fast paced thriller and if you just read the jacket flap in the bookstore (and didn't know Haig's ability to pace a thriller), you might set it back down, but that would be your loss. This kick-ass thriller speeds us right through a world that for most all of us is entirely baffling. And isn't that one definition of a thriller? Jack plays greedy creeps against each other and manipulates the system to screw CG right into bankruptcy. And all to avenge a loss. Lots of folks agree as this book is on the NYTime best seller list for a second week.

Haig wrote a series of military justice thrillers featuring attorney Sean Drummond - a character I really liked. But this is Haig's 2nd consecutive novel that doesn't feature Drummond. While I would love to read another Drummond book, that won't keep me from keeping Haig on my power rotation. One of my favs. Absolutely. Go ahead, escape to world we are all better off not being a part of.

Available on Kindle.

Now, back to Bob Lee.

East Coast Don

Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

I heard about this book on an NPR Fresh Air podcast with Terry Gross. She interviewed the author, Jack Clark, who I assume is not the former baseball player. Rather, he’s a writer who turned to driving a cab for some cash and for some story ideas. Originally, he self-published this first novel in 1996 and sold it to his fares. Later, it got picked up by a real publisher. Chicago is his venue, and I don’t remember reading a book about Chicago since reading a couple by Sara Paretsky (and I have another one by her in my list of books to read) and Eric Larson (“The Devil in the White City” – very good book). Clark writes about the life of a cabby and he includes a number of characters that actually begged to be further developed. Clark’s warning – don’t go near the projects, especially Cabrini-Green. During this same time, someone is knocking off random cab drivers, and then Polack Lenny, the dean of cabbies, is killed. The Polack was the most careful of drivers in terms of his fares, so no one can understand how he could have been a victim. I thought the take on cab drivers was good enough, but Clark did put in this murder mystery to help the story. His main character is Eddie Miles, nice name for a cab driver, and Eddie eventually encounters the serial killer. Clearly, this is an autobiographical piece, and it was a fun and quick read, about right for a flight from JFK to Logan.

Stalking The Angel by Robert Crais

Guess I have an Elvis Cole/Joe Pike fixation right now, waiting for new releases later in the fall. I decided to start from the beginning. This is the 2nd Cole/Pike novel by Crais. And while I might say it may be a 'formulaic' Cole novel, that doesn't make it any less entertaining or fun.

Based in LA, Cole is doing yoga in his office when he is hired to find a rare book stolen from the home of a wealthy developer with a Japan obsession. And naturally, this family is one seriously messed up clan. Said book is an original rendition of the guidelines that a Samurai warrior lives by - priceless. The trail leads Elvis Cole deep into the depths and dregs of Little Tokyo in LA and all clues lead to a shadowy Japanese mafia-like organization, which Cole, of course, manages to piss off in a big way.

At some award banquet for the book's caretaker, the daughter, Mimi, goes missing and assumed to be kidnapped. While Cole is trying to find her, he learns she is tight with an up and comer in that Japanese crime syndicate. When Cole tracks Mimi down, she says they are in love but all Cole sees is this bum using her to get at this book to raise his standing in the mob. Mimi also says her dad sexually abused her - Cole is seriously pissed now.

In the end, everything was all instigated by Mimi to get back at her father. She kills her father and the ensuing climatic shootout takes down everyone but Mimi. Turns out, that guy really did love Mimi, but we never really know if her dad did what she said. Mimi is a pathologic liar.

This book is typical Crais/Cole. Quickly read, pretty short, funny in many spots, deadly in others. Cole's quick wit is one core of the story, but so is his compassion, even if it is a bit misplaced in this tale. As a Crais fan, would I place it amongst his top 5? Probably not. But that won't stop me from moving forward in his bibliography. The next in line is Lullaby Town, which I've already read. So next up is Free Fall, right after I finish reading an early Bob Less Swagger (aka Bob the Nailer) story by Stephen Hunter.

East Coast Don

p.s. looking for new mystery/thriller writers? Check out Watchlist, edited by Jeffery Deaver. This book has two very entertaining serialized stories with each chapter written by a different author. Check it out to see which author's style trips your trigger. Me? I'll be looking into Jim Fusilli.

Ask the Dust by John Fante

This book was published in 1939. John Fante was an Italian-American writer during the 30s and 40s, and I think he ran with Hemingway. He mostly wrote about life in Los Angeles, and this book is about a 20-year-old man arriving in LA from Denver, and developing as a writer. It’s an autobiographical piece with Arturo Bandini as the main character. He lives in a cheap hotel on Bunker Hill, which is in the middle of downtown, and has his first encounters with Mexicans and marijuana (another variant of M&Ms besides the candy and Mantle and Maris). I did not come upon this book by accident. My brother-in-law, Stephen Cooper, who is a literature professor at Long Beach State, has written extensively about Fante. Steve has really made this one of his life’s works, to resurrect this author who was all but forgotten. In becoming Fante’s biographer, he contacted the widow who lived in Malibu. He interviewed his children and friends. He acquired all of Fante’s library and notes, and that is now being displayed at UCLA. Steve has gotten international fame as the result, and the Fante resurrection has really taken off in Europe, especially Italy and Scandinavia. Steve has made a couple trips there for book fairs and speaking engagements. A couple months ago, the mayor of LA had a dedication of an intersection in the Bunker Hill area, and signs of “John Fante Square” are now prominent there, all because of Steve’s efforts. If you’re interested in Los Angeles and the era, this is a very good read. The dialogue is fantastic.

The Devil by Ken Bruen

On the surface, this a devilishly well written serial murder mystery, but it is so much more than that. It goes beyond the depression and despair of Bruen’s main character, Jack Taylor. This is an allegory about addictions, primarily alcoholism. The devil in “The Devil” is alcoholism. In his other books, I thought Bruen wrote with remarkable candor and honesty about ethanol, the two-carbon monster (to use an old chemistry reference), but he is even better in this one. In the opening chapter, as he falls off the wagon for the first time in six months, Jack suddenly realizes that the barstool next to him has become occupied, and the two men, Jack and the Devil begin a conversation about evil, evil that fills the rest of the novel as Jack's demons grip him. Bruen’s language is similar to what ECD wrote in his review of London Boulevard (my most recent download), staccato, pithy, and direct. For me, his style is entirely captivating. This scary book is a very good read, whether or not you buy into the allegory.

Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn

I thought ECD had already posted about this book, another Mitch Rapp novel. So, I wasn't keeping notes as I raced through this one that I could have used for a more thorough review. Suffice it to say that this may be Flynn's best Rapp book. My only frustration was that I didn't have enough time to read it in one day. It took three days to find the time and I was definitely always eager to get back to it. Rapp's wife and unborn daughter play key roles in this story about an attempt to assassinate Rapp, a plot that brings in a team of French killers and their Saudi employers. This one fits the genre and it is not to be missed.

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Annie O'Sullivan has a bit of a messed up past. Her dad and adored older sister will killed when Annie was a pre-teen, by a driver running a stop sign. Her mom, who lived life through the lens of a vodka bottle, remarried a nice man who was generally a failure at his schemes to make money. But Annie was doing OK. She is a Vancouver Island realtor, had her own house, a dog, and an open house that Sunday. She had 3 things on his list that day - the open house, don't get into an argument with her mother, and dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend/chef Luke. He was supposed to meet her at the end of her open house, but was late. She's taking down the open house when one more looker drops in . . . he seems nice enough, nice smile, well dressed, but he is kind of in her space just a bit, and when she opens the patio door, he pushes a gun into her back, escorts her to his van and injects something into her leg causing her to pass out.

What follows is one of the most harrowing and shocking books I've ever read and I won't reveal anymore of the plot only to say that Annie is held captive inside a mountain cabin for a year by The Freak, repeatedly raped, and controlled on virtually every level - what and how much she eats, when she sleeps, what she wears, when she pees, everything. He impregnates her and she gives birth to a daughter.

This is the debut novel by Canadian Chevy Stevens and has been getting universally high praise (People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, O [that's Oprah's magazine for you in a testosterone-induced haze] NY Times, USAToday, Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, etc.). The worst review I read was 3 out of 5 stars by some citizen. Stevens deftly describes not only Annie's life on the mountain (about 60% of the book), but also the important and her sadly empty aftermath as how she deals with the abduction, the police, her mother, the press, her friends, Hollywood, and . . .

. . . her shrink. And that's the setting of this deeply disturbing tale. Stevens leads us on a not too gentle path of discovery through Annie's sessions with her psychiatrist. You see, the reader is the proverbial fly-on-the-wall, eavesdropping in on only what Annie chooses to reveal during each session (the book doesn't have 'chapters', it has 'sessions'). These sessions have only one rule (set by Annie) and that rule is that the shrink listens; the first utterance of 'how did you feel?' will end the doctor-patient relationship. So we watch and listen as Annie slowly reveals (in terrifyingly graphic detail) what happened during and after the abduction (and Good Lord, I hope writing this story wasn't cathartic on some level for the author).

I read a short blub about this book in an Entertainment Weekly last week when I was dog-sitting for my daughter and was stunned to learn that I didn't have to wait for it from the local library. EW (and most other reviews) used all the typical trite summer beach read adjectives; to wit, "riveting", "page turner", "couldn't put it down", "disturbing", "thought provoking" et al. And none of that does this book one bit of justice. The reviews offer extraordinary praise, and not one of the reviews comes within a inch of relating just how good this book really is. This is an irresistible psychological thriller (although I not sure 'thriller' is the right word. How about 'family drama'?) that, at least for 2010, is in a class by itself. Really - a master class with an enrollment of one.

Yes, this story (and author) are a bit out of the norm for Men Reading Books. And we don't do something as common as a 'top 10' list cuz we don't focus only on current titles. But if we did do something like that, based on what I've read with a 2010 copyright so far this year, the first 10 items on my list would be Still Missing.

East Coast Don

available on Kindle.

p.s. WCD, if you haven't read this within the month, I'm gonna have you banned from every golf course on the planet, get your passport revoked, and chain you in your office until you've read it. If this ain't 'up your alley' then something untoward has blocked its entrance.

p.p.s. And to the Knuckmeister, don't read this on the subway - you'll miss your stop.