Shogun

As I continue to read books about Japan in anticipation of a trip there in March 2024, it was suggested by an Asian scholar that I read Shogun, a book that I read nearly 50 years ago after it was first published in 1975. I chose to get the audiobook format, and I enjoyed this 53-hour listen while doing my twice-daily dog walks. I can’t say which version I liked best, the book itself or the audiobook. Both are wonderful.

 

In this blog, we’ve now reviewed 1,638 books, and I’m certain that I read at least that many books before the blog was started in 2009. Among those books, this one is in my top five novels ever, and Amazon lists it as the 36^th bestselling historical novel of all time. This is one of those memorable books that is soul-gripping. Even before getting to the novel for the second time, I vividly recalled parts of the book, such as when the pilot of the Erasmus John Blackthorne became the first non-Portuguese person to sail through the Straits of Magellen. This book follows closely to the actual history of Japan. It is known that the real name of this Englishman who hired to guide a Dutch ship was named Will Adams. At the time of his arrival in the midst of a typhoon, the Portuguese were already well established in the country and had already spread their Catholic version of Christianity, and the Portuguese believed that the Dutch Protestant form of Christianity was heretical, something the Japanese did not immediately understand. The interaction between Blackthorne and the Jesuits was an important subplot throughout the story.

 

This book was such a big hit in the 70s that two television miniseries have been made about it, and a third miniseries is about to be aired. The novel is a historical and cultural masterpiece, and I can hardly wait to get back to Japan to savor all that I’m learning about this unique culture.

Geisha

 

Continuing my Japanese studies in anticipation of a trip there for the 2004 cherry blossom season, I read Geisha by Liza Dalby which was first published in 1983. In 2008, the 25^th anniversary of the first publishing, the book was released again with a new preface to the second addition. Dalby did her research for the book as a part of her effort to complete her Ph.D. in anthropology, so she went to Japan to live there for a year as she pursued research about Geisha. She referred to herself as a geisha anthropologist.

 

Ms. Dalby wrote not only about the geisha culture in Kyoto and Tokyo, but also geisha life in much smaller towns. This is a historical, cultural, experiential, and autobiographical story. After meeting with many different geisha, she thought she would be better able to understand and write about her subject if she herself trained to become geisha. She is known as the only non-Japanese woman to undertake such training and actually become geisha. Her book was very well received, and she was interviewed extensively on television inboth Japan and the United States about her experiences there. If you’re headed to Japan or just have an interest in the country’s history, this is a very good source of knowledge.

Leave No Trace by A.J. Landau

A bright sunny weekend in NYC is rocked when the base of the Statue of Liberty explodes. The eventual death toll will climb over 700. Michael Walker, on the National Park Service’s Investigative Service Branch (or is it Bureau?) is whisked to NY from his base in the Smokies. As the Statue of Liberty is under the jurisdiction of the NPS, he figures to be among the lead investigators. Upon arrival, he’s told in no uncertain terms that the Joint Terrorism Task Force is running the show under Agent Gina Delgado.  

Pushed aside at the site, Michael inspects the devastation finding a 15yo boy lost in shock. Michael tries to comfort the young man who’s probably just lost his family in the explosion. While trying to help the boy to regain his senses, the boy points out that a retired harbor patrol boat had been just off the island’s shore and appeared to be recording video – the kid knew his boats. Seeing this, he then started recording the boat right up until the explosion.

Michael realizes he may have a witness with video and places the kid under park service guard to get him to a hospital. This pisses off Delgado as Mike made that decision without getting the OK from up the command chain. But it was a fortuitous decision, especially after Michael saves the kid from the terrorists while in the hospital and that the phone’s video provides valuable clues to the identity of the terrorists.

The chase is on. Find the perpetrators, see how far this plot reaches, and stop any further actions. The terrorists have a complex plan to shake the foundations of the public by attacking more and more national landmarks – next stop is Constitution Hall in Philadelphia.

Michael’s actions in NY convince Delgado that he’d be a valuable asset because of his knowledge of the park system so they head west attempting to catch up with the leadership behind the attacks.

If you choose to read this, buckle up for a blistering pace. One of the fastest paced books I’ve read in a long time and could easily have been a single-sitting read. And despite requiring the reader to suspend some manner of logic, it’s still a whale of a ride as this cat-mouse game jumps to Mt. Rainier, the Arch in St Louis, Zion National Park, the mountains of Colorado, secret compounds underneath Washington, DC, abandoned military bases, and dozens of other known and lesser-known locations in the country to the final confrontations in SD and OH. Be prepared for a bunch of subplots that help define the plot. Just make sure you go into this book knowing it’s a plot-base story and not character-based. We learn plenty about Michael and Delgado, but some might say what we learn just scratches the surface.

This is listed as being written by ‘AJ Landau’ but in reality is a joint effort of Jon Land and Jeff Ayers who write under the Landau pseudonym. And it looks like this is part 1 of a National Parks thriller series. As the national park system is perhaps the best thing our government ever did, I’m sure I’ll be looking for any future offerings by Landau.

Thanks to NetGalley for making the advance reviewer copy available. Publication date is 27 February 2024.

ECD

 

War Without Mercy

 While continuing my crash reading course on Japan, I read War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War, written by John W. Dower, a 1986 nonfiction work, the content of which is explained in the title. While I’ve read hundreds of WWII novels and nonfiction texts based in the European theater, I realize now how little I’ve read about the Pacific War. I assume that I’ll get through a couple more Pacific WWII books before I head to Japan in late March 2024. I can’t say I would recommend this book to just any reader. In order to get through this book, you must have a strong interest in the material suggested by the title.

 

While I’ve been aware of the issue of racism as a driving force behind WWII, I really hadn’t given it nearly as much thought with regard to the Pacific War. Essentially, the author successfully argues that the mistakes made by Americans and Japanese were based on a complete misunderstanding of the other’s culture. Both Americans and Japanese took somewhat identical approaches to their war propaganda. Both sides looked at themselves as superior races to their enemy who were, at best, only subhuman. Hypocrisy was rampant in both cultures. Both sides committed substantial atrocities. While the post-war rapprochement was surprisingly nonviolent and did reach a deeper understanding of one anothers cultures, since WWII, there continues to be evidence of similar shallow pre-war language in both countries.

The Prince of Beverly Hills

 

Stuart Woods wrote 52 novels, and Prince of Beverly Hills is the seventh review of his novels in this blog, so all three of our reviewers have written positively about his stories. His first book was published in 1991 and the last one was published in 2018, and he died in 2022. This was a delightful murder mystery about Rick Barron, a Beverly Hills cop who had just been demoted from a plum detective position to a beat cop because he had gotten a young woman pregnant, and she was a relative of the police chief. Rick had been a cop for eight years and he was tired of the work and bitter about the demotion. Then, an opportunity arose.

 

The story takes place in 1939, and it had the definite feel of an old time detective story which could have been written by Raymond Chandler. Late at night, near the end of his shift, Rick was sitting at a stoplight on Sunset Blvd when a fatal accident took place right in front of it. A woman ran a red light and was instantly killed, but the driver of the other car, Clete Barrow, was ejected and only bruised. Clete Barrow was a movie star, immediately recognized by Rick, who basically got him away from the accident scene and protected from the media finding out about it. The head of Barrow’s studio was grateful for Rick’s discretion and offered him the job of being the head of security for the studio. He was initially given the task of getting Barrow to the set on time for the day’s shooting of a new and important movie, despite Barrow’s horrible alcoholism. As he babysat Barrow, he quickly was seen time and again at all the Hollywood restaurants and a newspaper gossip columnist began calling him “The Prince of Beverly Hills.” Rick learned that he was hired to fill the job of a man who, along with his wife, were recently murdered, and that was the real plot of the book.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this light read and I’ll I’d be glad to read another Stuart Woods murder mystery.

The Chaos Agent by Mark Greaney

Artificial intelligence is a societal buzzword. AI is the amalgamation of numerous technologies that, when successful, allow the AI agent to learn and modify its actions. The tech is so new and still scattered. Now if someone with a futurist’s vision could unify the tech . . .  

Let’s say someone has kind of figured out how to integrate the tech. That might be the savior or destroyer of the world, depending on what the AI learns and applies. Let’s say there are a couple dozen different ‘modules’ of tech needed to fully realize AI’s potential. To ensure one’s place at the top of the pyramid, the geniuses behind each module would need to be eliminated.

Over the span of about 1 week, billionaire tech geniuses are dying by accident, ‘natural causes’ or just plain murder.

Courtland Gentry (aka ‘the gray man’) and Zoya Zakharova are staying a couple steps ahead of the CIA and the SVR hiding out in Guatemala. One of Zoya’s former mentors reaches out for help in guarding a Russian AI genius in transit to Mexico City, but the genius is struck down. A day before and after finds others killed in Vegas and Canada. Each hit was carried out by a highly skilled shooter who has equally skilled oversight provided by an expert drone pilot.

The video captured at the Mexico hit is sent back to a control center in Malaysia where facial recognition identifies Zoya. She is traced back to Guatemala and the AI of the control center (‘Cyrus’) decides that she and her companion need to be eliminated. A cat and mouse game ensues with the Malaysia control center following Court and Zoya.

Meanwhile, in the UK a hit on a Kiwi AI genius fails. The Kiwi, Anton Hinton, flees the UK for one of his protected labs around the world, this on in Cuba. And you can guess what happens next: Court/Zoya and Hinton kind of butt heads in Cuba. At issues is the future of the tech. Will it be used for the betterment of humanity or does it have the potential to self-actualize and run amok like Cyberdyne in the Terminator movies.

I see that this is the 13^th Gray Man book produced by Greaney. We’ve reviewed a few of them here, all favorably. And this is no exception. A first rate action-thriller. The Chaos Agent is a wild ride of deception, murder, and some serious passages of action tying up multiple scenarios around just where and how AI will best be pursued. It had been a while since I last read a Greaney book so I streamed The Gray May (with Ryan Gosling). Not sure how much that helped but it did show the extent to which Greaney will go to portray action. Let’s just say, be prepared for a wild ride over the last 25% of the book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance reviewer copy of the book. Their website was offline for maintenance so I can’t say when in 2024 it’ll be available.

East Coast Don

 

Japanese Inn

 First of all, I’m way off base with this book, far from our genre, but let me explain. First, I do like to keep track of the books I read and the blog helps with that. Typically, it keeps me from getting annoying and shameful reminders from Amazon that I already have the given title in my Kindle library  Second, I like to go off-genre when I’m about to take a big trip to a new place. It’s also true that I’ve been to Japan before, but that was 53 years ago next month (which suggests I might not be a young man). So, our plan is to be in Japan this year for the cherry blossoms. I’m excited. Then I ran into a woman whose husband is an Asian scholar and she’s been to Japan ever year for the last 35 years. She was excited to be helpful to my preparation for this trip. There’s time to adjust the itinerary, and she has started me on a book list. I had planned to re-read Shogun, the 1975 book by James Clavell, but I ended up getting the 53-hour audiobook, so I’m nearly ½-way through that, which also gives me time to actually read a different book. Shogun is one of my top 10 novels ever, so when I get through it, I’ll let you know with another post. I was excited to know that this was near the top of my new friend’s book recommendations. My early opinion is that I’m enjoying it more than before. Furthermore, as I read some nonfiction Japanese history, it’s remarkable how close Clavell came to making his book a nonfiction work.

 

It was recommended by my new friend to have a look at Japanese Inn, a 1961 historical novel by Oliver Statler. In part, it’s a story about Minaguchi-ya, the name of the inn which is in Okitsu, which lies along the Tokaido Road, the old route between the capitals of Kyoko and Tokyo. It covers the history of the founding of the Inn and the 20 generations of people who owned and managed it. The story covered 400 years. Really, this is a story of Japan from its imperial days, through its first encounters with the Western world, to the Portugese stranglehold on commerce between Japan and China, to the opening of Japan by Admiral Perry in 1852, the effects of WWII on the population, and finally to the transition to its modern day form. It was in Japanese Inn that I learned that the name of the pilot, the real protagonist in Shogun, Mr. Pilot, Anjin-sama, was the Englishman Will Adams, the first Englishman that reached Japan.

 

Meanwhile, Minaguchi-ya evolved with the changing times until it ended its hotel functions in 1985 and is now open as a museum. I know that my travels will take me to the Tokaido Road, and Kyoto, but I’m not sure that I’ll actually find my way to Okitsu. At any rate, if the fascinating history of Japan is of interest to you, this book is wonderful and entertaining. My recommendation – have a look.

Dead of Night

 Dead of Night is the second novel reviewed in this blog by the prolific writer, Simon Scarrow. I read the first one nearly two years ago entitled Blackout which took place in Berlin in December 1939. In this series, the protagonist is once again Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke, and the setting is again in Berlin, just a few months later in early 1940. It’s such an interesting idea for Scarrow to put his honest investigator in the midst of the holocaust where human tragedies abound, not only the slaughter of the Jewish population, but also the murder of thousands of others for not fitting into Hitler’s master Aryan ideal. Also at risk of the loss of their lives were any people who defied that Aryan ideal.

In this case, Schenke was made aware of the murder of a doctor, who like so many other physicians, joined the SS, created by Himmler. Himmler's chief deputy was SS-Gruppenfuhrer Richard Heydrich. The doctor, Manfred Schmesler, was thought to have joined the SS in order to protect his license to practice medicine, just as so many other physicians had done. But then, this seemingly good man was murdered. It was the same woman, Ruth Frankl, who helped Schenke solve the mysterious murders in Blackout that brought the murder of Schmesler to Schenke’s attention. It was the practice of eugenics that became the essence of this novel. Although eugenics was known to be a principle of the Nazi regime, due to objections of the general citizenry, the movement was initially pushed underground. Schenke, a skilled investigator, found his detective efforts to learn more about Schmesler’s death were blocked in every way possible by the police hierarchy. He was specifically warned off the case by Heydrich, the most frightening of characters.

 

Next, Schenke began to investigate the multiple deaths of children at a specific hospital in Germany, children who were somehow handicapped. The Nazi regime was uninterested in pursuing this investigation, but then Schenke found a link between the deaths of the children and the work that Schmesler had been assigned by the Nazis. He pursued that information at the very real risk of his own life.

 

Mixed in with the murders of the children, and the brutal beatings to which Schneke was treated due to his stubborn persistence, Schneke found a surprising link to Schmesler. He found himself in a fascinating double bind which I will let the author explain. Meanwhile, in part because of his dedication to the job and his need to be away from home, Schneke’s relationship with his live-in girlfriend Karin became quite strained. At the same time, Ruth Frankl became an ally and love interest to Schenke. Since she was a Jew, the two of them were playing out a very risky romance.

 

I liked this book a lot. The dilemma of an honest man who was in an impossible situation, and the risk of his death and those around him as a result of pursuing his necessary detective work. The book gets my very strong recommendation.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

 

I know, another book that is off-genre, but I’ve decided to give a very brief account of such books so I can keep track of what I’ve been reading.

 

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk was published in 9/25/14. This is a fantastic book about the theory and treatment of trauma by a very experienced researcher and therapist of such. The following blurb is directly from Amazon, and it captures the essence of the book: “Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.”

 

So, this may not be what your looking for, and I’m not sure how I missed it until now. It’s only been out there for 10 years and it’s the best thing I’ve read on the understanding and treatment of trauma. When I mentioned to my wife, a psychologist, that I had found a book on trauma that I hadn’t read, before I could tell her the title, she said, “Oh, is it The Body Keeps The Score.” So if you know that you’ve been the victim of trauma, if you treat such patients, or if you’re just interested, having a look. The data is incredible.

 

Assassins Anonymous by Rob Hart

What happens with perhaps the world’s most deadly and effective killer starts to question what his life has been? He’s worked for ‘The Agency’ who doles out the assignments. He’s also available (via a dark web version of LinkedIn) for simple freelance assignments. He’s accumulated enough cash to avoid working for the rest of his life.

Mark (aka The Pale Horse) is good at what he does. Hand-to-hand, firearms, bombs, gas, loud, quiet, you name it. But he’s starting to have some existential thoughts about whether all the blood he’s caused to be spilled has made a difference. A mistake sends him reeling. Searches for help. And he finds it, sort of.

There are 12-step programs for all sorts of addictions – alcohol, drugs, sex, eating, et al. Amongst the small world of professional assassins exists a self-help group that helps professional killers (as opposed to opportunistic killers) get out of the life. Mark manages to get in a group. Even has his 6-month chip.

When you’re as good as The Pale Horse, a lot of people have Mark at their top of their 'needs to be dead' list. While in recovery, Mark manages to survive and near-fatal assault. Helped by Astrid (a former spec ops medic who is on-call to the assassin community), he recovers and now has to struggle of his internal battles between The Pale Horse’s obsession with revenge and Mark’s progress toward his own form of sobriety.

Finding the person who nearly killed him is a long chase from NYC to Singapore to London and back to NYC. Mark and Astrid are gaining, but always seem to be a step behind. And, he's really not sure what he'll do if/when he finds the guy.

I started reading this as a break in the overwhelming task of reading The Year of the Locust, that 800-page beast we’ve reviewed here. As such, I was going back and forth not developing any real cohesion. Once some time opened, I managed to devote my full attention.

This book is a clever take on the killer-turned good guy story. The author manages to balance the struggle between the yin (Mark) and yang (The Pale Horse) of what Mark must deal with. Lots of psychological issues bubble up to help and hurt Mark’s tortured path to redemption. Like I said. An interesting take on the mystery/thriller genre that is our focus here and several surprises. Worth your time. This is Hart's 7th book; previous books have earned notable praise and interest from Hollywood.

In the acknowledgements, Hart mentions an exec at Amblin Entertainment has optioned this book. Movie or streaming? Who knows. Amblin (a Spielberg company) hasn’t had too many misses. But it’ll be a while before we know more.

Available 11 June 2024.

Thanks to the good folks at NetGalley for the advance reviewer copy.

ECD

Trail of the Lost by Andrea Lankford

What do I like to do in retirement? Read mysteries and thrillers (of course), hike/camp (or most anything that gets me outside), play soccer, get my grandsons in trouble. You know, the usual. When I find something that intersects two of those pleasures, it’s a good use of my time.

Trail of the Lost is a mystery . . . about hiking . . . and because the stories are in this book are  true makes this one of my rare ventures into non-fiction. Don’t remember what prompted me looking for this 2023 title, but my local library had a copy. Betting your library does, too.

Andrea Lankford is now an RN in California. In the 90s, she was a long-time senior member of the National Park Service’s Search and Rescue teams. A boss who organized and directed teams of professional and amateur trackers looking for people missing in the California wilderness. 

This book is about the search for three missing through hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail. Yes. That 2650-mile trail that gained considerable notoriety with the movie Wild, about one damaged woman’s (Cheryl Strayed) search for personal redemption by attempting to hike the PCT alone. 

Lankford points out that since December 2022 there have been just 16 deaths of through hikers making the PCT statistically far safer than the freeways leading hikers to a trailhead. Plenty of folks try the full hike and most quit early on, typically within the first week to month. The trail isn’t a casual ramble through the forest on pine straw covered trails. The footing can be treacherous, the ascents and descents are killers, weather is unpredictable, water and food can be scarce. Add to that the wide range of predators, human and animal, between Mexico and Canada. This book is about three hikers who started and were never found.

Kris Fowler began at the Canada border. An experienced hiker around 30yo. Started hiking in May 2016 and hiked in sandals so he could ‘feel the earth.’ Christopher Sylvia began at the Mexico border. Also around 30. Started north in February 2015. David O’Sullivan, an Ireland native, just out of university, had studied the trail and trained for his hike. He started at the Mexico terminus in March 2017. Each had been in contact with family and friends early in their hike before all contact was lost not all that long after they began their respective treks. Local search parties were organized but were unable to find much evidence.

By the late 2010s, Lankford had left her SAR days behind her but for personal or existential reasons, the disappearance of these three tugged at her sensibilities. She contacted all three families to get their blessing to pick up the search. A difficult sales pitch telling families that you are good at this and want to help but can make no promises.

The book details the history of each hiker prior to and what was known about their treks. Like any missing persons case or even crimes, knowing the victim is critical. When it comes to what had already been done (and not done or lost) reveals a lot about national, state, county, and local law enforcement, the Park Service, and the myriad of jurisdictional issues, national and international. Now throw in a tutorial about how to run three disparate wilderness searches is the southern California desert and the Pacific Northwest conducted by pros and amateurs. Finally, all this is being conducted in era of social media. Once the word got out across the numerous platforms, thousands of clues, evidence and outright lies that come in from well-meaning, casual, and seriously disturbed individuals who populate the Internet must be run down.

The more and more clues that become dead ends makes it harder and harder to continue the search. As such, the intensity of everyone involved tends to wane over time and others join in for reasons of their own. This book is, on one level, an attempt to widen the search. As of the publication date of this book, the families are no closer to knowing the fates of these 3 young men than they were when they first lost contact.

I read a truly excellent book (The Last Season by Eric Blehm) about the disappearance of a back country ranger in the Sequoia National Park (but for some reason I can’t find it on this blog. Go figure. Trust me. That book is a seriously great piece of nature writing). Randy Morgenson spent the spring through the fall of most every year of his adult life living in a tent as a park ranger. Grew up in Yosemite.This guy was one of the most skilled outdoorsman alive at the time. All told he’d spent more time in the CA mountains than John Muir. Right up until he just vanished. At least in that book, that mystery was solved. 

Unfortunately, not so for these families. 

 

East Coast Don

 

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

Once again, I've wandered away from our genre of thrillers and murder mysteries.

The 1619 Project, edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, is a collection of essays, poems, and short fictional accounts, all of which are intended to reframe the institution of slavery in the U.S. I kept seeing advertisements for the book in the Sunday New York Times Book Review, and being a student of U.S. History, I thought it was important to have a look at what has become a controversial book and nationwide subject of debate.

 

The year 1619, the year before the arrival of the Mayflower, was the year that the first ship of enslaved Africans landed in the U.S., the ship was the White Lion and it landed in Jamestown, Virginia. Hannah-Jones contends that the history of enslavement was nearly left out of the early histories of what became the U.S. colonies. Also, she argued that when enslavement was mentioned, it was largely misrepresented. Her research into the subject is most impressive. She contended that the maintenance of slavery was actually an important factor in the onset of the Revolutionary War. It was the wealthier southern slave states that largely funded the war. She described that the promise of freedom which was written into the Declaration of Independence was essentially undermined in the U.S. Constitution.

 

George Washington, a very wealthy owner of enslaved persons, ran his large estate in Mount Vernon. Ms. Hannah-Jones chose not to use the word “plantation” to describe such estates, rather referring to them as enslaved forced labor operations. Washington was one topic, and Abe Lincoln was another. She carefully reported the history of harsh laws that were passed in an attempt to keep the enslaved persons in control. While Abe Lincoln came to be known as the Great Emancipator, she described the evolution of his thinking, and it was not long before the Emancipation Proclamation that Lincoln was still advocating for the deportment of all free blacks to Africa. She thought the changes in his thinking about the topic was in response to those troubled political times.

 

Continuing on after the Civil War, after Lincoln's assassination was President Andrew Johnson who worked hard to pardon all of the rebel leaders and limit the rights of the freed slaves. Then came the short Reconstruction Era which led to the brutal Jim Crow Era. The 1965 Civil Rights Act signed by President Lyndon Johnsonwas a hallmark in the protection of the Black voters, but that was then undone by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 under John Roberts. Each step along the way was well researched and reported in the book, leaving the U.S. still suppressing the Black vote.

 

It's my opinion that this is an important book which does put the institution of slavery in a different light, and it explains how the Black population of the U.S. continues to be held down by institutional racism. I encourage you to read it.