The Professional by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Outside my office window, a couple of solitary snowflakes spiraled down. I watched them as they passed.
'Après vous,'I said, 'le déluge'."

I reached for Robert B. Parker's The Professional (2009) encouraged by Hush Money , which I liked a lot and reviewed here a few days ago. Well, this novel, the 37th (!) installment of the Spenser saga, is not as good. Yet, it still is a pleasantly readable, quite lighthearted mystery novel.

Spenser is hired to represent four women who are blackmailed by a man with whom they had affairs over the last 10 years: if they don't pay the guy, he will reveal the affairs to the women's rich husbands. Spenser's task is to "make him cease and desist, without causing a stir." Spenser quickly discovers the common link - all four women were members of the same gym - and finds the blackmailer. Enough of the synopsis, let me just say that the plot is quite interesting and relatively plausible. I particularly liked the account of Spenser's meeting with the blackmailer.

Susan Silverman, a psychotherapist and Spenser's friend and lover, helps him with the investigation. Readers new to the Spenser epic will find the dialogues between Susan and Spencer witty; however, when one has read several novels in the series, the wittiness turns into cliché repetitiveness. I am unable to imagine anyone wanting to read 37 installments of these conversations. Yet, even in this novel, very late in Mr. Parker's opus, one can find some really funny bits, like the following risqué passage:

"I woke up in the morning with Susan's head on my chest. I shifted a little so I could look at her. She opened her eyes and we looked at each other. She moved a little so we were facing.
'You've always been an early riser,' Susan said.
'Is that a double entendre?' I said.
'I think so,' Susan said."

Sigh... A successful PI, a witty, intelligent, and handsome man, a good boxer, who speaks French and is good in bed... Every man's dream!

Two-and-three-quarter stars.


View all my reviews

The Supreme Court by William H. Rehnquist
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"[...] the Supreme Court is an institution far more dominated by centrifugal forces, pushing toward individuality and independence, than it is by centripetal forces pulling for hierarchical ordering and institutional unity."

This interesting observation about the workings of the United States highest court comes from William H. Rehnquist's The Supreme Court (originally published in 1987; I have read the edition that was "revised and updated" in 2001). The author may safely be assumed to know what he is writing about. Mr. Rehnquist was a Supreme Court justice for 33 years (1972 - 2005), and he served 19 of these years as the Chief Justice.

The author quotes a standard, textbook-type definition of what the Supreme Court does:

"Congress and the president enact laws, the president executes the laws, and the Supreme Court decides cases arising under those laws or under the Constitution."

The book clearly shows how misleadingly straightforward that description is, how much more is at stake when the court decides cases, how the court's decisions affect every single resident and shape the future of the country, and - in turn - how various social, political, and personal factors influence the court's decisions. I have read and reviewed here on Goodreads about 10 books about Supreme Court, and in many of these reviews I expressed my belief that Supreme Court is the most important branch of the government, more important than the president or the Congress.

The book begins with Mr. Rehnquist's personal recollection of the travel to Washington in January 1952 to begin his law clerkship for Supreme Court and the first few days on the job. Then he begins the journey through the 19th and 20th century history of the court, highlighting the most important cases and most influential justices. Marburg vs. Madison is the first major case discussed in considerable detail. Then comes the infamous Dred Scott decision, which became, as the author states, "a 'self-inflicted wound' from which it took the Court at least a generation to recover."

Chapters Six and Seven deal with the Supreme Court in president Roosevelt's times. I find the coverage of Roosevelt's "court-packing plan" absolutely riveting; the author presents the political and personal factors that contributed to the eventual failure of the plan. Yet, from a long-term perspective, Roosevelt succeeded in influencing the ideological direction of the court: during his 12 years of presidency, he appointed eight associate justices, and put a clear imprint of the New Deal ideas on the court's decisions.

The next two chapters focus on yet another remarkable and momentous case - the "Steel Seizure Case." Facing Korean war and the fiasco of negotiations between the steel mill workers and the steel companies, President Truman ordered the government seizure of steel mills. The author convincingly explains the background of the case and presents various forces and factors that contributed to the majority of the justices eventually voting against the government.

Next, Mr. Rehnquist discusses the "Warren Court" and the major changes in the constitutional law that began happening in the early 1960s. He also portrays the highly influential justices, such as Brennan, Douglas, and Warren. Chapters Twelve through Fourteen illustrate the procedural details of the Supreme Court's functioning; the reader will learn about the three main stages of the court's work: how the petitions for certiorari are chosen, the details of the oral arguments, and how the cases are actually decided. The last chapter, The Court in Its Third Century nicely summarizes the main emphases and motifs of the book. The very last sentence is worth quoting:

"[Supreme Court] will continue as a vital and uniquely American institutional participant in the everlasting search of civilized society for the proper balance between liberty and authority, between the state and the individual."

I find The Supreme Court an interesting and worthwhile read, and Mr. Rehnquist, although considered a staunch conservative by virtually all commentators, comes across as balanced and remarkably non-partisan in his writing.

Three-and-a-quarter stars.

View all my reviews

Hush Money by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Whenever I got involved in anything related to a university, I was reminded of how seriously everyone took everything, particularly themselves, and I had to keep a firm grip on my impulse to make fun."

This funny and insightful observation comes from an unlikely source: Robert B. Parker's Hush Money (1999). I had read quite a few Spenser novels before I began reviewing books on Goodreads and generally liked them: they provided uncomplicated, leisurely reads, great for before-bed time, when the mind needs rest from work issues. Well, the characterization is no longer precise, as this installment of Spenser's adventures is about university faculty, and I happen to have been such a specimen for quite some time. Yes, indeed, we do tend to treat ourselves way too seriously!

Hawk (a recurring character in the series) brings Spenser a new client, Mr. Nevins, "a professor at the university, author of at least dozen books [...], and a nationally known figure in what the press calls The Black Community." A graduate student committed suicide, alleged to be the result of a sexual relationship with Mr. Nevins. As a consequence of these allegations, Mr. Nevins has been denied tenure. He suspects the real reason for the denial is that his viewpoints are "relatively conservative," not fitting the progressive bent of many faculty in his department. As the case grows more complicated and additional motivations of some of the personae are discovered, Susan (also a recurring character in the series) brings Spencer another client. Enough of the setup - the story is indeed very interesting and highly recommended for those of us who read crime novels for their plot.

I am impressed by the author's astute observations of university faculty politics, particularly the deliberations of a tenure committee and dynamics of the entire tenure process. The realism of the presentation of the university environment has increased my confidence in Mr. Parker's depiction of other social settings. On the negative side, I am really tired with all the cliché banter between Spenser and Hawk as well as between Spenser and Susan. What was funny for the first three or four times becomes hard to stomach for the twentieth time.

On the other hand, the following quote is very funny:

"'Someone once remarked [...] that the reason academic conflicts are so vicious is that the stakes are so small.'"

I could also quote a viciously funny critique of university faculty that can be found on page 141 (hardcover edition), but considering the remote possibility that some of my university colleagues read this, I will not yield to the temptation.

To sum up, this is one of the best Spenser novels that I have read.

Three-and-a-half stars.


View all my reviews

Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"I thought the present was the safer bet. We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive."

Reasons to Live (1985) is the third collection of short stories by Amy Hempel that I have read, after At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom and Tumble Home. One of the reasons that I keep returning to her collections of short stories might be a coincidental similarity in our biographies. Not only was I born in the same year as Ms. Hempel, but also both of us relocated to California from a city where many people speak Polish (Chicago for her, Warsaw for me).

The term "short stories" is not really adequate, particularly when referring to stories from this collection. One should call the genre mastered by Ms. Hempel "very short stories." These literary miniatures, snapshots of life, are just a few pages long - their length ranges from one to 15 pages.

To me, the best thing about the majority of Ms. Hempel's miniatures is that the reader has to do a little work to interpret them, to understand their meaning, and to see the "message" they convey. More importantly, different readers may find different messages in individual stories. And that's how it should be - after all, this is literature, not just storytelling!

Sadness is the common mood evoked by most stories in this collection, and the common motifs are loss, grief, and death. The first micro-story, In a Tub, deals with fear of death and celebration of life and sets the tone for the entire collection of 15 stories. Some of my favorite miniatures are: In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried in which the narrator describes how she did not help her friend who was dying - she left her alone for the final hours. The poignant Going ends with a beautiful, bittersweet passage:

"[...] it makes me think of the night my mother died. Three states away, the smell in my room was the smell of the powder on her face when she kissed me good-night - the night she wasn't there."

In moving When It's Human Instead of When It's Dog, a cleaning woman is trying to remove a spot on the rug - that stain is all that is physically left of a once living, loving, and loved human being.

The final miniature, Today Will Be a Quiet Day, is the sweetest. It also justifies the title of the collection. With all this death, loss, grief, and sadness, are there any reasons to live? Yes! One of the most important reasons is being able to make one's children happy and feel loved:

"My kids are as right as this rain. He smiled at the exact spots he knew their heads were turned to his, and doubted he would ever feel -- not better but more than he did now.

Three-and-a-half stars.

View all my reviews

The Triggerman's Dance by T. Jefferson Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"The only living things proximate to the event that remained truly unrippled were the eucalyptus tree and the poppies in the planter near where Rebecca, heart-shot and staggering, then heart-shot again, fell and died in the pouring rain."

A disappointment from one of my favorite crime authors: T. Jefferson Parker's thriller The Triggerman's Dance (1996) fails to deliver on the promise of its first chapters. The well-written beginning of the novel will captivate the reader. Alas, roughly after 100 pages, my interest in the plot began to weaken, to completely disappear towards the end of the book.

A brief synopsis of the setup: Costa Mesa, Orange County, California. Rebecca Harris, a young intern in the Orange County Journal, has been shot to death. It soon becomes clear that the bullets were meant for Ms. Baum, the newspaper columnist, for whom Ms. Harris worked. The initial investigation establishes that Ms. Baum's planned assassination would be considered a hate crime, because of her being a woman, Jewish, and promulgating left-wing views. Joshua Weinstein, an FBI agent, who also happened to be Ms. Harris' fiancé, is handling the investigation. The suspect is one Vann Holt, a very rich land- and business-owner, known for his right-wing views, extreme even for generally conservative Orange County. In yet another major twist in the setup, Mr. Weinstein recruits John Menden, a journalist, and Ms. Harris' lover, to help with the investigation.

I would have no problem with the contrived concept of the fiancé and the lover pooling their resources to find the killer of the woman they both adored if only it served some purpose in the novel. The unusual setup provides no literary payoff, though; the relationship dynamics between the two men are not shown with much psychological depth.

Yet the greatest disappointment for me is Mr. Parker's writing in The Triggerman's Dance. I like many of his novels for their economical, dispassionate, yet vivid prose, whereas at one point in this book the author even stoops to pretentious, capital-letter style:

"He craved Clarity and disliked the anger of the Red Zone.[...] But Clarity brought steadfastness to his vision and his limbs. Clarity allowed his eyes to see and his mind to work. You could ride Clarity, like a good machine, through thickets of confusion and rage."

Or my least favorite phrase from the novel:

"They run. They shoot. They run. They fight."

which is repeated several times, with different pronouns. This stylistic device reminds me of the adolescent male prose of Mr. Palahniuk's Fight Club.

Finally, why do we need 540 pages? Trimmed down to 300 - 350 pages, and cleaned of histrionics, it could be a great thriller, like many other novels by Mr. Parker are.

Two-and-a-half stars.


View all my reviews

Eyewitness To Power: The Essence of Leadership Nixon to Clinton by David Gergen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Of these [qualities], integrity is the most important for a president. As former senator Alan Simpson said in introducing Gerald Ford at Harvard [...]: 'If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters.'"

David Gergen has been my favorite political commentator since mid-to-late 1980s when I religiously watched his segments on the PBS' MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. I would like to note that I admired the depth and sharpness of his insights even if I vehemently disagreed with the political philosophy of some of the presidents he worked for. For instance, Mr. Gergen was the Director of Communications and Assistant to Ronald Reagan, a president whose certain positive qualities became visible to me only in the light of later presidential disasters, like the forty-third and, particularly, the forty-fifth one.

The author worked for four sitting presidents: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton, and also for Bush (the elder) before he was elected, and for Carter, after his presidency. Mr. Gergen clearly defines the main intent of his Eyewitness to Power (2000), a New York Times bestseller, in the Preface:

"Rather than inflict a personal memoir upon readers, I try here to bring together what I have learned about presidential leadership. The bulk of the book will trace out the lessons I carried away from the presidents I served in the White House."

Chapters 2 and 3, dedicated to Richard Nixon, provide fascinating reading. Mr. Gergen exposes the bright and the dark sides of Nixon's nature and offers sharp diagnoses about motivations behind the president's decisions:

"To Nixon, history was a handmaiden to leadership. He drew upon it in three ways: to gain a broader perspective on his own times; to impress upon listeners his place in the sun; and to find role models for action."

The title of one of the sections in Chapter 3, Confusing Power with Leadership is probably my favorite phrase in the entire text. The author clearly shows that not understanding the distinction was one of the main reasons for Nixon's downfall. In one passage, the author does not shy away from broad humor: he quotes Haldeman's memorandum that was conveying Nixon's instructions:

"'The president would like to have the bowling ball man come in and fit Mrs. Nixon and Tricia for balls as soon as possible.'"

Chapter 4, A Man of Character is dedicated to leadership aspects of Gerald Ford's short, transitional presidency. The following quote is quite illuminating:

"I have always thought him [Ford] the most decent man I have known in presidency. [...] Emotionally, he was the healthiest president we have had since Eisenhower and Truman."

The author explains that "Jerry Ford didn't need to be president to be happy with his life's arc." He was "well-centered" and "comfortable with himself."

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 (whose titles are so well chosen! The Natural, A Rooseveltian Style, Secrets of the Great Communicator) are dedicated to leadership Ronald Reagan-style. It is obvious that the author considers his presidency to be the most successful of the four he describes, despite admitting that Mr. Reagan had a "second-rate mind." Although I would assign Mr. Reagan's mind a larger ordinal number than "second", I have to grudgingly agree with the author as to the overall evaluation of Mr. Reagan's presidency (particularly now, having witnessed the utter ruination of the office in the recent four years). How is it possible not to agree with

"[...] I recognize that he had his flaws and that many do not share his politics. But even for those who oppose his views, there is a lot to be learned from him about public communications."

The author explains the many factors that contributed to the popular success of Reagan's style of leadership. One of the most important is clearly spelled out:

"[...] leaders must inspire people with confidence in the future. Only if he truly believes in the future himself will his followers make a leap and join him."

Chapters 8, 9, and 10 are dedicated to the study of leadership under Bill Clinton:

"Clinton will always be our paradox. [...] he left the country far better off than he found it. Economically, socially, even culturally, the nation made substantial gains during his stewardship. [...] Yet a sense of aching disappointment hangs over his presidency. How much more he could have achieved [...]"

The author attributes some of the reasons for this sense of disappointment to errors committed during the transition period between the election and January 20th, 1992:

"There is no doubt - even in his mind, I think - that his transition planted seeds that almost destroyed his presidency."

On the one hand, the author praises Clinton for his evident achievements, like passage of NAFTA, despite it being unpopular "in both the Congress and in public polls." On the other, Mr. Gergen clearly points out the deficiencies of Clinton's leadership that contributed to the failure of his health reform plan.

The book ends with Conclusion titled Seven Lessons of Leadership. This list of "seven keys to responsible and effective leadership in the White House" provides a masterful summary of the main ideas on political leadership. In my view, the "Gergen's List" should be mandatory reading for everyone interested in learning about or practicing politics.

To sum up this overlong review, Eyewitness to Power is an outstanding book, one of the best books about politics I have ever read. A great study of leadership, strong on deep analyses, and virtually devoid of gossipy fluff and self-aggrandizement. Very strongly recommended!

Four-and-a-half stars.



View all my reviews

Summer of Fear by T. Jefferson Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"And her face! Amber's lovely, ageless, beguiling face - somehow lifted back now, flaplike, hinged on only one side, turned almost down, as if contemplating her own hair afloat in that pond of blood."

Summer of Fear (1993) is the eleventh novel by T. Jefferson Parker that I am reviewing here on Goodreads and the first one that I am unable to recommend. The overly complex setup gradually turns into a mess of an implausible plot.

The narrator, Russ Monroe, an ex-cop, is a moderately successful true-crime writer. He is telling the story of the Summer of Fear, in which he himself plays a major part. Amber, his ex-lover and the mother of his daughter, is killed; Russ finds her body. The words "SO JAH SEH," "AWAKEN OR DIE IN IGNORACE," and "MIDNIGHT EYE IS RETURN" are spray-painted on the walls at the scene of the crime. Moreover, Russ sees a friend of his, Marty, the Captain of Detectives of the Orange County Sheriff's Homicide Division, leaving the scene. Marty also happens to be the victim's ex-husband. Russ faces another drama: his wife is dying of brain tumor. Russ' and Amber's grown-up daughter is visiting after a long absence in his life

All this is just a part of the setup. We also have a suspected serial murderer, who calls himself Midnight Eye, on the loose in Orange County. Two couples have been murdered in a similar way, and Russ soon will be at the scene of yet multiple murder (apparently he has access to crime scenes because of his police connections):

"The smell was strong. Both bodies - smallish dark-skinned bodies - were opened and emptied like drawers. Their contents were everywhere [...]"

To me, the entire setup is so contrived that it has the feel of a cheap TV series. What's worse though, is that this setup devolves into a preposterous plot, with ridiculous plot twists, which I am reluctant to even allude to. This pains me because I love Mr. Parker's writing. I have very highly rated several of his novels. For instance, I have found his California Girl, winner of the 2005 Edgar Award, not that far from a masterpiece of the genre. Summer of Fear, on the other hand, in places reads almost as a parody of an actual crime novel, despite the accomplished prose, notable especially in the earlier parts of the story.

I have discovered from the author's website that he wrote the book as a "howl of protest" about his wife's struggle with cancer and death from brain tumor, a pained cry against the randomness of illness and crime. It is hard to imagine the degree of tragedy and horror that Mr. Parker had to endure. He has my wholehearted sympathy, but I have to be truthful in the review: I am unable to recommend the novel.

Two stars.


View all my reviews