Trunk Music by Michael Connelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

" The dead man was on his right side in the fetal position except his wrists were behind him instead of folded against his chest. It appeared to Bosch that his hands had been tied behind him and the bindings removed, most likely after he was dead. "

Detective Harry Bosch is back in Homicide after his involuntary stress leave and a stint in Burglary Division. Michael Connelly's Trunk Music (1997) begins with the body of a man shot dead found in the trunk of a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. The car is found on a fire road off Mulholland Drive, on a bluff above the Hollywood Bowl. In a curious coincidence a month ago I reviewed here the same author's The Overlook, where Bosch's first case after his transfer to Homicide Special involves a man, shot execution style, whose body is found at an overlook above Mulholland Dam. The scenic locations and the word 'Mulholland' evoke the Hollywood magic.

The similarities between both book go deeper. In Trunk the detectives immediately notice that the case has all the aspect of a mob hit. Bosch is worried that the case will be taken away from him by the secretive OCID (Organized Crime Investigation Division). In Overlook the investigation proceeds almost as a competition between Los Angeles Homicide Special department and FBI.

However, there is one significant difference between the two novels, separated by just nine years: Trunk is much better. In fact, the first half is an outstanding police procedural, very tight, fast, and well written. The second half, though... Technically, what I will write now is not a spoiler, so I am cautiously proceeding. The second half of Trunk Music is a completely different book. Basically a waste of time. Things become grossly implausible. Bosch and his team, with tacit approval of his superior officer, are conducting private investigation. Yeah, right. Double positive! There is a serendipitous meeting on Mulholland Drive. Sure, yeah, right! Triple positive. Bosch has a hunch... And so on and on...

I really wish I hadn't read the second half of the novel and finished somewhere in the middle where the book was still great. I am asking this for the tenth or twentieth time: why do crime novels have to be about 350 - 450 pages long? Why not 250 pages? What's wrong with a short novel? Why waste the writer's time to produce filler stuff to pump up the volume and the readers' time who have to plough ahead to get to the denouement?

I am still recommending Trunk Music because of the outstanding first half. Go ahead if you want to read the second half, but I have warned you!

Three stars.

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The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years by Joseph A. Califano Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"[...] I shall not seek - and will not accept - the nomination of my party for another term as your President [...]"

The above is the famous sentence from President Lyndon Johnson's speech on March 31, 1968 when he announced he would not be seeking the second term in office. I vaguely remember the surprised reactions of Polish press and TV (I lived in Poland then and was a high-school senior) and I mainly recall being aware that I was witnessing a historical moment.

Joseph Califano's book The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. The White House years (1991) is an extremely detailed account of the author's three-and-a-half-year work for the President. Being one of the closest advisors Mr. Califano had the opportunity to talk to the President virtually every day, which explains the tremendous amount of factual material in the book.

The narration begins in July 1965 when Mr. Califano gets a call from the White House and learns that the President wants him to take on the job preparing legislative programs, manage domestic crises, "and act as a general utility infielder on the domestic scene." Two days later Mr. Califano joins the President at the pool in Lyndon Johnson's Texas ranch and gets driven around the ranch.

These are turbulent times for the country. The President issues a statement about escalation of American involvement in Vietnam - 50,000 young men are sent to the war, many of whom will return in caskets draped with American flag. Amidst this tragedy Lyndon Johnson continues implementing his Great Society policies and his push for civil rights: the Congress passes the Voting Rights Act. The list of Lyndon Johnson's legislative successes in 1965-1966, "taking the federal government on the side of the little person," is extremely impressive:

"the war on poverty, health care for the elderly and the poor; aid to education for poor children; voting rights; immigration reform; and regional heart, cancer, and stroke research facilities in every section of the nation [...]"

But then comes 1967, when the anti-Vietnam-war protests explode all over the country and the President appears powerless and losing his mandate to lead the bitterly divided country. 1968 is the "Nightmare Year," and Lyndon Johnson decides to do a honorable thing and not seek re-election.

On the lighter side, we read about the President's tendency to micromanage, for instance about his involvement with egg prices, and - on a larger scale - his successful fight against price increases attempted by aluminum, copper, and steel companies. We also read about President Johnson's views of other politicians. Mr. Califano uses three "d's": the President despises Nixon, detests Senator McCarthy, and distrusts Robert F. Kennedy. I will add the fourth "d" - the text makes it clear that he also continually demeans his own Vice-President Hubert Humphrey.

I do not buy the theory that a President should be a paragon of morality and ethics to lead the country. For instance, the ability to convincingly lie on demand is, to me, one of the basic requirements of being a successful politician. If one were to read Mr. Califano's memoir selectively and with a bias, one could form an impression of Lyndon Johnson as an arrogant, cheating, macho scumbag. While I do not share such an opinion, I certainly do not admire Lyndon Johnson as a person. Yet I certainly admire him as a president, in my view one of the better the country has had. And I admire him for his courage and wisdom to step aside.

And as to Mr. Califano's book, despite tremendous amount of information about the highest levels of US politics it provides I am unable to rate it higher than three stars. The reason is that it just overwhelms the reader with zillions and zillions of facts that are not filtered in any consistent way. It is like a huge database of tidbits with just a scant synthesis.

Three stars.

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The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"[...] we were sitting in a Blimpie Base on Broadway, planning the commission of a felony. That set us apart from the other customers, who looked to have gotten well past the planning stage. "

I read Lawrence Block's "Burglar" series only for the wonderful prose and humor. The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams is not as great as my previous read in the series The Burglar In the Rye but still, I had fun reading this installment of Bernie Rhodenbarr saga and finding many jewels of witty prose. I also think that many readers will appreciate the meta-literary motif of this novel. While in the other novel You-Know-Who was constantly in the background (and in the rye, obviously), here we have recurring allusions to Sue Grafton's series. For instance, how about G is for Spot and D is for Cup?

The story begins when a customer visits Bernie's used book shop to buy Ms. Grafton's B is for Burglar. Yet the customer happens to be Bernie's new landlord, who announces that he is increasing the rent by 1200%. Poor Bernie! How can he get that much money to pay the rent! Wait! After all, Bernie has a real job in addition to being a bookseller! He is so accomplished at it that he could get a PhD in burgling!

Amidst the rent increase trouble, Carolyn, Bernie's best friend, gets him a cat. Bernie hires Raffles as an employee in his bookstore, responsible for rodent control. But where does Ted Williams come in? Well, baseball cards collecting is the other main motif in the novel. We also have a mysterious young woman whom Bernie meets at night and who asks him to walk her home. I will not explain any more of the plot; I could truthfully say that it is too complicated and has too many twists, but the real reason is that I totally don't care about what is happening and it is only the witty prose and instructional descriptions of burgling activities that keep me reading.

The novel ends conventionally, with the horrendous (for me) Wolfean-style gathering of all characters in one place, which allows Bernie to announce the guilty party. Yuck! Also, there is quite a bit less humor in this novel than in Rye, but still, I had lots of fun reading. How can one not smile when reading the phrase coup de foie gras. Or the following cute passage:

"The dress was a perfect choice; it made her look as respectable as a Junior League luncheon while leaving no doubt whatsoever that she was a female member of her species, and that it was a distinctly mammalian species at that."

Also, let me mention that the introduction of Raffles to the cast is not just a random component. The cat plays quite an essential role in helping Bernie solve the case. I don't have the faintest idea who did what in the novel but I certainly liked reading it! Recommended!

Three-and-a-quarter stars.


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The Andropov File by Martin Ebon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"Andropov's experience in manipulating others, his shrewd appraisal of human nature and his quintessential toughness, are sharp weapons in the fights he has to wage. [...] A few spectacular cases of punishment - and in relatively high places, at that - can make routine [Soviet] corruption less brazen and less tolerated. No ruthless KGB methods need to be used; tried-and-true Andropov techniques will suffice. "

Yet another item in my series of reads and reviews about Soviet/Russian leaders of the 20th century and the second biography of Yuri Andropov that I am reviewing here after Zhores Medvedev's Andropov . Martin Ebon's The Andropov File (1983) descriptively subtitled The Life and Ideas of Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR is similar in that both were written very soon after Andropov was elected the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. (For younger readers: the party was the actual center of power in Soviet Union, which at the time was the only other world's superpower and whose military might equaled that of the United States.) Consequently, neither of these biographies provides a historical perspective. Not that such perspective is sorely needed. Andropov died only 14 months after assuming the leadership and did not have many chances to influence the course of Soviet politics or world events in a meaningful way. His most important contribution to world's history is mentioned later in this review.

Ebon's work is a traditionally structured biography. The author recounts the arc of Andropov's political career, beginning with his participation in partisan movement in Karelia in 1941 - 1945, and Otto Kuusinen's role as Andropov's first mentor. The years 1953 - 1957 mark one of the most important stages in Andropov's early party service: he was the Soviet ambassador to Hungary and his role in the brutal suppression of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 is still the subject of speculations. (It also connects with me, personally, as I still have vague memories of the drama of 1956: I lived in Poland at that time and I remember Polish people donating blood for victims on the Budapest massacre by Soviet troops.)

In the mid-1960s Andropov gains the most powerful supporter in the person of Mikhail Suslov, the Soviet Communist Party main ideologue. Andropov becomes the Candidate member of the Politburo in 1967. The trajectory of his career is not traditional, though. Andropov is named the Chairman of the KGB in 1967, the organization that had long been dreaded in the Western world. Andropov remains the KGB boss for 15 years and molds the organization in his "modern way": it begins to rely on more "sophisticated" methods of psychological and social harassment rather than on physical torture and outright murder of the olden days.

The author does not spend much time on "humanizing" Andropov's portrait. True, he quotes observations, stories, and anecdotes by other people who have worked with Andropov, but does not put much credence in them as possibly being created by sensationalism or even planted by Andropov people. We only get the image of Andropov as a "well-mannered workaholic" and his personal style is presented as "ruthlessly fastidious" or "fastidiously ruthless."

In the final chapters the author conveys his pessimism as to Andropov's chances of instituting substantial changes in Soviet politics, economics, and social life. We will never learn what might have happened had Andropov lived longer and had more time as the Soviet supreme leader. The book was written before Andropov's death, so the author did not have the opportunity to note what I consider Andropov's most important contribution to Soviet (and the whole world's) history: his mentorship and support of the future Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, who - partly purposefully partly accidentally - managed to dismantle Soviet Union (at least for a period of time until it is now restored under the Russian flag).

In Appendices the author provides full texts of many, many speeches given by Andropov between 1964 and 1982. This is most mind-numbingly boring reading and I have to admit I just scanned the pages. With the exception of one speech, honoring one of the early builders of future Soviet Union, Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the fist chief of Cheka, the precursor of KGB. The paean to Dzerzhinsky reads almost like a series of Chuck Norris jokes. I am now convinced that Dzerzhinsky could teach God quite a few tricks. And he was Polish by birth!

Two-and-a-half stars.

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The Burglar in the Rye by Lawrence Block
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"I don't know how the dictionary defines 'anticlimactic.' I suppose I could look it up, but so could you, if you care. I don't, because I know what it is. It's standing in a bathtub, desperate for a pee, after two people in the next room have finished making love."

90% of Lawrence Block's The Burglar in the Rye (1999) is absolutely delightful! I have been oohing and aahing about the cute prose and giggling loud. Already the third paragraph of the novel, still on the first page, made me burst out laughing:

"He was a bear, of course, but not the sort whose predilection for sylvan defecation is as proverbial as the Holy Father's Catholicism."

And a few pages later:

"[...] the room was so small you had to go out to the hall to change your mind."

Then:

"People say it all the time. 'oh, really? Both the dog and your mother-in-law? That's funny, because you didn't seem drunk at all.'"

Enough of that! Let the readers find the sweet nuggets of prose on their own.

The witty prose is not the only reason to love this novel! The title offers a clear hint and - if I am allowed to hint at the nature of the author's hint - it is not because many characters in the novel frequently drink rye whisky. This installment of Burglar transcends the conventions of the series and is a high-class meta-literary joke. Something exactly perfect for us here on Goodreads!

With the witty prose and the "meta" who cares about the plot! I certainly did not pay much attention to it. But let's at least explain the setup. As usual in the series, it starts promising. Bernie Rhodenbarr checks into a room at the Paddington Hotel. From his conversation with Carolyn - a delightful conversation that touches such topics as whether gold hoops would go well with a dirndl - we understand that he is in the hotel to do his real job, that is breaking and entering, rather than the daily job of owning a used book shop.

And indeed, Bernie does break into a room in the hotel but... As usual in the series, many complications arise and their complexity only keeps growing throughout the novel. I did not even try to follow what was going on; I just kept enjoying the light touch of Mr. Block's pen. No writer's block for this bloke!

But there is the disappointing business of the remaining 10% of the novel. Well, again as usual in the series, we have a Nero Wolfean ending, with the characters gathered in one place, etc. etc. A horrid convention! (Hey, is it another pun? I should be pun-ished!)

For the Paddington bear, sylvan defecation, dirndl, for both the mother-in-law and the dog, I would really love to rate the novel with four-and-a-half stars. Alas, the cliché ending deflated my enthusiasm.

Four stars.

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The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

""The surface of the tongue turns brilliant red and then sloughs off, and is swallowed or spat out. [...] The tongue's skin may be torn off during rushes of the black vomit. The back of the throat and the lining of the windpipe may also slough off, and the dead tissue slides down the windpipe into the lungs or is coughed up with sputum.""

I need to begin with a disclaimer. This is a better book than the two stars I am rating it with. But I am angry at the author of this bestseller for using cheap literary devices and for being coy with the readers: titillating with purposefully gory language and phrasing. I am angry at the author for blatantly selling pornography of illness, suffering, and death under the guise of medical objectivity.

Richard Preston's Hot Zone (1994), which became a world-wide bestseller, is a non-fiction book about the extremely lethal Ebola virus. This is not Covid-19 whose lethality is in low-teen percentage range even for vulnerable people. Ebola has the death rate of about 90%, and its effects on the human body are terrifying: the author is truly enthusiastic about describing human bodies - still alive - dissolving in the hospital beds, with the accuracy and clarity of detail rivaling the anatomical precision in triple-X movies.

Now that I have vented, let me try to be objective. If we remove all the porn of gore and all patently irrelevant passages (see later) - the volume of this extraneous text amounts to well over 100 pages - we will have a truly great book telling stories of human fight against viruses. And it is not just Ebola. We also have stories about the Marburg and AIDS viruses.

It begins with a captivating tale of one Charles Monet who lived near Mount Elgon in Western Kenya. He might have gotten infected with Ebola-like Marburg virus when he was walking in the Kitum Cave. He died in the hospital but not before infecting Dr. Musoke, who miraculously survived. The gratuitous and excruciatingly gory details of Mr. Monet's last hours and particularly the vivid description of how the doctor became infected will provide a captivating read for the fetishists of death.

The narration moves to the USAMRID at Fort Detrick where we meet a cast of characters among the medical and military personnel. The focus is on Major Nancy Jaax and her family as well as on Col. C. J. Peters, MD (by the way, these are real people, if this makes any difference for the readers). Ms. Jaax works in the Biosafety Level 4 areas, the highest biohazard areas in existence. Areas like this are designed for dealing with lethal agents (viruses) for which there is no vaccine and no cure. The narrative about work in the labs is riveting.

Then comes the chapter about the emergence in 1976 of Sudan strain of the Ebola virus. We read about the first known victim, Mr. Yu G., and then a moving story of nurse Mayinga who contracted Ebola while she was caring for a dying nun, Sister M.E. Nurse Mayinga's blood has since been studied in numerous medical institutes all over the world.

Finally, we have the story of the Ebola outbreak in Reston, Virginia, where monkeys imported from Philippines began developing a highly lethal disease. This would be a totally fascinating story if the author did not do whatever possible to stretch the narrative material to artificially create the tension. Meandering plot threads made me almost lose patience with the book.

There is an incredible amount of completely irrelevant detail in the book. Can anyone enlighten me what purpose does the following information serve:

"Usually he wore faded blue jeans with a flaming Hawaiian shirt, along with sandals and dweebish white socks, [...]. His excuse for his lack of uniform was that he suffered from athlete's foot [...]"

I understand that authors of fiction books provide details about their characters to make them seem more real. But this is a real person - what is the purpose of telling us that he suffers from athlete's foot? There are hundreds of immaterial passages like that, whose only purpose is to pump up the volume of the text.

The author knows how to write well. It is so clear from the last chapter, with its accomplished prose, deep wisdom, perspective, and even a degree of lyricism. Why then does he stoop to the cheapest literary tricks in the rest of the book? Well, I have a theory, and it relates to readers' preferences, but I am not courageous enough to divulge it... So, instead of four solid stars that the book would deserve if it were thoroughly rewritten and condensed to one-third its length, the rating is

Two stars


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