Galway Confidential

 I ran across the most recent book by Ken Bruen in the Jack Taylor series, the 17^{th and it was just} published this year (2024). Bruen has been a prolific writer, producing nearly a book a year since the first, The Guards, in 2001. The last book of his that I read was six years ago, In The Galway Silence, published in 2018. I wrote a brief by positive review. He did write Galway Girl in 2019 which we did not review, and it was East Coast Don who did the beautiful review of A Galway Epiphany in 2020. Then, he did not publish again until this year with the current book, Galway Confidential.

 

Jack Taylor is a dark character indeed, and Bruen seems to have unusually intimate knowledge of what it’s like to be a polysubstance abuser, the disease with which Jack struggles. Could that problem be the reason for the 4 year hiatus in Bruen's publishing? I continue to love Bruen’s unique writing style and I need to learn why Jack has just recovered from being in a coma for two years. The reader knows that Jack was attacked, but this book never explained what happened. I’m going to have to go back and read the last couple of books so I can understand that. In this novel, nuns are being murdered and homeless people are being set on fire. Jack has a successful involvement in those cases while continuing to fight his own demons.

 

Once again, I must admit that I’m hooked on Ken Bruen.

Hush, a Book of Bedtime Contemplations

Okay, it’s not a mystery thriller, not an espionage novel, but if sleep has ever been a problem for you, then this short book is worth having on your bedside table. Hush, a Book of Bedtime Contemplations was a well-written, well-researched, and fascinating book by Rubin Naiman, Ph.D. He is often quoted by the sleep and meditation coach, Jennifer Piercy. Although, as a psychoanalyst, I don’t agree with all that he writes about dreaming, it is clear that one effect of his work is to bring dreaming into one’s waking life as a useful tool for self-contemplation.

 

Many of Naiman’s passages are simply stunning. He wrote, “Hush was born of an integration of sleep science and spirituality. It was written to complement effective behavioral sleep medicine approaches with more traditional sacred views of sleep and dreams. Hush’s ‘prescriptions’ are, therefore, meant to speak to the heart as well as the mind.” He added, “Sleep is so much more than a servant of waking life; it’s a rich and direct experience of life itself.”  He writes, “More often than not, what we must do to heal our sleep is precisely what we must do to heal our waking lives.” He opines, “Sleep is not a respite from life, but a deeper immersion into it…. More important than knowing the meaning of any particular dream is knowing that dreaming is meaningful.”

 

I really loved this work and give it my strongest recommendation.

The Last Hope

In early 3/24, I read the first in a series known as the Maggie Hope Mystery Series by Susan Elia MacNeal. I really enjoyed the first book, Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, and now in mid 4/24, I’ve read the last in the 11-book series, The Last Hope. This isn’t the way I typically take on a new series, much preferring to read through the books in order so I can see the characters and storyline develop. I least I know I have nine more books available to look forward to.

 

Maggie is a compelling character. She is an Irish lass whose parents, or so she thought, were killed in a car crash when she was quite young. She was then shipped to the U.S. to be taken care by her aunt, an academic. Maggie is was a very bright woman who, in the first book, struggled with the misogyny of the WWII era. Despite her mathematical and science background, when she volunteered her services for the British war effort, she was assigned to a typing a pool. Nonetheless, her talents could not be denied and she very quickly rose from being a typist to becoming Churchill’s secretary, and subsequently to being an MI-6 codebreaker, and finally a spy for the British. It was in The Last Hope that she was sent on an assassination mission. She was to meet the German scientist who was responsible for building their atomic fission bomb. There was a “race of the laboratories” between the Allies and Axis powers, and it seemed quite certain that while Germany was already losing the war, if they developed the bomb first, then they would likely be the victors.

 

Maggie has a fiancé at home as she was sent first to Lisbon and then to Madrid in order to determine if Professor Werner Heisenberg had made enough progress on his own atomic project to really be a threat to the Allies. Complicating the assignment was the unexpected pregnancy that Maggie discovered while she was on this assignment. Perhaps the most interesting character in the story was Coco Chanel, the French woman who was getting rich from the sales of her perfume. Although she was French, Coco was collaborating with the Nazis and the author made it clear that Coco was a horrible anti-Semitic woman. This was a good plot filled with a cast of fascinating characters. Not only do I recommend this book, but I’m assuming the series is a promising one.

The Lost Coast

 The Lost Coast by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman is my first read of this father and son author team, although I’ve read and reviewed many Jonathan Kellerman ‘s books. It’s certainly different than the Jonathan Kellerman books that I’m familiar with, different characters and a very different type of plot. This one is actually the fifth novel in the Clay Edison series. Edison is a private investigator who had involuntarily left the police force a year before for reasons that were not fully explained. Edison was approached by a former client about digging into a land deal on the coast in northern California which appeared to be fraudulent. What unfolded was a carefully designed plan to bilk seniors out of their retirement savings, as they were being sold land that never had a chance of being worth the asking prices and appreciating as promised. There’s an assortment of characters in Swann’s Flat, but that also included some disgruntled people who wanted their money back and others who just wanted to be left alone.

 

I must say that this was not my favorite Kellerman novel although it sort of held my interest to the end. I read it out of a sort of reader-loyalty thing, but I probably won’t stay with the series unless the books get a bit better.

The Caiman of Iquitos

 

If you’re a fan of espionage novels, political corruption, moles in high governmental jobs, conspiracies against the American government, and dark cooperation about nuclear wanna-be countries, then you’ll get quickly pulled into this adventure. The Caiman of Iquitos is the third story in the series of Apex Predator Espionage Thrillers.

 

Why was Lewis Cambridge being pulled out of his English MI6 position in Pakistan Why would the Russians use a sub to sink its own freighter off the coast of Peru? The freighter was carrying rogue enriched uranium from an as yet unidentified source which was headed to North Korea. The American president, President Adoyo, was more concerned with improving his family’s wealth than doing what was best for the country, so he was interfering with any investigation of activities in Peru that might bring some understanding to this international mess. Meanwhile, a cartel was trying to profit off the sale of computer technology which really would bring North Korea into the nuclear world. A resourceful and capable North Korean operative, Heung Yeong-Ho, was doing all that he could to make the North Korean efforts successful, so he could bring the enriched uranium and necessary technology to his “Dear Leader.”

 

The off-the-books paramilitary operators were led by John Viera who had been recovering from his last covert job at the same time his marriage was falling apart. His mother-in-law thought he was the wrong person to be married to her daughter, and she kept trying to drive a wedge in John’s marriage. Inadvertently, he learned that his long fertility efforts with his wife Kelly had finally been successful, but she was trying to keep that a secret from him.

 

When the president would not authorize an investigation of these matters, John and his team accepted the job which took them into the Amazon where they discovered the rogue uranimum mine as well as the international cartel who were hoping to profit from this sale of ore and technology. Iquitos was the location of the Amazon mine. Caiman’s are a species of alligators which inhabited the Iquitos area. The story involved a large cast of characters with people who were willing to suddenly change sides depending on who was still alive and who had money to pay them.

 

It's an action-packed story, and if this sounds like your genre, then you’ll be entertained.

Cleopatra Caper

 Cleopatra Caper is a novel by John Amos, his first novel reviewed in this blog. I thought the story had a clever beginning regarding two recent Oxford College grads who are fascinated with becoming private investigators. This is a period piece that takes place in London at the same time that Sherlock Holmes and his pal Dr. Watson are constantly solving cases. The two young guys, Flinders Petri and Thomas Pettigrew, open an office just across the street from Holmes’ office, and they are frustrated that while Holmes has a constant parade of clients, their office remains empty. Clearly, their understanding of life and running a business are lacking. Pettri and Pettigrew are very different characters and Amos does a fine job playing them off against one another. They finally get a referral for their first case when a woman needs their help in her archeological search for Cleopatra’s tomb, a project that is clearly beyond the boys’ knowledge and sophistication. Yet, they are desperate for the work.

 

I got about 25% of the way through the book and chose to continue. It just had too much of an adolescent feel to it. I think this one might due better in the young adult or even early teen group, more so than for the usual more mature mystery-detective novel fan base. I can’t give it a strong recommendation.

Cast a Cold Eye

 About six months ago, East Coast Don reviewed our first read by Robbie Morrison, Edge of the Grave, and this is the second, Cast a Cold Eye. The books have the same protagonist, Jimmy Dreghorn a Glasgoq police Inspector. The first book was a period piece from 1932 Glasgow, and the second book takes place a year later, 1933 Glasgow. This second story also includes Police Constable Ellen Duncan, as well as a host of other great characters which the author uses to fill out his story. The novel cuts across class esand especially discusses the seeming impossibility of finding any resolution to the Catholic-Protestant biases and resulting violence. While the story does not have exclusively to do with events in Ireland, it does explain the spill over of violence from Ireland into Scotland, societies that had a long history of connection. I think it must be impossible to read this book in 2024 and not immediately associate to the seeming impossibility of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This book also addressed the ongoing misogyny that continues to be an unfinished issue in so many cultures. This is a well written detective novel, a meaningful work of historical fiction. Just as opined by ECD, I’m ready for more of Robbie Morrison.

The Real Hoosiers

 The Real Hoosiers, Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson, and the Hidden History of Hoops, by Jack McCallum, was just released in March 2004. I don’t remember being more excited about getting to read a book, not just a sports book, but one that covered the all Black high school in Indianapolis, the first such school to win the Indiana State High School Basketball Championship in 1954 and 1955, but also their star, “The Big O,” Oscar Robertson. In addition to being about those high school teams and the legendary player, it was also about the rampant racism that existed in Indiana during that era. It makes sense to me, having grown up in Fort Wayne during this era, that Indiana always has had trouble defining itself “as either the most northern state in the South or the most southern state in the North.” Having been born in 1950, I don’t have memories of the Attucks teams, but I was very aware of their story. Furthermore, I was exposed to the racism which Mr. McCallum describes, and there is no reason to find any level of exaggeration in his descriptions. While attending medical school in Indianapolis in the 1970s, it seems to me that the state’s Imperial Wizard of the KKK was quoted on a weekly basis in the city’s primary newspaper, The Indianapolis Star.

 

Much of the story takes place in Indianapolis and particularly at Crispus Attucks and Butler University’s field house. McCallum accurately describes the neo-Nazi like Indiana High School Athletic Association. My school, Fort Wayne North, was mentioned several times as a basketball power in the state, but one that lost to Oscar’s team each time they played one another. At the time, the state tournament was a single draw event, meaning that the biggest schools also played the smallest schools, thus the legend of the 1953 Milan High School team was immortalized in the movie Hoosiers. My primary criticism of that movie was that it failed to capture the intensity of what Indiana high school basketball was really like. The state was crazed with the sport. Just like we make picks today for the NCAA tournament, so did we did that with the high school tournament. Literally everyone filled out their brackets and posted it on their refrigerators. I don’t recall walking into anyone’s house during the 60’s who did not post their picks, aiming to see what “Cinderella team” would go the farthest toward the state tournament.

 

McCallum is a great sports writer, but as usual, he captures so much more than just the sports side of things. He wrote about coaches, principals, education boards, families, and more. I’ve been flooded with intense emotions over these events. It must have been in about 1964 that I got to see Oscar play in a preseason NBA game at the Fort Wayne Coliseum – he was always the ultimate professional. In 1965, my high school made it to the final game of the state tournament. In those days, four teams played for the championship on a Saturday. In the early game, our star player, Dave Moser, was injured in the closing minutes and he was not in great form for the final that night. But, my memory of the Butler Field House was amazing. So loud, so intense – 15,000 people on wooden bleaches - screaming, stomping their feet, the bleachers swaying.

 

Jack McCallum, you’ve written a great book. Thanks for the memories, which of course also include the pain of the flagrant racism that I witnessed.