Our Woman in Moscow

I enjoyed this book by Beatriz Williams more than some others I have read lately.  I like good historical fiction and this book is centered on the period of the Cold War (1952) with some flashbacks to the summer of 1940 in Rome just as war was engulfing Europe and to 1948 in Great Britain. Ruth and Iris Macallister are twin sisters but couldn't be more different. Ruth is confident and brash, Iris is timid and unassuming. They go for an extended stay in Rome, where their brother is working at the American embassy. When a colleague of their brother's, who  also  works at the embassy, starts paying attention to Iris, she is swept off her feet; Ruth disapproves of the relationship. As the war draws closer, Ruth returns to America, but Iris stays behind with her lover, Sasha Digby. Ruth and Iris fall out of touch. Years later, Iris, Sasha and their children disappear from London and the suspicion is that they have defected to Russia. Readers have known all along that Sasha was passing information along to the Communists. After over 12 years of no contact, Ruth receives a postcard from Iris asking Ruth to come to Moscow to support Iris during a difficult pregnancy and, of course, Ruth will still do anything to help her sister. Then Ruth is contacted by an FBI agent, Sumner Fox, who wants to join her --ostensibly as her husband--to try and get the Digbys out of Russia; an agent from the KGB is equally determined to see that doesn't happen. Quite a good thriller and I didn't see the ending coming. Reviews available from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, and a lengthier review in The Star Tribune.

Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered

Admittedly an intriguing title, I picked up this book based on a recommendation from a friend, but couldn't persist after about 100 pages. It's written by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, who are co-hosts of the podcast "My Favorite Murder!" Part memoir and part advice column, the book shares stories from their own backgrounds, "their biggest mistakes and deepest fears, reflecting on the formative life events that shaped them" and also "focus[es] on the importance of self-advocating and valuing personal safety over being 'nice' or 'helpful'"(from the publisher).  Of course they bring in stories of true crimes since that's what their podcast is all about. As Publishers' Weekly notes, "The genres of true crime and self-help might seem like odd bedfellows, but Kilgariff and Hardstark... create a winningly quirky amalgamation of the two."

Kill All Your Darlings

I don't believe I have read any of David Bell's other books, and I had a bit of a hard time getting started on this one. The storyline is conveyed through 3 different narrators: Connor Nye, who recently lost his wife and teenage son in a freak boating accident;Madeline O'Brien, a former student of Connor's who disappeared 2 years ago and has now reappeared in town; and Rebecca Knox, another undergraduate student. Connor was distraught and dysfunctional after losing his family. His work suffered and he hasn't written anything in years. He is up for tenure in the English department of a small town college and desperately needs to publish. The police and everyone else presume that Madeline is probably dead, and Connor takes the desperate measure of revising her thesis submission and submitting it for publication. Amazingly, the thriller is picked up and published. That's when Madeline reappears. Of course, it it's revealed that he plagiarized the book Connor will lose his job as well as the money paid to him by the publisher--which he's already spent. But more problematic is that the description of a murder in the book mirrors an actual murder that took place shortly before Madeline disappeared, and the details lead the local police to suspect Connor might be the killer. The murdered woman was a friend of Madeline's. Connor needs to clear his name somehow and find a way to pay Madeline off so she doesn't reveal what he's done.

I found it a little distracting that the book is constantly shifting back and forth between the present day and the events leading up to the murder and to Madeline's disappearance. Connor seems more a pathetic character than a sympathetic one. Madeline is actually the one I felt more compassion for. Rebecca seems not fully developed even though she plays a key role in moving the plot forward.  Review from Publishers' Weekly. 

The Maidens

I read Alex Michaelides previous book, The Silent Patient, and was sufficiently impressed to look forward to this one.  Publishers' Weekly offers a favorable review and does a good job of summarizing the storyline so I provide it here. "London psychotherapist Mariana Andros, the protagonist of this stunning psychological thriller from Michaelides (The Silent Patient), suspends her patients' group therapy to rush to Cambridge University to comfort her niece, Zoe, whose best friend, Tara Hampton, has been murdered. Mariana soon focuses on the charming, handsome Edward Fosca, a Greek tragedy professor who has assembled a secret society of female students known as the Maidens that included Tara. Mariana's obsession to prove Edward guilty of murder is tinged with her all-consuming grief over the death of her husband, Sebastian, a year before, and her protectiveness of Zoe, whom she raised after the young woman's parents died. Her investigation intensifies when two more of the Maidens are murdered, but the police and Zoe dismiss her theories. The intelligent, cerebral plot finds contemporary parallels in Euripides's tragedies, Jacobean dramas such as The Duchess of Malfi, and Tennyson's poetry. The devastating ending shows just how little the troubled Mariana knows about the human psyche or herself. Michaelides is on a roll."

I would agree with Maureen Corrigan's criticisms in The Washington Post: "But Michaelides’s plot begins to go off the rails when a graduate student in mathematics falls instantly in love with Mariana and proposes soon thereafter. Credibility is further strained by Chief Inspector Sangha, who’s in charge of the investigation, a man with “a lean and hungry look” who treats Mariana with instant (and unexplained) disdain. The novel’s credibility fully disintegrates at a memorial service held in the college chapel for the first victim. There, Professor Fosca and “The Maidens” process in and no one in attendance — university administrators, parents or students — places a red-alert call to authorities from the Sexual Misconduct Review Board." Likewise, Kirkus is not favorable in their review: "With its ambience of ritualistic murders, ancient myths, and the venerable college, the story is a gothic thriller despite its contemporary setting. That makes Mariana tough to get on board with—she behaves less like a modern professional woman than a 19th-century gothic heroine, a clueless woman who can be counted on in any situation to make the worst possible choice. And the book’s ending, while surprising, also feels unearned, like a bolt from the blue hurled by some demigod. Eerie atmosphere isn’t enough to overcome an unsatisfying plot and sometimes-exasperating protagonist."

The Cipher

Author Isabella Maldonado had an extensive career in law enforcement that certainly adds credibility to her stories; she rose through the ranks to retire as a police captain after two decades and also graduated from the rigorous FBI Academy at Quantico. Her main character, FBI special agent Nina Guerrera, was abandoned as an infant and suffered the worst the foster care system had to offer before running away for good at the age of 16. She was subsequently kidnapped, tortured and raped but managed to escape, change her name, and finally become an FBI agent. Her abductor was never found. When she is captured on video defeating two would-be attackers during her morning run, it goes viral and her former nemesis finds her. He decides to use social media to bait and harass her while continuing to carry out a string of murders. She is brought into a team on the Behavioral Analysis Unit along with two profilers and a techy. Eventually she learns that she no longer has to fight her battles alone.  Short reviews from Kirkus and Publishers' Weekly.

The Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

Written by former war correspondent and journalist, Sebastian Junger, this is a short book about the importance of community in the human experience. He delves into a number of historic examples to show that humans innately respond to evolutionary foundations required for preservation of their tribe.  This is a short but wide-ranging book that looks at history, psychology and anthropology. When we are distanced from one another by the relative safety and abundance of modern life, we actually suffer higher rates of mental illness (depression) and suicide. Those problems often disappear during times of crisis or following natural disasters. But this is only true when those events have a leveling effect and when there is a sense of shared purpose. "Disasters create a 'community of sufferers' that allows individuals to experience an immensely reassuring connection to others (p. 53)...individuals are assessed simply by what they are willing to do for the group" (p. 54).

"...radically divergent priorities that a society must have during peacetime and during war. Because modern society often fights wars far away from the civilian population, soldiers wind up being the only people who have to switch back and forth" (p. 78). Soldiers' experiences range from the best of times to the worst of times (p.81) and they often find returning to peace time society imposes a loss of comradeship and meaning.  He talks at length about PTSD, especially among soldiers, but also compares it to the PTSD experienced by non-combatants, such as rape victims. 

American society has low social resilience which requires egalitarian wealth distribution and resource sharing."Earliest and most basic definition of community--or tribe--would be the group of people that you would both help feed and defend." We are a country at war with itself. The most alarming rhetoric comes out in disputes between liberals and conservatives. Junger contends they are both right, i.e., they both stand upon evolutionary principles of survival. Conservatives believe that free loaders are not to be tolerated and Liberals believe in a culture of compassion for the less fortunate. To me, the question that remains is 'Why do some people gravitate to focus on one or the other of these values?'

"As modern society reduced the role of community, it simultaneously elevated the role of authority" (p. 25). "If you want to make a society work, then you don't keep underscoring where you're different--you underscore your shared humanity" (p. 127).  Why isn't this working now during the pandemic and the increasing disasters exacerbated by climate change? The pandemic has not served as a societal leveler as do natural disasters, rather it has highlighted the gaps between rich and poor. 

This book offers some answers to pressing questions but also leaves many unanswered; it's a quick worthwhile read and will no doubt generate good discussion in my upcoming book group meeting. 

Reviews from: The New York Times, Kirkus, and The Guardian are worth reading also.

Lady Clementine

 Marie Benedict writes about amazing women who have received little attention in history. Kirkus calls it a "rousing tale of ambition and love," and the ambition is not just on the part of Winston. Drawn together at a very fundamental level by their childhoods that were devoid of significant affection, Clemmie and Winston--or Cat and Pug as they affectionately called each other--form a bond so strong that it cannot be sundered by wars, flirtatious women or even the death of a daughter. Based on a voluminous correspondence between the two that was kept and published by their daughter, it is clear that Winston could not have succeeded without Clementine, and Clementine would have withered under the strictures imposed on women at the time without the dramatic stage of Winston's political career. Booklist summarizes the story this way: "Beginning on Clementine's wedding day in 1909 and tracing key events in her life for the next 35 years, the book focuses on Clementine's struggle to be both an emotional and intellectual support to her demanding husband, her mixed feelings about motherhood, and her own strongly held political beliefs, which she was often forced to sideline in service of her husband's ambition."

She supported Winston absolutely although she frequently reined in his harsh attacks on those who worked with him, offered advice that he would hear only from her, and often helped rewrite his speeches. She felt she was an inadequate mother, but she took up the cause of women and children with a vengeance, and was solely responsible for improving the conditions in air raid shelters. She talked to the people who were harmed by the war and carried their concerns to the top levels of government. She had her own struggles with depression as well as disapproval from family members and officials surrounding Churchill for the active role she took in political and government affairs. Having read two books about Churchill (The Splendid and the Vile and Hero of the Empire), this book offered a very different perspective on Churchill that painted him as a flawed human who thought himself destined for great things. Clementine helped hide the flaws and achieve his destiny. 

Publishers Weekly praised Benedict's novel: "Accurate era descriptions add to the realism of the story, and Benedict reveals the connection between Clementine's grounded energy and her thoughtful influence throughout times of war and peace."

The Forest of Vanishing Stars

This fictionalized account of actual events by Kristin Harmel is beautifully written but disturbing on a content level. There are extensive author notes about groups of Jews who escaped the German ghettos in Poland and hid in the Polish forests for the duration of the war. They were constantly hunted and, therefore, constantly moving. "More than 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland on the eve of WW II--more than any other country in Europe....they made up 10 percent of Poland's population, the highest percentage of Jews anywhere in Europe...between 2.8 million and 3 million Polish Jews were murdered during the war. That's somewhere between 84 percent and 91 percent of the entire Jewish population of the country....Jewish casualties in Poland far outweighed those in any other country during the war..." ( p. 361). Those who survived were the inspiration for this story.

When she was only 2 years old, Inge Jüttner was kidnapped from her parents' home in Berlin and taken to live with a woman in the Nalibocka Forest. They lived off what they could hunt and gather and moved on a regular basis. Inge became Yona--a reference to the dove shaped birthmark on her wrist--and was educated through stolen books and survival experiences. She knew lots of information and she knew how to keep herself alive, even if it meant killing someone else, but she knew little of how humans interact. When her kidnapper/mentor died, Yona was in her 20's and had never been around others until she encountered a small family of escaped Jews in the forest. She saved their lives, but the wife's distrust of Yona was so great that they separated and were captured and killed. When Yona net the next and larger group of escapees, she was determined to keep them alive. And she did. She also learned about heartbreak when the head of the group partnered with her and then got involved with another woman. Yona left and went to a village where she encountered a group of nuns who were trying to prevent a massacre of the town's citizens by offering themselves as sacrifices. Yona also encounters her father, who is now a high ranking officer in the German army. When she realizes she cannot change him, she returns to her adopted family in the forest.

This was a book that taught me about a part of Jewish experience during the war with which I was totally unfamiliar. Author Harmel also researched what would be required to survive hidden in the forest, especially during the bitter winters, so this was also educational. I never cease to be amazed at man's inhumanity to their fellow humans and I strongly felt that we are headed that way again--vilifying anyone we can label as other, not just in this country, but globally. I despair that humankind will ever truly evolve on this emotional level before we wipe each other out.

Positive reviews from Publishers' Weekly.