Us Against You

Us Against You is the last book that I read in 2018, and it is the sequel to Beartown, a story about which I raved. This sequel lets you know how the author thinks the lives of the townspeople turn out – how their love for an conflicts with each other come to pass. Fredrik Backman is a master storyteller, which is my ultimate compliment to an author, and this book does not disappoint. The last two books of the year were also the best ones I’ve written, not to diminish my praise of Eliot Peper, Daniel Silva, C.J. Boxx, David Urban, Ken Bruen and so many others. Backman has written a story about a small hockey town in Sweden, but it is really a story of the relationships of people who are caught up in the sport for various reasons. If you don’t like sports book, no worries. These two books were recommended by my wife who is definitely not a fan of sports books, and they were the two best novels that I read in 2018.

Beartown

Fredrik Backman has written one hell of a novel, Beartown, recommended to me by my wife and daughter. It’s a coming of age/crime/sports novel that takes place in a “hockey town.” It begins as a sports story of high school boys who live in a small foreign town, perhaps Sweden. For generations, remote Beartown has lived and died with the success of their teams at the Beartown Ice Hockey Club – but not much good has happened in recent years until Kevin Erdahl came along. Now he promises to bring so much to his home town because of his incredible hockey prowess. Kevin and all of his teammates are coming of age, teen boys and girls, including the general manager’s daughter, Maya Andersson. The crime is a rape, committed by Kevin, and it tears the town apart. The author is extremely skilled at character development and presenting a complex topic. This is one of my top books of the year, and I’m about to dive into the sequel.

Night of Camp David

Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel, a journalist turned novelist. The book was written in 1965, the same year that the 25^th amendment was ratified. It has to do with the succession of the presidency should he/she become incapacitated. That would be a simpler thing if the issue was one of physical health, like a stroke or a heart attack, but it becomes more complex if the issue is one of mental health. I think I first heard about this novel on a podcast from Steve Schmidt and Elise Jordan called “Words Matter.” The podcast is excellent. Given the current administration, use of the 25^th amendment has come into the conversation even though it is so unlikely that there could be enough agreement from the cabinet to proceed with if the president is not cooperative.

At any rate, it’s a good story. It took about a third of the book to really set the stage and introduce the characters. The last two-thirds were a very good read. The president, Mark Hollenbach, was paranoid, and his vice-president had already been caught in some shady problems resulting in declaring that he would not run for office in President Hollenbach’s second term. One of the characters said, “Nobody – but nobody – in this country can tell a president of the United States that his mind is sick.” Meanwhile, the president had scheduled a nuclear arms talk with Russia, and the thought of letting an unpredictable paranoid person do that. Curiously, the author named one Supreme Court Justice Grady Cavanaugh.

It was the Secretary of Defense Sidney Karper who told the protagonist, a senator named James MacVeagh, “Jim,” he said, “this whole affair has convinced me of one thing. The mental business is almost impossible to handle at the apex of government. We thought he disability problem was solved with the succession amendment was passed and ratified in the Johnson administration. But it isn’t, is it? If Mark comes back and claims he’s normal, be we have evidence he isn’t, then the fight would rip the government apart – with God knows what dangerous results abroad.”

Remember this is a 1965 book, not a current political intrigue.

Wolf Pack by C.J. Box

With the help of the Joe Pickett’s old pal, the ex-governor of Wyoming as his attorney, Joe manages to get his old job back as game warden as well as a new state owned home and yet another new pickup truck as part of the settlement.

 

Back at work, Joe receives a tip from the game warden in the adjacent district that a reclusive drone hobbyist is spooking the wildlife then photographing the deadly results.  The hobbyist happens to be the father of Lucy’s boyfriend.  Lucy is Joe’s youngest daughter and last one still living at home.  The drone hobbyist, Joe quickly learns is also of great interest to and under protection of the Federal government.  To Joe the Witness Protection Program does not excuse abusing wildlife on his turf.  He calls on his buddy Nate Rowanowski to ground the drones using his falcons.  But Joe’s persistence in squelching the drones draws him into a treacherous plot by a band of assassins known as the Wolf Pack whose mission is to eliminate the protected witness and everyone who knows him… everyone.

Box once again combines current issues in modern day Wyoming with the moral code and tenacity of a lone game warden to thoroughly entertain… one of his best.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance look.

Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of world War II

For a non-fiction work, this book has got to be the most awful horror story that I’ve ever seen. It makes The Road, a horrific post-apocalyptic story by Cormac McCarthy seem tame in comparison. Savage Continent, Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe is a remarkable work for capturing the turmoil and chaos that the entire continent of Europe faced when the war came to an end. At least 35,000,000 people were killed in the war, and some estimates make that as high as 50,000,000. Governments had collapsed. All forms of infrastructure had been totally destroyed in the course of the fighting. There was too little food and water. Lowe has done a masterful job of making all of this understandable as he reviewed the losses faced by citizens of every country. It is hard to imagine that those who survived the war had the wherewithal to manage their circumstances after the war. Many did not live through these ongoing challenges which included the continuing ethic cleansing that continued to occur in pockets of various countries. The displacement of citizens makes the current refugee movements from the Middle East, Africa and Central America seem minor in comparison. I am a student of history, and this book cogently paints a picture that I had never previously fully appreciated.

The Monsoon Ghost Image

The Monsoon Ghost Image by Tom Vater is a very dark murder mystery which takes place in Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Cambodia. The book starts in late 2002, and the course of the story covers about six months. One key figure are Martin Ritter who fakes his death at the outset even though that resulted in the death of the other half-dozen people on his sailboat, which was located in the Andaman Sea off Thailand. Those deaths are only the beginning – lots of people are killed in the course of this story. After having his appearance altered by a psychopathic plastic surgeon, Dr. Suriporn, Ritter thought he was safe, but then he was still recognized, so the chase was on to find him. Another character was Fred Maier, a drunken German detective, felt like his life was no longer worth living and he descended into a severe alcoholic state in an attempt to flee the worsening world that he perceived.

The author set the stage for the dismal state of the world when he wrote, “A clear demarcation line had been drawn in the collective narrative of the brotherhood of man. People weren’t arguing about issues anymore. People were arguing about what had happened and what was happening. People were arguing about the course history had taken and was taking, about who was writing it up and how it was being broadcast and consumed, and they no longer agreed on the broad strokes. The truth was becoming just another story. For better or for worse, every certainty was fragmenting.”

As I say, this is really, really dark. Suriporn is one sick dude who uses his remarkable surgical skills for tasks that only seem to please his sick mind. As much as I like murder mysteries, this one is more frightening and sicker than most – I leave it to you to make a decision on spending time with this novel.