The Overlook by Michael Connelly
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"Bosch nodded but kept silent. As they waited his thoughts carried him down the streets and up the hills to the overlook, where the last thing Stanley Kent ever saw was the city spread before him in beautiful shimmering lights. Maybe to Stanley it looked like heaven was waiting for him at the end."

I remember that almost a quarter of a century ago I liked Bosch novels by Michael Connelly a lot - but these were the earliest novels in the series. I haven't read anything by the author for quite a long time so I reached for The Overlook, one of the newer Bosch novels (2006). Well, sad to say, I feel quite different about this installment. I find it completely unremarkable. Were it the first novel in the series, most likely I would not read another one. Maybe I am getting too picky and grumpy in old age. Maybe.

This is Hieronymus Bosch's first case after his transfer to Homicide Special. A body of a man, shot execution style, is found at an overlook above Mulholland Dam. Bosch quickly ascertains that the victim was a physician. But when on the scene of the crime he meets Rachel Walling, with whom he had been romantically involved in the past and who is a member of a special unit of FBI, it becomes clear that the case may be related to homeland security. It turns out that the victim was not an ordinary doctor but a medical physicist who had direct access to radioactive materials.

The investigation proceeds almost as a competition between Los Angeles Homicide Special and FBI. The sides keep secrets from each other, but the shades of intimacy that still exist between Bosch and Walling are a convenient device for the author to let the reader know more than any of the sides does.

I find the plot only moderately interesting and the thread that involves Bosch's new partner, who belongs to a different generation, feels superficial and tokenish. Similarly, the Vietnam flashback to Bosch's service as a "tunnel rat" as well as the long passage about an operation commanded by an idiot police captain are incongruous with the plot. The former is too serious and the latter, probably designed as a comedic touch, is too cliché to be funny.

Readers who love plot twists (I don't) will be happy to find them in the denouement. But the whole novel feels so thoroughly unimpressive that I suspect Mr. Connelly wrote it in a hurry when he needed fast cash or maybe it was written to fulfill a contractual obligation with the publisher. Yes, the book is readable and moderately interesting; it provides a harmless way of spending few hours, but one could likely spend the time better. I will look for older Bosch novels to check whether I like them as much as I used to.

Two-and-a-quarter stars.



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And a Voice to Sing With by Joan Baez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Ten years ago I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring Diamonds and Rust."

This fragment of lyrics comes from Diamonds and Rust, the most beautiful song ever written - I am old enough to be certain. A unique combination of heart-rending poetry that conveys deepest truths about love past, spine-tingling melody, and absolutely flawless singing. Joan Baez has written the music, the lyrics, and performed the song. Thirty-three years later, Ms. Baez, now almost eighty, is still making music.

And a Voice To Sing With. A Memoir (1987) is Ms. Baez' autobiography. Its structure follows the standard rules: the artist's life, performances, loves, and social and political activism are described chronologically. During her school years, she avoids ostracism for being "brown" (her father, a physicist, was of Mexican origin) yet not speaking Spanish only thanks to her musical talent and phenomenal voice. She studies at Boston University and performs in coffee shops; in 1960 her first album comes out to become a huge success. Her popularity continues through all decades from 1960s all the way until now. Of all popular artists she has probably been the most involved in social and political activism.

One of the most amazing facts about Ms. Baez' life is that she has been friends with three Nobel Prize winners. First and foremost, Ms Baez recounts her romantic affair with the future Nobel Prize Winner in Literature. Yes, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were together for quite some time in the 1960s. She beautifully writes about him:

"[...] his eyes were as old as God, and he was fragile as a winter leaf. He was a Sunday child, fidgeting there on the couch in an oversized jacket and new cufflinks and I was Mom. But I was also sister mystic and fellow outlaw, queen to his jack, and a twin underground star. We were living out a myth, slumming it together in the Village."

There is also a beautiful passage about Bob Dylan, written in a second-person narrative - this is first-rate literature. I admire Ms. Baez' talent to write about him with such passion and love and then write about her rather sharp disillusionment with him several years later.

I very much like the chapter The Black Angel of Memphis dedicated to her numerous conversations with another Nobel Prize winner, this time the Peace laureate. She writes:

"You, more than anyone else who has been a part of my life, are my hope and inspiration. [...] Every time I hear your voice, it brings me back to the foot of the mountain. I don't lack the courage, Martin. It's just that in the eighties I can't seem to find where the path begins.

The chapter about Ms. Baez' meeting with yet another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Poland's Lech Wałęsa, resonates with me so much for personal reasons - I lived in Poland when Wałęsa's Solidarity was crushed by the Soviet-influenced government, and when he became a worldwide symbol of push for freedom. The passage about her singing Gracias a la Vida for Mr. Wałęsa is deeply moving.

The reader will also find a dramatic and very well-written account of Ms. Baez' visit to Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1972, during intense bombing. Whatever political "side" the reader is on, this is a deep, thought-provoking chapter. Speaking about "sides," I love Ms. Baez not only for Diamonds and Rust and few other songs but also for rejecting the political orthodoxy. In her activism she has been hated by both right-wingers and left-wingers. She has never subscribed to any particular set of political beliefs, and has always been for freedom, civil and human rights, and non-violence. I have found one chapter absolutely depressing. Ms. Baez was one of the organizers of the Ring Around Congress, where the "women and children of America would go to Washington and join hands around Congress." The tensions and intrigues between activists of different races almost prevented the project from completion. One of the most repugnant facets of politics: left-wingers of one kind hate left-wingers of another kind more than they hate the right-wingers.

I believe Ms. Baez wrote the memoir herself, without ghost-helpers. While the prose is accomplished, with some passages outright beautiful, the text feels too long. There are too many details, and it stretches belief that the author precisely remembers her thoughts from 25 years earlier (she does not mention keeping any diaries). Some of the almost 400 pages are hard to keep one's attention focused on. Still, I recommend the book very, very highly!

By the way, it would be very hard to find a more inspiring person than Joan Baez. If there were a Nobel Prize for the Most Extraordinary Person Overall, she'd been the obviously deserving winner. And the lyrics of Diamonds and Rust are an example of what Nobel-Prize-class poetry is about.

Four-and-a-quarter stars

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The Caverel Claim: A Legal Thriller by Peter Rawlinson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

" Your use of the title of Lady Caverel arises from the no doubt sincere but wrongful usurpation of the title by your late husband [...] [W]e must now invite you to acknowledge Miss Caverel, as she is presently styled, as the true and rightful heiress to her grandfather and thus to all the settled land and estate of the Caverel barony, and we must require you without too lengthy a delay to vacate the estate and the house [...]

To explain the title - the epigraph show the essence of the Caverel claim. Unfortunately, I have found Peter Rawlinson's novel a disappointment. While I very much liked his Indictment for Murder, which I reviewed a few months ago, Claim is altogether in a different category. I had to force myself to continue reading, to plow through the pages of uninteresting trivia, because I follow this silly principle of always trying to finish reading the book that I started.

I had problems since the very beginning of the novel, which I found intensely hard to focus on. The author uses several vignettes to introduce all main characters and establishes the background of the plot. Not only are the vignettes less than captivating but also there are no connections between the individual scenes. I had to write down the names of characters and their brief characterizations to keep track.

Anyway, let's have a brief setup of the plot: Sarah Wilson, a mixed-race exotic dancer in the US, is advised to see a lawyer as she might have inherited a magnificent mansion in the United Kingdom. It seems that she is not really Sarah Wilson but rather Lady Caverel and a rightful heiress of the Caverel barony and the estate. The novel can be rightly described as a legal thriller. The plot describes the machinations of two teams of lawyers, operatives, and public relations people: the "claim team" versus the "Caverel team." The plot culminates in a court case where the judge weighs the presented evidence.

As I mentioned in the review of Indictment the author of the novel has an extremely distinguished past Baron Rawlinson of Ewell, PC, QC, was an English barrister, Conservative politician and author. He served as Member of Parliament for Epsom for 23 years, from 1955 to 1978, and held the offices of Solicitor General and Attorney General for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland. While the author undoubtedly had rich experience as a court counsel I am not quite able to buy his description of the Caverel court case goings-on. The scenes are theatrical, punctuated by grandstanding, intrusions from spectators, etc. Naturally, I might be wrong, but unlike in the case of Indictment I am not buying the account of the legal proceedings.

The one aspect of the novel I like is the incursion of public relations campaigns into legal proceedings:

"'She focused this case [...] on race and class. Race because the claimant is black and the Caverels white; class because she comes from a humble background and is poor and the Caverels are aristocratic and rich.'"

Otherwise, I am unable to recommend the novel.

Two stars.


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The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth by Paul Hoffman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Mathematics is about finding connections, between specific problems and more general results, and between one concept and another seemingly unrelated concept that really is related. "

Yes, I agree. For me, the epigraph gives the best characterizations of mathematics. This is precisely why I love math. I teach mathematics at a university, but I am just an applied mathematician and don't know very much about real math, such as number theory, topology, or abstract algebra. Yet I do love math passionately for the connections it uncovers between seemingly disjoint fields like, say, probability and number theory:

"Erdös, working with Mark Kac, [...] would find a deep connection between a number's roundness and that workhorse of probability theory the bell-shaped curve, or normal distribution."

Yes, I also love math for the exquisite elegance of its constructs and maybe even for the certainties it provides, but connections are first and foremost.

Paul Erdös was one of the most famous mathematicians of the 20th century and one of the most prolific in history. He published 1525 papers, mostly with co-authors. His collaborative working style was notorious. There exists such a thing as Erdös Number: Erdös himself has number 0, mathematicians who co-wrote papers with him have number 1, mathematicians who co-wrote papers with those who have number 1 have number 2, etc. Thanks to my friend in the math department, who published with someone who has number 2, thus getting number 3, I have Erdös number 4 (not very convincingly, though, our paper only tangentially touches math).

I have found Paul Hoffman's The Man Who Loved Only Numbers biography of Paul Erdös an interesting, solid read. I hope that readers who know even less about math than I do will share my opinion. There is a lot in the biography about Paul Erdös himself, about his unconventional behavior, quirks, and eccentricities, like his special words for men, women, children, music, etc. or the fact that "he was twenty-one when he buttered his first piece of bread." The reader will also learn a lot about things that may seem extraneous to the topic - like, for instance, a captivating account of 20th-century history of Hungary, where Paul Erdös comes from (along with von Neumann, Teller, Szilard, Wigner, and several others -- see my review of The Martian's Daughter. A Memoir by Marina von Neumann Whitman.)

While there is a lot in the book about mathematics itself the text should be accessible to most readers, not only people who have connections with math. The long story of Fermat's Last Theorem and Dr. Wiles' proof of it is captivating. Because of my fascination with probability I read the account of the famous story about Monty Hall Problem posed and solved by Marilyn vos Savant in the Parade magazine: several PhD-titled math professors disagreed with her solution and were wrong. I like the general tone of the biography, full of sympathy, admiration, and deep respect for the great mathematician.

Of course the author shows the most beautiful equation in mathematics:

e to the power (pi times i) + 1 = 0

which connects the five most important objects in math - the constants e, pi, 0, 1, and i.

I am really curious whether the non-math readers will appreciate the biography more or less than I do. For me it is not quite a four-star work, but not far from it.

Three-and-a-half stars.

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H is for Homicide by Sue Grafton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The problem with real life is there's no musical score. In movies, you know you're in danger because there's an ominous chord underlining the scene, [...] Real life is dead quiet, so you're never quite sure if there's trouble coming up. A possible exception is stepping into a strange apartment full of guys in hairnets."

In my Re-read Early Grafton project I skipped H and read I instead, the weakest installment of the series so far (see I Is for Innocent). Finally I got hold of the missing tome and am happy to report that H is OK. As usual with Grafton's novels and most other mysteries and crime dramas, the book reads better at the beginning than toward the end, but at least the quality drop is not so steep here. What distinguishes the novel from all its predecessors in the series is the change of the overall story concept: it is markedly different in H than what the readers got accustomed to in A through G. Naturally, I love it when the author goes against the readers' expectations.

In the setup of the plot, our intrepid PI, Kinsey Millhone, has finished a job in San Diego and is returning to her office, which she rents from an insurance company. She finds the building a center of police activity. A claim adjuster from the company, whom Kinsey knew well, has been shot dead.

Kinsey's current job is to prove insurance fraud by a woman named Bibianna Diaz. She pretends to befriend Bibianna and the reader is treated to best passages of the novel that happen in a "lowlife bar":

"This was where the C- singles came to hunt. There were no yuppies, no preppies, no slumming execs, no middle-class, white-bread college types. This was a hard-core pickup place for bikers and hamburger hookers, who'd screw anyone for a meal."

Ms. Grafton's descriptions of human mating behavior are priceless, to me way better than the crime thread. Kinsey meets an ex-cop whom she knew during her years on the Santa Teresa police force. And then...

And then the pace of the plot speeds up tenfold and dramatic events happen. The publisher probably divulges the whole thing on the cover of the book, but I do not believe in providing spoilers. Anyway, we have an unexpected bonding episode between Kinsey and Bibianna and whole lot of other goings-on.

There are many good things in the novel. Night driving around the Greater Los Angeles Area is described vividly and in nice prose. How about the scene in a doctor's waiting room where all the patients smoke? Ah, beautiful memories of the times where I needed to inhale two long unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes during the 10-minute break between two lectures that I was giving! These were the days! And we learn a lot - a lot! - about how auto accident insurance scams work.

I find the denouement rather implausible but it is told in quite a cinematic fashion. Overall, I like the novel, mainly because of the change in the story pattern and the scenes in the Meat Locker bar.

Three-and-a-quarter stars.


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Things My Son Needs to Know about the World by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"[...] I know all kids sooner or later reach a point in their lives where they realize that their dads aren't actually superheroes. [...] I just wish for it to take as long as possible. [...] Scared of the day when I lose my place in your life. [...] That feeling of being left out. The awkwardness. The loneliness."

Fredrik Backman's Things My Son Needs to Know about the World comes highly recommended by my Goodreads friend, Bozena Pruska (note the similarity of last names, what a coincidence!), who rated the book with her rare 5 stars. Although in real life I agree with almost everything she says and does (I better do or else...), I will allow myself to have a slightly differing opinion here. Let me try to explain, thus avoiding Ms. Pruska's wrath.

True, it is a charming and sweet book about being a father of a very young son. It is full of non-trivial wisdom about life. One can find poignant, deeply moving passages such as the one whose fragments are shown above in the epigraph. I remember my fear when many, many years ago I realized that I would lose my place in my daughter's life. I believe that everybody who has ever been a parent of a young child will relate to at least some of Mr. Backman's writing, and most parents will relate to a lot of it.

Yet to me, the book has too many "paint-by-numbers" fragments, jokes with easy targets, "low-hanging comedic fruit" like

"Your grandpa was here over the weekend and he installed those little child safety locks all over the kitchen.
The result is that it now takes you about fifteen seconds to get into a cupboard. And it takes me half an hour."

The whole thing has a little of that soap-opera kind of feeling, where we expect to hear canned laughter after each fragment. Only just a little, though; there is enough seriousness, enough mature psychological content that transcends anything that one can ever see on TV.

I totally love the chapter titled What You Need to Know about Being a Man. Despite the macho title it is really a study on generational continuity, on how the author's father's generation is different from his own and how this fact never changes, from generation to generation. Almost like a companion to Heraclitus' famous quote that "the only constant in life is change." Here we have something to the effect "Things change in unchanging ways."

Most of the book is beautifully written and well translated too, from Swedish. The beginning, the first two pages, where the author apologizes to his son for "everything [he's] going to do over the next eighteen or so years" is deeply moving as is the passage from which I extracted snippets for the epigraph. These two passages alone are worth the price of the book. Many parents will shed tears reading these passages.

Four stars.

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