Collected Miscellany

Most people are not likely to think about methamphetamines – better known as meth or crystal meth – as they go about their daily lives. Perhaps it might cross their mind when they are forced to go to the pharmacy counter and sign a log book in order to purchase allergy medicine or when a meth related fire makes the news. But what started out as a small problem largely limited to the West Coast soon blossomed into a full blown national tragedy. See here for more details on the issue.

As you might have guessed from the title, Mark Lindquist’s latest novel The King of Methlehem takes the reader on a fictional tour of the unique world of meth users and those seeking to staunch the drug’s flow and limit its damage.

Set in what is in many ways the center of the meth problem in this country – Pierce County and Tacoma, Washington – the story centers on detective Wyatt James a lawyer turned cop who admits to be obsessed with his job. His latest obsession soon becomes a tweaker – a slang term for meth addicts – who goes by the alias Howard Schultz (the Starbucks chairman in real life) among many others but who prefers the title “The King of Methlehem.” Howard already has a collection of addicts and criminals working for him (stealing identities, generating cash, and procuring the necessary ingredients for the drug they desperately need) but he has plans to take his small time operation to new heights.

Using a series of informants James is seeking to track down Howard and shut down the operation but he always seems to be just a step behind. Finally, he manages to put Howard behind bars, but a legal technicality allows Howard to go free. This only fuels Howard’s ambition and James’s obsession.

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Most people are not likely to think about methamphetamines – better known as meth or crystal meth – as they go about their daily lives. Perhaps it might cross their mind when they are forced to go to the pharmacy counter and sign a log book in order to purchase allergy medicine or when a meth related fire makes the news. But what started out as a small problem largely limited to the West Coast soon blossomed into a full blown national tragedy. See here for more details on the issue.

As you might have guessed from the title, Mark Lindquist’s latest novel The King of Methlehem takes the reader on a fictional tour of the unique world of meth users and those seeking to staunch the drug’s flow and limit its damage.

Set in what is in many ways the center of the meth problem in this country – Pierce County and Tacoma, Washington – the story centers on detective Wyatt James a lawyer turned cop who admits to be obsessed with his job. His latest obsession soon becomes a tweaker – a slang term for meth addicts – who goes by the alias Howard Schultz (the Starbucks chairman in real life) among many others but who prefers the title “The King of Methlehem.” Howard already has a collection of addicts and criminals working for him (stealing identities, generating cash, and procuring the necessary ingredients for the drug they desperately need) but he has plans to take his small time operation to new heights.

Using a series of informants James is seeking to track down Howard and shut down the operation but he always seems to be just a step behind. Finally, he manages to put Howard behind bars, but a legal technicality allows Howard to go free. This only fuels Howard’s ambition and James’s obsession.

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Simon Levack’s The Shadow of the Lords is the exciting second book to his Aztec Mystery series (the first being Demon of the Air). Levack writes in an easy-to-read style with good character development. The second book picks up right where the first one left off (I have not experienced this concept with any of the other mystery series that I have read) – I love this idea.

Here is a brief synopsis of the book from Publishers Weekly:

Levack’s second 16th-century Aztec mystery (after 2005’s impressive Demon of the Air) is another intellectual page-turner that will satisfy even those with no previous knowledge of the ancient Central American civilization. The novel picks up moments after its predecessor’s dramatic conclusion. The complex and all-too-human Yaotl, a former priest, has just learned that he is a father and that his son is connected with a murder mystery he was probing at the request of Montezuma himself. As he tries to protect his son, Yaotl faces further challenges after he stumbles into a new inquiry involving a brutal killing and sightings of the dread god Quetzalcoatl that have driven the local population into near panic. The author matches impressive period research with tight plotting and the rare ability to make the inhabitants of a different world and time seem familiar.

I think you will enjoy this second book.

I was recently trying to describe William DeBuys’ The Walk to a friend and realized that the book wasn’t easy to categorize or summarize. Here is the book description from Amazon (which is a portion of the book flap):

Set, like River of Traps, on a small farm in a New Mexican mountain valley that the author has tended since 1977, The Walk explores the illuminating ways in which personal and natural history interweave in a familiar environment. A kind of love story about a landscape, the book consists of three interrelated essays — “The Walk,” “Geranium,” and “Paradiso.” These pieces move from a period of strife and conflict in the author’s life to a place of limbo, to a place of peace — or, as the author says — from “inferno to purgatorio, and finally to paradiso.” DeBuys takes the same walk each morning, through the woods near his farm, and arrives at a clarity that comes from observing life carefully from the same vantage point for years. DeBuys, one of the country’s premier nature writers, is revered for his compassionate, clarifying prose. The Walk only reinforces that reputation.

The difficulty comes in seeking simple descriptions. In fiction we relate the plot, in non-fiction an argument or thesis or historical person/event. The Walk doesn’t fit easily into these categories. It is a sort of memoir in that it describes events in DeBuys life, but it is more of a meditation on the land then it is a description of events or personalities (but those are weaved in as well). I guess “explores the illuminating ways in which personal and natural history interweave in a familiar environment” captures things pretty well. It reads like a sort of extended conversation; as if you were walking around DeBuys farm while he talked about his life on the property over the years.

Donna Seaman, reviewing The Walk for Booklist, had this to say

These days the meditative art of nature writing is often overshadowed by works of environmental concern and warning. Therefore what bliss it is to encounter deBuys beautifully crafted musings on the history and spirit of land he has long walked and cherished. On a small farm in northern New Mexico, deBuys has married, raised children, cared lovingly for horses, and learned the ways of water and earth, grass and elk. He has also studied evidence of the errors of our ways in the “testimony of the landscape.” DeBuys contemplates the follies of pesticide use and wildfire policies, and takes measure of his painful solitude after the demise of his marriage and the death of friends. What is there to do, but to walk the land as he has for 27 years? After all, “walking helps the mind go out and the world come in, and brings us to our senses.” A supple and silvery book, The Walk defines hope in terms of mountain and sky, river and pine, mindfulness and love.

Some might find this boring, but I found that Debuys’ writing was strong enough and his thoughts and insights interesting enough to make it worth while. It is by no means exciting or suspenseful, but it is enjoyable in a relaxed and thoughtful way. It is not the kind of book you can’t put down, but rather one you will enjoy picking up and dipping into for a few minutes. Seeing how the book is only 176 pages, it won’t take to long to finish.

For a few examples of passages I found worth highlighting, see below.

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Evan Thomas’ Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 is an excellent look at four naval commanders and their actions during the Battle of Leyte Gulf during the World War II.

Here is a brief summary of the book from Publisher’s Weekly:

Thomas, Newsweek’s assistant managing editor, turns his considerable narrative and research talents to Leyte Gulf, history’s largest and most complex naval battle. He addresses the subject from the perspectives of four officers: William Halsey, who commanded the U.S. 3rd Fleet; Adm. Takeo Kurita, his Japanese counterpart; Adm. Matome Ugaki, Kurita’s senior subordinate and a “true believer” in Japan’s destiny; and Cdr. Ernest Evans, captain of a lowly destroyer, the U.S.S. Johnston.

The Americans believed the Japanese incapable of great military feats, while the Japanese believed the Americans were incapable of paying the price of war. Both were tragically wrong. Halsey steamed north in pursuit of a what turned out to be a decoy, while Kurita’s main force was positioned to destroy the American landing force in the Philippines.

Evans repeatedly took the Johnston into harm’s way against what seemed overwhelming odds. His heroism, matched by a dozen other captains and crews, convinced Kurita to break off the action. With Halsey’s battleships and carriers just over the horizon, Kurita refused to sacrifice his men at the end of a war already lost. Ugaki bitterly denounced the lack of “fighting spirit and promptitude” that kept him from an honorable death. Evans fought and died like a true samurai. As Thomas skillfully reminds us, war is above all the province of irony.

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Evan Thomas’ Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 is an excellent look at four naval commanders and their actions during the Battle of Leyte Gulf during the World War II.

Here is a brief summary of the book from Publisher’s Weekly:

Thomas, Newsweek’s assistant managing editor, turns his considerable narrative and research talents to Leyte Gulf, history’s largest and most complex naval battle. He addresses the subject from the perspectives of four officers: William Halsey, who commanded the U.S. 3rd Fleet; Adm. Takeo Kurita, his Japanese counterpart; Adm. Matome Ugaki, Kurita’s senior subordinate and a “true believer” in Japan’s destiny; and Cdr. Ernest Evans, captain of a lowly destroyer, the U.S.S. Johnston.

The Americans believed the Japanese incapable of great military feats, while the Japanese believed the Americans were incapable of paying the price of war. Both were tragically wrong. Halsey steamed north in pursuit of a what turned out to be a decoy, while Kurita’s main force was positioned to destroy the American landing force in the Philippines.

Evans repeatedly took the Johnston into harm’s way against what seemed overwhelming odds. His heroism, matched by a dozen other captains and crews, convinced Kurita to break off the action. With Halsey’s battleships and carriers just over the horizon, Kurita refused to sacrifice his men at the end of a war already lost. Ugaki bitterly denounced the lack of “fighting spirit and promptitude” that kept him from an honorable death. Evans fought and died like a true samurai. As Thomas skillfully reminds us, war is above all the province of irony.

Continue reading →