The Paris Architect

Author Charles Belfoure is a real live architect so his perspective on German-occupied Paris during the early 1940's reflects his passion for the buildings and the structure of the city itself. Lucien, a struggling architect who sat out France's defense at the Maginot Line, which the Germans adroitly circumvented, does not consider himself to be a brave man or a fool. And only one or the other would choose to have anything to do with Jews at this point in time when the Gestapo are relentlessly hunting them down and shooting anyone who even lives in the same building as a Jew. When Manet, an aristocrat turned industrialist, comes to Lucien asking him to devise a hiding place that can't be found by the Gestapo, Lucien turns him down flat.  Manet, however, promises not only a sizable sum of money, but the opportunity to build his next big factory, which at this time in the war, would be providing armaments for the Germans. Lucien is a modernist, a fan of Gropius and the Bauhaus movement, hence much reviled in a city that reveres classic architecture. He agrees more out of a desire to get his big break and do something that will demonstrate his talent, although the money does allow him to buy scarce food on the black market. Swearing each time that it will be his last, Lucien continues to build cleverly disguised hiding places, outwitting the Gestapo, and so becoming their target. With his marriage already on the rocks, Lucien's wife leaves him, accusing him of being a collaborator--an architect who has sold his soul to the devil. His denial and revelation that he has been helping hide Jews only adds to her scorn. Even Lucien's beautiful mistress, Adele, has abandoned him in favor of a powerful member of the Gestapo who can get scarce fabrics to supply her fashion design business. Because of Lucien's activities, a Catholic priest who has been aiding Jewish children, brings a boy to him, ostensibly for a short time, but the priest is captured and disappears forever into Gestapo headquarters.  Lucien finds he likes being a surrogate father for Pierre. Bette, Adele's second in command, it turns out, is also hiding Jewish children, and when Lucien designs a hiding place in her apartment that saves their lives, she falls fully in love with him. As the noose draws tighter, Lucien's unlikely friendship with a German engineer buys him the resources to escape across the Swiss border with Bette and the 3 children. I thought the writing at times was a bit clunky, and the ending way too tidy, although goodness knows there was plenty of torture and violence prior to this. The book is most interesting for its portrayal of neighbor turning against neighbor when fear is expertly manipulated. There is a map in the front material so you can follow the action through the streets of Paris.

The Cuckoo's Calling

Robert Galbraith--apparently a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling--has written a private eye story with a somewhat curmudgeonly protagonist, Cormoran Strike. Cormoran is the illegitimate son of a famous rock star, for all the good it's done him. His mother died of a drug overdose and Cormoran isn't entirely sure it was accidental as ruled at the inquest. That might fuel his willingness to take on re-investigating the apparent suicide of mixed race beauty and super-model, Lula Landry, known as Cuckoo by one of her closest friends. Lula's brother, John Bristow (Lula was adopted into a wealthy family as a baby), hires Strike, ostensibly because he believes Lula was murdered. Strike is a veteran of the Afghan wars where he lost a leg. And now he has had a royal bust-up with on-again, off-again girlfriend, Charlotte, and is living on a camp cot in his rather dismal office. When a temporary receptionist shows up on Monday morning, Strike tries to send her away, but Robin has always secretly harbored a wish to be a PI and she won't leave, even though her fiancé is not happy about this assignment.
Strike sets out to interview anyone who knew Lula, which is often harder than it should be as people are hard to find or reluctant to talk. When one of Lula's stranger companions, a down and out young woman Lula once met in drug rehab, is found drowned in the Thames, Strike is more convinced than ever that Lula was murdered and now he has a good idea who the killer is. But convincing the police to take action before another murder occurs, especially after they have already ruled this a suicide, is an uphill battle, and Strike finally resorts to making himself the bait in a deadly game of cat and mouse. This is a sometimes slow moving book, and if you are expecting something like Harry Potter, you will surely be disappointed. But the characters are complex and competently drawn. The writing is visual and authentic and will certainly satisfy lovers of the genre who come with no preconceptions.

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Quite unlike me to read two non-fiction books in a row, but this book by Scott Anderson received excellent reviews, including in the NYT Sunday Book Review. It is a fascinating story about four players in the Middle Eastern theatre of WWI, although mostly focused on T.E. Lawrence. The others were: the American  William Yale (yes THAT Yale family) who was manipulating events to get oil concessions for Standard Oil; Aaron Aaronsohn, a Jewish agronomist, who occasionally worked for the Turkish government, but whose driving goal was a homeland for the Jews--to which end he set up a Jewish spy ring informing the British; and Kurt Prüfer, German spymaster. Lawrence is a particularly complex character and yet seemingly the only one of the four who had any significant degree of understanding of and empathy for the native peoples of the region. The countries involved in this war, and those who made the big decisions, are shown as largely either clueless, incompetent, egomaniacal, racist, classist, self-serving or all of the above. Working for British intelligence services in Cairo, Lawrence repeatedly tried to guide war efforts to maximize on resources on the ground, and minimize losses. He was continually ignored. Gallipoli is one astounding example of total and continuing military incompetence that cost nearly half a million lives. Finally Lawrence began ignoring orders more blatantly, revealing secret information to his Arab allies about the Entente's multiple acts of deceit. He worked with the Arab approach to fighting to eventually become one of the most devastating destructive forces against the Ottoman Empire and the Central Powers in that part of the world. By many of the higher ups in the British military and government, however, Lawrence was never seen as more than an insubordinate meddler. 

I actually had to return the book or face a fine but will recheck it to finish the last few chapters I missed. Whether or not you are a history buff, this book is worth reading to increase one's understanding of how the rest of the world (Europe, England, Russia, the U.S.) has been, for the last 100 years, mucking around with the Middle East . No wonder they distrust, dislike, and even hate us; we have never acted in their interest, only for our own. I consider it a gross oversight on Anderson's part not to have had any discussion of Gertrude Bell, who was also a major player in the Middle East around this time, and had dealings with Lawrence.

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

David Quammen is a fine science writer and, in this book, has done absolutely heroic feats of research in order to discuss zoonotic diseases and the possibility of the next big outbreak or pandemic. Opportunity is the key. Many viruses and bacteria have evolved to live in their animal hosts without harm or mortal danger, but when humans push into the environments where these hosts live, they become opportunistic new hosts and the consequences are often not so benign.
Quammen provides both historical and current facts about many of the major outbreaks we have seen and heard so much about in the media (SARS, bird flu, etc). He interviews experts and often accompanies them into essentially "hot zones" where outbreaks are current or have recently occurred. For six years he traveled from Australia to China, to India, to Bangladesh, to many parts of Africa--all to talk to the people in the field trying to find out where these potential killers live and how they are passed to humans. In only one instance does this book, in my opinion, falter. He tells a possible but totally fictionalized tale about one fisherman to speculate on how the AIDS virus moved from remote African villages to more populous towns. What is most astounding in this section on HIV/AIDS is the current theory that the virus spread to pandemic levels because of well-intentioned, but unsanitary innoculation campaigns in the early to mid-1900's. Really a fascinating book and worth the read.

End Games

Anyone who watched the 3-episode BBC production of "Zen" starring Rufus Sewell will know why I felt compelled to grab this book from the shelf in a used book store. English born author Michael Dibdin wrote 11 novels starring Venetian detective Aurelio Zen and this was his last, published posthumously, as Dibdin died in 2007 in Seattle. Aurelio is that rare breed of detective who has not been corrupted by the system and seeks to find the guilty party, regardless of where it leads. His lack of political survival instinct means that, in this novel, he has been shunted off to serve as acting chief of police in the remote town of Calabria in southern Italy until the incumbent recovers from an accidental and self-imposed gunshot wound.
An American, who it turns out was actually born to a wealthy Calabrian family, is beheaded in gruesome fashion and the locals are keeping mute about what they know. Ostensibly an advance agent for a film company seeking a shooting locale, the dead man's murder was a mistake. The film company isn't really looking for good scenery but for buried treasure, and the deceased wasn't really the heir of the despised landowners. But everybody has something at stake and everyone is lying to Zen. He has to wade through distrust of the police, greed, and pure drug-fueled craziness to sort this one out.
The characters are superbly rendered, the setting is richly if unsentimentally placed at our feet, and the obstacles are all too believable. I feel inspired to revisit the BBC series and find the rest of the books to read.

Mink River

I won't pretend to be as talented as author Brian Doyle, but to give you a flavor of the book, I will alter my approach a bit. Lyrical. Tedious. Microscopic view. Unusual perspectives. Enticing. Provocative. Occasionally exhausting. Dense. Beautiful. Whimsical. Philosophical. Magical. Heartbreaking. Satisfying. Rich. Consume in small doses. Braided.
Characters primarily reflect either First Nations heritage (No Horses, Worried Man, Cedar, Maple Head) or Irish (Owen, Declan, Grace, Red Hugh). A coastal town in the Pacific Northwest where fishing and logging are in rapid decline. Every being has a story, including Moses the crow, whose caretaker, a nun, dies early on. Every being tells their own story, including the river. People are compassionate, evil, wise, a little mad, foolish--but ultimately engaging each and every one. The Department of Public Works is run by Cedar and Worried Man who have taken the department's role to new heights--now being concerned with the well-being of all people and places in the town. There are simply too many stories that weave in and out to try and summarize. So read it for yourself.

We have Always Lived in the Castle

Some time back, some person put arsenic in the sugar bowl at dinner and now the whole family is dead except for Uncle Julian, an invalid, who eats very little sugar; Constance, who eats no sugar; and Mary Katherine (aka Merricat), who was sent to her room without supper for misbehaving that fateful night. Constance was the one who was tried for the multiple murders, but she was not convicted. Now the three of them continue to live in the family home, shut away from the resentful and mean-spirited villagers except for Merricat's twice weekly trip to the grocery store. The other wealthy families--for they had money and live in a mansion--occasionally come to call, but otherwise, they are totally isolated. When Cousin Charles shows up, the balance--such as it is--is upset and things begin to go quickly awry. A fire is started by someone in the house, then the fire department puts it out. But the villagers take the opportunity to rampage through the house breaking everything they find. Uncle Julian dies of a heart attack in the melee. Only Constance and Merricat are left. What are they to do?  One of the survivors is the poisoner, but the two nevertheless vow to go on. A totally strange book by Shirley Jackson, who also wrote The Haunting of Hill House. Apparently this has also been performed on stage.

The Bookman's Tale

This novel by Charlie Lovett starts with a mystery and escalates into a thriller. Antiquarian book dealer Peter Byerly has recently lost his beloved wife Amanda to brain cancer. With her, it also feels he has lost his interest in everything else. The book alternates between three time periods and perspectives: the early history of a particular book, the Pandosto, which runs from Shakespeare's time up until present day England; the mid-1980's when Peter met Amanda at college and their subsequent five years of marriage, mostly in America; and present day (mid-1990's) in England. Peter wanders into a used book store and finds tucked into a book a watercolor painting that so eerily resembles his dead wife, he becomes obsessed with finding out who painted it and who the subject of the painting was. In the process he hooks up with Victorian art expert, Liz, and starts to uncover an elaborate plot fueled by generations of enmity between the two families, the Gardners and the Aldersons. At the heart of this story is a book, Pandosto, with margin notes that, if genuine, could settle once and for all whether or not Shakespeare was the real author of all those famous plays. Well written with a great storyline and well-developed characters. A little bit of supernatural in the form of Amanda's ghost keeping an eye on Peter. Well worth the read, especially for those interested in book collecting, Shakespeare, or English literary history in general. A good amount of research went into making this historically accurate--up to a point--which is all summarized in the "Author's Note" at the end.

In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods

I did not finish this book by Matt Bell. I would characterize it as magical realism, not a favorite genre of mine to start with, but again I was enticed by glowing reviews. There is too much despair, too little storyline for me here. The description is well crafted. A man and a woman marry, move away from their family and friends to an isolated plot of land. He builds a house and they try to start a family. But time after time, she miscarries. Eventually, her ability to sing things into existence is put to full use as she creates a child. But he knows of the deception--that this being is not the result of their physical union and he begins to destroy the natural world around them while she places a threatening 2nd moon in the sky above. You can read more extended reviews in the New York Times, and at NPR, among others.

How the Light Gets In

After the ending of The Beautiful Mystery, it was ALL I could do not to turn to the last page and see how this installment of the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny was going to turn out. But I resisted.  And she kept me on the edge of my seat (figuratively speaking since I mostly read in bed before going to sleep) the entire time, uncertain as to whether Gamache would emerge victorious or go down in flames. The situation looks dire. Francoeur has dismantled the homicide division that Gamache worked for decades to build and has installed every ne'er do well he can round up from the Surete to undermine Gamache's credibility and effectiveness. Although there is a murder mystery that threads through the book, involving the death of the last of a world famous set of quintuplets, the real story here has to do with what evil plot Francoeur is hatching and why it involves destroying both Gamache and Jean-Guy. A former member of Gamache's team, Yvette Nichol, makes a reappearance, and Isabel Lacoste helps hold the whole thing together as Gamache pursues a deadly strategy of deception and double-cross with Francoeur and his minions.  For me, much of the tension came from the apparent contrast between Gamache's integrity and honesty, and how such a person could possibly go up against people who are incredibly dishonest and destructive.
As with previous installments, the town of Three Pines with the attendant cast of characters--including Rosa the duck--provides not only a compelling setting but its own distinctive emotional color as events unfold. There's not a wasted word, not a superfluous character, and this one kept me up nights, drawn on by the lovely prose, the characters that you want to meet on the street, and the compulsion to find out what is going on. If you haven't read the previous books in the series, do yourself a favor and start from the beginning rather than diving in with this one. When I finished, it made me want to go back and re-read the whole series!