Collected Miscellany

Due some complex issues in my “real life” I haven’t been able to write the kind of reviews and commentary I would like. Finding the right combination of time, energy, and concentration just hasn’t been possible. The Enemy at Home is a book I had hoped to review and discuss at some length, but it just didn’t happen (I still might circle around to it at some point).

Moshin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is another book I have been meaning to cover here but so far haven’t. I think I am on the verge of offering a review, however, so I thought I would offer some links to whet your whistle for my own review/discussion.

– Vikram Johri has a review in the Philly Inquirer: A perplexing shift to hatred of America.

– Also, in the Inquirer is an interview with Hamid by John Freeman: Author loves U.S., but says, ‘My world has been split apart’.

– Freeman also had a discussion with Hamid in February.

– The Book was featured as a Barnes & Noble Recommends selection and they have a video of Hamid discussing his background, etc.

– Amazon.com also had an interview as part of their promotion of the book.

That should be enough to get you started. I hope to have my review up this week.

In my discussion of Howard Norman’s latest book Devotion I noted that he was an author whose work I would tend to pick up and read as soon as it was released; or at least as soon as I became aware of it. Having wrote this, it struck me as a good time to go back and catch up on the the books I had not yet read. I happened to have The Northern Lights on the shelf and so bumped it up the TBR pile and read it.

The Northern Lights was Norman’s first novel so it is interesting to go back and see many of the same ideas and themes that populate his later works. The story centers around 14-year-old Noah Krainik who lives with his mother and cousin in Northern Manitoba. Noah, however, spends large chunks of time away from his family farther north with his best friend Pelly Bay. Noah’s father is largely absent from his life and he is forced to try and make sense of the world mostly on his own.

Pelly’s tragic death and the disappearance of Noah’s father set off a series of events that lead to Noah’s mom and cousin moving to Toronto with Noah soon to follow. Noah’s mom Mina ends up working at, and then buying, the movie theater where she worked when she married his father – The Northern Lights of the book’s title. The married owner becomes infatuated with her and when rebuffed turns to drink and increasingly unstable behavior. This behavior causes him to lose, and Mina to acquire, the theater.

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Simon Scarrow’s fourth book in the Eagle’s Series, The Eagle and the Wolves, is an excellent story about the Roman Army when the Roman Empire was at its strongest, 1st Century AD. Scarrow does a superb job in bringing the characters to life.

Here is a summary from the book’s cover:

In the epic fourth novel of Simon Scarrow’s series, it’s ad 44 and Vespasian and the Roman Army’s Second Legion are forging ahead in their campaign to seize the southwest. Centurion Macro and newly appointed Centurion Cato are ordered by Vespasian to provide Verica, aged ruler of the Atrebates, with an army. They must train his tribal levies into a force that can protect him, enforce his rule, and take on the increasingly ambitious raids that the enemy is launching.
But open revolt is brewing. Despite the Atrebates’ official allegiance to Rome, many are wary of the legions and want to resist the Roman invaders, and Macro and Cato must first win the loyalty of the disgruntled levies before tackling the enemy without. Can they succeed while surviving a deadly plot to destroy both them and their comrades serving with the eagles? In the midst of this highly volatile situation, Macro and Cato face the greatest test of their army careers. Theirs is a brazen tale of military adventure, political intrigue, and heroism, as only they stand between the destiny of Rome and bloody defeat.

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Andrew Gross has had an interesting career path. After a successful career in the apparel industry Gross decided to try his hand at writing (he majored in English in college). His novel was rejected but an editor liked his writing enough to send it on to best selling author James Patterson. Patterson saw enough promise to contact Gross and offer him a chance to collaborate on a novel. They soon had a contract and were off and running. The resulting collaboration produced five number one New York Times bestsellers.

Building on this success, Gross decided to strike out on his own and was signed by William Morrow to a three book deal. The first of which, The Blue Zone, was recently released. Not having read any of his co-authored works – nor any James Patterson for that matter – I can’t really compare this solo effort with his previous work, but The Blue Zone is a solid thriller with plenty of twists and turns. While it didn’t quite strike me as the proverbial “Can’t put it down” type, it certainly shows enough promise to think Gross will do just fine flying solo.

The story centers around Kate Rabb, a medical researcher in the Bronx. Kate has what seems like the perfect life: a successful career, a loving family, and a wonderful husband. She is excited about the future. This all changes in an instant when her father is arrested on charges of laundering money for a Columbian drug cartel. Her seemingly perfect family’s life literally explodes during a burst if gunfire in what appears to be an attempt to kill them all by the Colombians.

This danger forces them into the witness protection program – all except Kate who decides she is unwilling to put her promising life on hold. But, as you might expect in a thriller, everything is not as it seems and one by one things begin to unravel. Her close friend and co-worker is nearly killed; her dad disappears from the witness protection program; a FBI agent assigned to her family is brutally murdered; and she finds some evidence that her family’s past is a lot more complicated than she has been led to believe.

Unsure of who to trust Kate soon strikes out on her own to try and get to the bottom of her father’s deception and the events that have turned her life upside down. As the violence around her escalates, Kate must decide who she can trust or she might lose her own life in the process.

Continue reading →

Andrew Gross has had an interesting career path. After a successful career in the apparel industry Gross decided to try his hand at writing (he majored in English in college). His novel was rejected but an editor liked his writing enough to send it on to best selling author James Patterson. Patterson saw enough promise to contact Gross and offer him a chance to collaborate on a novel. They soon had a contract and were off and running. The resulting collaboration produced five number one New York Times bestsellers.

Building on this success, Gross decided to strike out on his own and was signed by William Morrow to a three book deal. The first of which, The Blue Zone, was recently released. Not having read any of his co-authored works – nor any James Patterson for that matter – I can’t really compare this solo effort with his previous work, but The Blue Zone is a solid thriller with plenty of twists and turns. While it didn’t quite strike me as the proverbial “Can’t put it down” type, it certainly shows enough promise to think Gross will do just fine flying solo.

The story centers around Kate Rabb, a medical researcher in the Bronx. Kate has what seems like the perfect life: a successful career, a loving family, and a wonderful husband. She is excited about the future. This all changes in an instant when her father is arrested on charges of laundering money for a Columbian drug cartel. Her seemingly perfect family’s life literally explodes during a burst if gunfire in what appears to be an attempt to kill them all by the Colombians.

This danger forces them into the witness protection program – all except Kate who decides she is unwilling to put her promising life on hold. But, as you might expect in a thriller, everything is not as it seems and one by one things begin to unravel. Her close friend and co-worker is nearly killed; her dad disappears from the witness protection program; a FBI agent assigned to her family is brutally murdered; and she finds some evidence that her family’s past is a lot more complicated than she has been led to believe.

Unsure of who to trust Kate soon strikes out on her own to try and get to the bottom of her father’s deception and the events that have turned her life upside down. As the violence around her escalates, Kate must decide who she can trust or she might lose her own life in the process.

Continue reading →

The Normandy Campaign by Victor Brooks is an excellent short history of one of the most pivotal military campaigns in history. Brooks succinctly describes the main characters and events of this momentous event.

The book more or less goes in chronological order from the Allies’ first inklings of an invasion of mainland Europe to the eventual capture of Paris. It describes the painstaking preparations for gathering the mountains of supplies for the invasion and the efforts the Allies made in trying to deceive the Germans where the actual landing was going to occur (including creating a false Army under the command of General George Patton).

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