The Prague Ultimatum

I’m not even sure how this book got on my Kindle. Someone else on my account must have ordered it, but given that I’ve been looking for books about The Czech Republic and Hungary, I decided to give The Prague Ultimatum a try. This is the first novel for James Silvester that has been reviewed in the blog, and he’s better known for Escape to Perdition.

The premise of this 2017 book is that the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been reunited under the charismatic leadership of Prime Minister Miraslava Svobodova. However, there’s a secret organization, best known as “The Institute” which is keen to see the reunified country be separated once again. Czechoslovakia is really a bit player in the power/greed conspiracy, but they been chosen as the sacrificial lamb to achieve the control of Europe by the Institute.

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What is interesting about this book is the way terrorism and ultra right racism is used to foment rebellion. There are actually some great speeches given by the primary characters on those topics. But, that’s as far as my favorable comments can go. I liked the protagonist, Captain Thomas Stone of the 4^th Royal Tank Regiment, but I also found his wild mood and temper swings to be unbelievable. The other characters were inadequately developed. Finally, while I’m used to having to suspend my own sense of reality when reading crime and espionage novels, there’s a limit to how far that suspension can go. And I thought this one was just too much. I can’t give The Prague Ultimatum a favorable recommendation.

Blood and Lemonade by Joe. R. Lansdale

It's referred to as a Mosaic Novel.

That means it is more a collection of short stories by the same author about the same characters over a period of time. 

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine have been friends since high school from a burg so rural that they can't even seen the poor side of the next closest town. Some young toughs were engaging in a frequent ritual, sort of like Fight Club. Hap and Leonard meet while attending with other friends. Not a bad idea to go armed a bit. Leonard has some martial arts chops and decides he can take on that evening's top dog. Leonard hands his rifle to Hap who casually lays it across his arms. Leonard is taunted without mercy in the initial few seconds, but that changes when Leonard lays his dipshit opponent in the dust. 

The beginning of a lifelong friendship in East Texas.

On the surface, the book covers a couple slow days many years after that first fight. Hap is now married and has two kids. Leonard, on the other hand, is still single, Republican, black, and gay. No secret. Leonard let Hap know right from the start. And they stayed the closest of friends even as they opened up a quasi-PI business. 

We see Hap and Leonard headed across town for some ice cream. The sight of a boarded up store triggers a memory. They cross railroad tracks to 'the other side of town' and another story pops up. They sit on the porch of Hap's home with Hap's family and the wife, son, and daughter each prod one of the two to weave a tale from back in the day. Each chapter is its own story and need not be read in order.

Not all the stories are of Hap and Leonard. Plenty are about one or the other. These guys grew up in the East Texas of the late 50s and 60s. Rough. Racist. Crass. Cruel. Profane. Bigoted. Homophobic. Mysogynist. A place and time filled with assholes and basic jerks. The East Texas presented by Lansdale is not a place most would have wanted to drive through much less live. Trust me, you'll have no sympathy for the cretins who populate the locals towns.

But you most certainly will like Hap and Leonard (and gain some begrudging respect for Hap's dad).  The closeness of their friendship leaps across the pages with insights on why these two seeming opposites have come to carve out a friendship for life. Hate the locals, but you'll want to know more about this pair. Some of the best writing is when Hap and Leonard are (figuratively speaking) just lounging on a porch on a hot summer's night sipping some ice tea or a beer and picking at each other.

This is our first book by Lansdale (at least according to the blog's archive) who has quite a collection of titles and a ton of awards and honors to his credit. He has written over 40 books and this is the 12th in the Hap and Leonard series. Even learned that the characters have their own series on the Sundance Channel that has just started its 2nd season - I've already set my DVR and am hounding the library for earlier titles. If I were a betting man, I think it's possible that, if I can get my hands on them, I could be setting up for a reader's version of 'binge watching' of a new (to me) story series.

Last time I did that was Craig Johnson's Longmire. And that's saying something.

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The Bridge at Andau

I haven’t read James Michener in at least two decades and was surprised to find a book of his that I hadn’t already read. But, I was looking for something about the history of Hungary and I found this nonfiction book that he wrote in 1957, a year after the Soviets crushed the Hungarian revolt against communist rule. I was aware that the revolt had occurred, but knew nothing else about it. If the topic interests you, then this is an excellent source of data about the exceedingly brutal reaction that the Soviet’s had to the Hungarian rebellion. The Bridge at Andau is the story of the rebellion, about 300 pages rather than one of Michener’s usual 1,000 page tomes. His research was extensive and his stories of the real individuals on both sides of the rebellion was graphic and moving.

Michener wrote in the forward, “In this book I propose to tell the story of a terror so complete as to be deadening to the senses.” He achieved that goal. As is typical of Michener, he did give some ancient history that helped understand the people who occupied Hungary and how they were of a different genetic heritage than other European countries. But the main action in the book was the rebellion itself and the Soviet’s reaction to it. The author wrote of the Russian response, “In areas already subdued, Russian tank crews ran wild and roared their tanks through the streets, firing on any groups of civilians they saw. There were three instances in which women in queues were shot to death…. Children were killed, hospitals were fired upon, and young men were executed merely upon suspicion.”

 

The bridge itself was in a remote section of Hungary that bordered Austria. It was a place where Hungarian citizens could flee to the safety of a country that welcomed them, but it was remarkably dangerous. Still, some 20,000 people were able to make it across the bridge before the communists dynamited it. Although Russia did crush the rebellion, in 1957 Michener saw that they would eventually lose the overall war. If the Hungarians were trying to throw off the yoke of communist oppression, the author commented that the communist system was sure to falter although he had no idea how and when that would come about. I would not have found this book had I not been headed to Hungary, and although the brutality that was described was difficult to read, the book provided precisely the historical background that I was looking for.

Budapest Noir

I’m a week out from arriving in Budapest for the first time, and I was eager to find a good crime novel that took place there. I found Budapest Noir by Vilmos Kondor, his first novel. It’s a measure of his success with this book and its characters that he followed it up with four more novels. I think a good crime novel should have not only great characters and a gripping plot, but I also like a rich description of the area where the story takes place - a sort of crime-based travelogue. Daniel Silva is a master at that, and I’ve been able to travel through several European cities using Silva as source of information and excitement. The idea is one of historical fiction that is anchored in reality, and Kondor has done the that with Budapest while telling one hell of a story.

Zsigmond Gordon is an investigative reporter for The Evening, and he serves as Kondor’s protagonist. The story takes place in 1936 which predates the Nazi invasion of Hungary but the Nazi influence is significant with regard to the country’s economy and social issues. Gordon has been on Budapest’s crime beat for a while, so he’s well known by the chief inspector, Vladimir Gellert, and most members of the police force. While sitting in Gellert’s office, he notice the pornographic photo of a beautiful woman which Gellert had mistakenly left laying about. Subsequently, as Gordon investigated the death of a prostitute who had been beaten to death, he realized that it was the very same woman he had seen in Gellert’s photo. It was unusual that she was Jewish since Jews of that era rarely became prostitutes, and then he learned that she was the daughter of a wealthy coffee merchant. In the process of trying to unravel the truth, Gordon understood that he could never write about because of the State’s control of the press. Had he tried to publish such a story, he would have been killed. His editors would not have printed it for fear of what might happen to them. In writing about this very dark side of life in Budapest in the 1930s, Kondor has created an impressive social commentary.

But Gordon was tired of the power brokers getting away with murder and he was driven to solve the murder even if it was something he could never write about. This was a quick and fun read. The character development and plot were solid, and the author brought the story to a most satisfying conclusion. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, Endstation Budapest.

Without Warning by Joel Rosenberg

Part 3 of the JB Collins trilogy picks up a few months after where part 2 (The First Hostage) left off - the rescue of the US President who had been kidnapped by ISIS.

JB Collins is the war correspondent for the NY Times. The award winning journalist is not above getting his hands dirty when it comes to revealing to the public that which the current administration seems intent on hiding, minimizing, or flat out ignoring. ISIS is a threat to the US and its leaders don't just need to be brought to justice. They need to be eliminated. Collins has seen it in the eyes of the ISIS leader, Abu Khalif, whom he has interviewed and is the only western individual to actually have seen Khalif in the flesh (I know, a take-no-prisoners hawk as a NY Times reporter seems a bit far fetched, but give Rosenberg some slack).

A few months earlier, Collins was instrumental in the President's rescue. A grateful President has invited Collins and his brother Matt to sit with the First Lady at the annual State of the Union Address. While appreciative of the efforts of the US security forces for his rescue, he still will not utter anything synonymous with 'radical' or 'extremist'. He prefers to use the drone force instead of sweeping in with insurmountable ground forces to wipe out ISIS, which is what JB vociferously encourages the President to do. To no avail.

During the SOTU address, mortars and howitzer shells, some loaded with sarin gas, reign down on the Capitol. While most of the heads of state escape, hundreds of others are killed. The next day, horror is inflicted on several other cities in a coordinated attack. Finally, because Khalif is seriously pissed off at Collins, a hit squad is dispatched to his family home in Maine.

And we aren't even to page 100 yet.

The President still neglects an all out offensive on ISIS so Collins secretly heads to the mideast in order to offer some help to security forces in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan (remember, he's one of the few to have ever seen Khalif in person). With relentless tenacity, a plausible trail on Khalif's location has been traced.

I'll admit. I'm a bit out of Rosenberg's loop. I had read and reviewed a number of his earlier books noting how prescient his stories were in regard to current day situations that ended up actually happening usually within a year of publication. While I'm not turned off by Rosenberg's evangelism and Christian witnessing, I guess I let it influence my staying current with his books. The JB Collins trilogy being a noteworthy omission in my reading enjoyment. Evangelism aside, Rosenberg writes some of the most compelling political thrillers that are centered in the political powder keg that is the middle east.  The first chapter tells us that the President's rescue (The First Hostage) had taken place a couple months earlier to which I sort of muttered to myself, 'looks like I've missed something here.' Does knowing the outcome of Part 2 mean I won't read it? Storytelling is in the details and Rosenberg has the details down pat. I mean, the audience always knew who the killer was, but we still watched Columbo. I like a good political thriller yarn, so I may just go back to parts 1 and 2. Even though I know just how thrilling part 3 ends.

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A Colony in a Nation

Chris Hayes, the MSNBC news host and commentator, has written a book about racism, policing and imprisonment in America. His title, A Colony in a Nation, is a quote from Richard Nixon. In his 1968 convention speech in which he acknowledged black demands for equality, Nixon said, “They don’t want to be a colony in a nation.”

Hayes wrote, “Nixon was correct that black Americans ‘don’t want to be a colony in a nation.’ And yet he helped bring about that very thing. Over the half-century since he delivered those words, we have built a colony in a nation, not in the classic Marxist sense but in the deep sense we can appreciate as a former colony ourselves. A territory that isn’t actually free…. This book makes a simple argument: that American criminal justice isn’t one system with massive racial disparities but two distinct regimes. One (the Nation) is that kind of policing regime you expect in a democracy; the other (the Colony) is the kind you expect in an occupied land. Policing is a uniquely important and uniquely dangerous function of the state.”

Hayes analogized the United States as a British colony to the status of blacks in America today, and he described how “white fear” has been used to reinforce the strength of those in power, “the Nation.” He explained that calls for law and order are often just code words for continuing colonial subjects in control: “White fear emanates from knowing that white privilege exists and the anxiety that it might end.”

In addressing the fact that the US is the most incarcerated developed nation in the world, he contrasted the situation in Europe. In the US, the trend has been to protest against favorable treatment by the justice system to those in the upper classes, to find fair justice by punishing the crimes of elite whites just as harshly as poor blacks have been treated. “In Europe, as it democratized over time, the move was to push everyone into the category once reserved for the nobles: the sphere of humane treatment was widened until in included everyone.” That sentence does not describe the current justice climate in the US.

In his last chapter, Hayes made a pitch for a reversal of such a harsh criminal justice system: “Imagine a person commits a crime, perhaps even a violent crime, against you. Is this person a human being? A neighbor, a fellow citizen? What do we as a society owe that person? Could he be someone you know and love in the throes of addiction? Or is he a member of a group you’ll never encounter again? What dignity is due the perpetrator and the potential perpetrator? Do you and the perpetrator belong to the same country? This is the question before us. The question we’ve answered wrongly for too long.” He ends his book with a vision of the benefits that would be had by all if the borders between this Colony and Nation could be erased.

I have been impressed with Hayes as a social and political commentator, and this book provide deeper look into his own history and the forces that led him to the conclusions he describes in this book. The book is a worthy social commentary and regardless of your political affiliation, a thorough reading will add to your own thoughts about these topics. The book is well written and thoroughly well researched. I give it a very solid and strong endorsement.

Prague Fatale

Prague Fatale is another Bernie Gunther novel by Philip Kerr. This is my second Kerr novel and the third one reviewed in the blog. I think East Coast Don captured the right title for the genre, “Nazi noir.” The story takes place during 1941 and the scene switches back and forth between Berlin and Prague. Kerr has created a wonderful character in Bernie Gunther, a Berlin police detective who is not a member of the Nazi party, who knows that Hitler and the rest of the Gestapo brass are criminals, and is terrified of his boss, Reinhard Heydrich, the Reichsprotector for Bohemia (The Czech Republic). In real history, Heydrich was assassinated by the Czech resistance movement in 1942, and this historical fiction novel starts out just nine months before that event.

Bernie’s wife died 20 years earlier from the influenza, only months after their marriage had begun, and in this story, he falls in love with a beautiful woman, Arianne Tauber, who turns out to have a dark history. This love starts during the dark days in Berlin during the war, at a time when Bernie is nearly suicidally depressed, as are so many of German citizens. Life was bleak, and Kerr wrote, “Berlin felt more like the capital of a banana republic that had run out of bananas, as well as almost everything else you could think of.” Before all the Jews had either fled, gone into hiding, or been forcibly removed, Kerr noted, “To survive as a Jew in Berlin in the autumn of 1941 was to be a person of courage and strength.”

Bernie was called by Heydrich to come to Prague to be his personal bodyguard and then to solve a murder that happened to one of Heydrich’s adjutants. He decided to take Arianne with him for desperate romantic interludes, but that decision proved to be one born of a man in lust rather than one who was thinking clearly. Perfectly capturing the irrationality of his situation, Kerr writes these lines for his protagonist, “Investigating the murder of one young SD officer who had almost certainly participated in the murders of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Latvian Jews, Gypsies and other ‘undesirables’ struck me as absurd, of course. A mass murderer who’d been murdered. What was wrong with that?.... Investigating a murder in the autumn of 1941 was like arresting a man for vagrancy during the Depression.”

 I am impressed with Philip Kerr’s writing, and if you’re a WWII junkie, then his writing is meant for you. This book is far more than just an excellent crime novel. Nazi noir, indeed.