Book Review: The Guards, By Ken Bruen

Over the years, I’ve created a formula for choosing a book for a summer vacation: Fiction, involves crime, and light enough to go with beer consumption. With this in mind I went with an Irish noir called: The Guards, by Ken Bruen.

I had never read a Bruen before but I love noir, and thought the Irish would have a good take on it. It did not disappoint. It was bleak, and hilarious; pithy, and poetic.

Jack Taylor is an ex-policeman, of the Irish Garda (Guards) the national force. He was fired for drinking and pissing off the wrong people. (He knew he was in trouble when the chief was giving him the: "Every man likes a pint every now and then but..." speech.) Now his job is finding things:

There are no private eyes in Ireland. The Irish wouldn’t wear it. The concept brushes perilously close to the hated “informer”. You can get away with most anything except “telling”.

What I began to do was find things…...

A woman whose daughter allegedly committed suicide, hires him look into the real reason for her death.

Doesn’t sound very funny does it? The case almost takes the back burner as Taylor narrates us through his drinking binges, his hatred of his mother, his failed relationships with women, his lack of money and his sordid friends. He begins the morning at the pub, where his “coffee” is topped up with Jameson’s. It’s like a very good Irish story teller at a local pub who you’re happy to listen to. He’s got his opinions on books, alcohol brands, music, the church, history, and of course the Irish. It’s charming and grim all at the same time. If you were a bar fly, he would be your best buddy.

Between blackouts, hospitalizations and hangovers, he actually works on the case, with the help of his dodgy friend Sutton. (Sutton has a murky past, probably ex-IRA and has killed people.) Taylor is a drunk and an amateur, and things often don’t go well. I would spoil it by describing some of the foul ups and surprises, but I can say it's laugh out loud funny. (If you like dark humor.)

I enjoyed Bruen's interesting chapter headings. It could be a title, a book or movie quote, or blankness. Sometimes even a bit of poetry like this:

… so smug believed-that desolation
had the limits full explored

I’m not much of a poetry guy, but that one stopped me in my tracks. The Black Irish blood in me can appreciate that sentiment.

If you like noir, and you get a kick out of Irish lyricism, you cannot go wrong with The Guards. Bruen has a series of Jack Taylor novels that I will explore further.

Book Review: American Tabloid by James Ellroy

I came across James Ellroy by chance several years ago. I was on my way to a beach holiday and needed reading material. The movie LA Confidential was out in theatres. Somebody had recommended that I see it, knowing that I loved Raymond Chandler and the noir genre. At the bookstore, I saw the 500 page paperback, that the movie was based on and I had never heard of the author. I bought it, thinking it might be something I would enjoy. Later, sipping a few beers on the beach, I realized I had something better, much better, than Chandler. I was enraptured. I became a huge Ellroy fan and have since read every book he has published.

Blood's A Rover the long awaited third and final book of James Ellroy’s Underworld Trilogy is due out this year. Eager with anticipation, I decided to re-read American Tabloid, the first of the series.

Here’s some of the things we know about the late 50’s, early 60’s America: There was extreme corruption involving the mafia, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, the CIA lead invasion of the Bay of Pigs, Las Vegas casinos, mob electioneering for JFK in the 1960 election, and Jimmy Hoffa’s oversight of the Teamster’s Pension Fund, to name a few. Also you had a reckless president who had liaisons with countless number of women of questionable backgrounds, and whose brother, Bobby was Attorney General of the US and was bent on going after mafia kingpins. In Los Angeles, lived the world’s richest man: the drug addicted, hermit Howard Hughes and everybody wanted a piece of his money. Rich material you would think? What writer would have the nerve to tackle it, and thread it all together as historical fiction? Ellroy steps up to the plate in American Tabloid and hits the ball over the fence and out of the stadium itself. This is a brilliant and enjoyable novel.

As Ellroy stated, in an interview about his work:

I like the idea that there is this human infrastructure to American history, and that lots of big historical events couldn’t have happened without these leg-breakers that I write about doing violent things in the background. That’s what I set out to write—the stories of the men and women behind the scenes who did the dirty work of American power.

The main characters are the leg breakers. Pete Bondurant: Physically massive, French-Canadian born, ex-US marine, ex-cop, dope runner, extortionist, black-mailer, paid hit-man. (Big Pete also appears in two other Ellroy novels, and I feel like I personally know him. He’s a good friend of mine and I root for him with all my heart, even though, you know, he’s a murderer. I’ve heard that the rights of the book have been sold as a potential HBO mini series, funded by Tom Hanks’ group. If so, for the love of God, cast the right person for Pete.) The other main characters are: Kemper Boyd, Yale educated, FBI lawyer spying on the Kennedys for Hoover. Ward Littlel, educated by the Jesuits, FBI black-bag man, determined to do real police work for justice but comes up against the cynical Hoover and his own crushing alcoholism.

Playboy Magazine ranked American Tabloid as a top twenty Book that Every Guy Should Read. Meaning there is violence, politically incorrect humor, gangsters, politics, war, hookers, drugs, booze, gambling, guns, tabloid press, etc. etc. Indeed it is great that way. However, do not underestimate it as mere pulp, this is a work of intricate genius. The events, and the legends of the day populate the plot: Hoover, Hoffa, Hughes, the Kennedys, Sam Giancanna, Frank Sinatra, Fidel Castro, Santo Trafficante.

I highly recommend this to read. Or, if you want to get started on Ellroy, you can start with his brilliant LA Quartet: The Black Dahlia, White Jazz: A Novel, L.A. Confidential, The Big Nowhere. All four are fantastic. There is no living writer that I enjoy more than him.

The Afghan Campaign, A Novel By Steven Pressfield

After writing his novel, The Virtues of War, A Novel of Alexander the Great, Steven Pressfield decided to devote a new novel entirely to Alexander’s Afghan campaign 330-327 BC. (The Afghan Campaign, a Novel.) Unlike Virtues, we get the view from a regular serving soldier. It is meticulously researched, and you have the aid of maps at the front of the book to follow the action. With the NATO mission in Afghanistan going on in the present day, it is a timely read.

The narrator is Matthias, a Macedonian “scuff” who enlists into Alexander’s force after the glorious victories in Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia. This would not be the first war book, that features a character that has romantic notions of military service who gets disillusioned by the harsh realities. However, it is done well. The Macedonian, hence Greek view of war is one of honor. A pitched battle, despite the horrors, and violence is respectable. But for Matthias, the guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan is not this type of warfare. Mentally he is ill prepared for it.

I remember reading an article in 2001 before the US invasion of Afghanistan and they quoted an ex-Soviet general on his strategy for fighting there. He said “Lots of napalm.” The Soviets were in the exterminating business and saw that as the way to beat the insurgency.

So it goes with Alexander’s army of spears and swords. The enemy refuses to fight in the open and patiently retreats into the badlands, circling and waiting for a time to ambush. When they leave, almost by nature the locals engage in trade and are employed by the invading army. If it is not the opportunity to strike, they will cooperate. This confounds Alexander, because it is almost impossible to “win and secure” an area because the locals will turn coat on you as soon as it’s convenient. Hence, slaughter becomes the strategy.

Still green, Matthias and his team are ordered to execute some treacherous villagers. With no kills under his belt, as his colleagues hold down a grey haired old man, he is ordered gut him with a sword. Physically his body won’t let him do it and he botches the job. His squeamishness doesn’t last long when they discover mutilated, tortured, and burned bodies of Greek soldiers soon afterwards. (I won’t get graphic here, you can read that detail in the book.) The slaughter was perpetrated by women and children villagers. After that he kills willingly, aided by poppy seed chew and alcohol.

Guerrillas are caught and executed.

We kick down their gates and drag them into the dark. Orders have been issued not to put captives to the sword in front of their women. Better to haul them off into the desert, leaving their ends unknown; this produces a more abiding terror because of the natives’ belief in djinns and demons. The scent of blood draws wolves, who scavenge the corpses. The packs learn to follow us. Their yellow eyes glitter in the torchlight. They cannot be driven off, even when pelted by stones.

Matthius saves an Afghan girl from slavery, and from being beaten to death. He’s shocked to find out, rather than being grateful, her family wants her put to death in their twisted honor/shame code. This is an example of what the Afghans call A’shaara and it baffles the Macedonian occupier’s sensibility.

Alexander’s strategy is to co-opt as many Afghans as possible into his fighting force. It proves difficult, as observed with a new cavalry unit:

I am learning the Afghan mind and the tribal manner of expressing a thought. The brothers don’t mean their horses won’t let them. They mean their hearts won’t. Fighting Macedonian-style, as a unit, is unmanly in Afghan eyes. It lacks honor. It is effeminate. For the tribesmen of the steppe the object of battle is to count coup, to distinguish himself in the eyes of his fellows. The Daans have a phrase, ‘to kiss the mouth of death.” This is their warrior ideal. You cannot kiss the mouth of death except as an individual. So they won’t fight in wedges. They won’t charge boot to boot.

Ultimately this book is a gripping adventure. There are many counter-insurgency missions that keep you turning the pages. The locale is as terrifying as the locals: Huge mountains; snow squalls; and hot, ochre colored, barren deserts. Pressfield aims for realism, this is not a comic book. The hopelessness, and psychological pressure weigh on the reader.

Book Review: Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan

I was 10 years old when President Reagan took office and 18 when he left. At that age I was influenced by pop culture not newspapers. Hence, Reagan was presented as a senile, war monger, harebrained ex-actor. Frankie Goes to Hollywood videos, 99 Luftballons, Land Of Confusion, the TV movie The Day After. Mushroom cloud imagery invaded my thoughts regularly. The term “Reaganomics” to me meant poor people cut off from lifesaving welfare funds. It was nonsense of course. The entertainment industry is overwhelmingly left wing. Their propaganda worked though, I was shocked when he was re-elected in a landslide in 1984. I thought everybody hated him. Since then I have read a few books. David Stockwell’s The Triumph of Politics. It detailed Stockman’s time as head of the budget office, and how necessary spending cuts were virtually impossible when you’re trying to get elected. Also, The Power Game: How Washington Works by Hedrik Smith. This was an inside view of the process of what it takes to pass legislation during the Reagan years. Lobbyists, military bureaucracy, congress, the executive branch. It’s a miracle anything got done; what did was not done well.

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So, even though I lean to the right, I’ve never had a great opinion of Reagan.

Recently I was visiting family in Ottawa and my father-in-law lent me Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. (Read the blurb, there’s no point of recycling it.) I knew that there something controversial about this book. It was love-it or hate-it among critics. I found out why very quickly. For his early years, author Edmund Morris creates a fictional, Illinois born narrator who witnesses Reagan first hand after meeting him at Eureka College. It’s a stretch, and very annoying at first. I was close to putting it down. But Morris is a gifted writer, and Reagan’s life from small town nothingness, to sportscaster, to Hollywood leading man and then on to General Electric spokesman and of course to politician, is too difficult to resist and I was compelled to keep going through the whole thing. (874 pages, including extensive notes and an index.)

Hollywood was as shallow back then as it is now. Reagan had one chance, one tryout, when he was down in Los Angeles covering spring training for his broadcasting gig. He got up, read from a sheet of paper for two minutes and that was enough. He was a good looking guy, with big shoulders and a great voice. He was signed by Warner Brothers for a long term contract a few days later. No Juilliard, no Actor’s Studio. (I’ve spent some time with a few actors in my day and that’s my way of saying “stuff your pretention”.)

Reagan’s first wife was street-wise actress/bombshell Jane Wyman. He was truly shocked when she left him and asked for a divorce. She became bored with him, especially his long political monologues at Hollywood parties. Jane was heard saying to a friend: “I'm so bored with him, I'll either kill him or kill myself."

This was telling of Reagan; the author made it clear that he was impersonal, and impervious to even the closest people in his life.

*Note on his Hollywood career. Bedtime for Bonzo is not a joke movie. Reagan plays a university professor who uses Bonzo the monkey for behavioral experiments to argue nature vs. nurture.

Reagan’s shift to the right was the result of two things. First simply, when he was a top grossing actor he had to pay the crippling 91% income tax that the top bracket had to pay from the WWII until the Kennedy administration. Secondly, was his disgust at radical labor movements. When the Screen Actors Guild, which he was president of, did not support a stagehand strike at the studios, he was threatened by union thugs who said they were going to throw acid in his face and ruin his movie star looks.

He spent his middle age as a company spokesman for General Electric, where he was able to go on the road throughout America to GE Plants and make speeches. His message of fiscal conservatism, tax cuts, and not being held hostage by labor unions, was received with tremendous approval from the middle class employees. As a politician he used this experience with great aplomb. He knew how to reach out to the people.

His political career is more well known to me but still made for great reading. He was a two term governor of California. In 1976, the incumbent Gerald Ford was chosen as the Republican nominee for president in 1976 even though Reagan had more popular support. He had to wait until 1980.

His two terms were groundbreaking for his tax cuts and de-regulation. With the booming economy he was re-elected by a record landslide in 1984.

It took Edmund Morris 14 years to compile research and write this book. Reagan himself had chosen him to be his “official” biographer. That does not mean it is a biased fluff piece; far from it. If Reagan had have been of sound mind to read it when it was published in 1999, I believe he might have been outraged through most of it. For me, it was a captivating read.

Book Review Blitz

There are a that I’ve read over the year that I’d like to recommend. Since I read them a while ago, and had no idea I’d be blogging, I never took notes and my memory isn’t clear enough for a full review of them. So I thought I would do a quick hit blitz of books that I particularly enjoyed.

I’m a big fan of Amazon. It’s a great place to buy for the discounts and for the reference software they have. If you create a profile, they will recommend books that fit your reading pattern. I have found so many great books this way.

So here are a few I recommend:

Amazon.com	Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler Many people recognize this title but it seems not many people I talk to have read it. An old Bolshevik revolutionary, Rubashov, now a Soviet official, is falsely accused of treason and sent to stand trial. It is a fictional account of the famous Stalinist Show Trials of the 1930’s. The party wants him to publically confess to trumped up crimes before his execution. How do they get him to do it? This is a brilliant book about idealism and humanity.
Amazon.com	Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, by Simon Sebag Montefiore After reading Darkness at Noon I went out and bought this Stalin biography. It’s an account of life inside the Kremlin with Stalin’s top officials and his inner-circle. As the back cover says: “Who were his Himmler, Goring, Goebbels? How did the ‘top ten’ families live?” The paranoia, intrigue and executions. What was behind the decision making? … Stalin was an evil genius.
Amazon.com	The Company, by Robert Littell This was a beautiful accident. I picked it up on a whim at the bookstore. I had never heard of it or the author. It’s a fictional account of the CIA from its foundations in World War II through to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The tragedy is the pattern of American meddling. The CIA, for example, encouraged a revolt in Hungary in ’56 and an attack on Cuba in ’61 both with disastrous consequences for people they were trying to help. The weakness of democracy is that it’s hard to see projects like this through when the going gets tough. The Soviets are much better at espionage but their system was ultimately unsustainable. Littell wrote a follow up novel, Legends, continuing with the CIA after the Cold War. Though shorter, it is just as great.
Amazon.com	Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War, by Steven Pressfield I was sold on Pressfield after Gates of Fire, the historical novel about the famous battle at Thermopylae in 480BC between the Spartans and Persians. In Tides of War, he gets more ambitious and covers the prolonged Peloponnesian War 431-404BC between Sparta and Athens, from the Athenian point of view. At first I couldn’t help but think of it in a 20th century context: Britain (Athens), a democracy and great mercantile sea power, vs. Germany (Sparta,) a rigid, authoritarian society with a fearsome land army. However, I came to see it as an examination of the flaws of a democratic power when trying to fight wars. The Spartan general, Lysander, has a speech on how to defeat the Athens demos not by big victory but by holding off and playing for time. “For every hour we deprive the foe of victory is another we turn his own strength against him.” North Vietnam said the same thing about the Americans… A bonus about this book is the wonderful maps of the Mediterranean, in and around ancient Greece, to help you follow the battles.
Amazon.com	Berlin Noir, Philip Kerr Another wonderful accident, this is three novels in one. They are about private investigator Bernie Gunther during the late 30’s in Nazi Germany. As I mentioned before on this site, I enjoy the noir genre, and with Berlin as the backdrop I knew I had to buy it. Gunther has witty one liners that surpass Chandler's Marlowe. Many top Nazi officials make appearances. The Nazis had a gothic/occult revival going, with Himmler as the main enthusiast. Kerr exploits this to the fullest.

Book Review: The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

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Dennis Lehane is one of a handful of writers out there that I will go out and buy the hardcover because I can’t wait. I became a big fan reading Mystic River. It was a brilliantly written, character novel set in a tough, blue-collar Boston neighborhood. His earlier works, the Patrick Kenzie PI series are better than your average genre novels. Some of you are familiar with Gone, Baby, Gonewhich was recently made a Hollywood movie. This time around he writes a historical novel set in 1918-19 Boston during the Influenza Epidemic, the “Red Scare” and the Boston Police Strike. It centres around two characters: a young Boston copper Danny Coughlin and young fugitive Luther Laurence, a black man in a racist time. Panoramic in scope, it also includes famous characters such as Babe Ruth, Calvin Coolidge and J. Edgar Hoover. (Read the Amazon blurb and listen to Dennis Lehane discuss the book The Given Day.) I hate to say this, because I want to write positive reviews on this site but there were several things that gave me pause. Firstly, the novel’s hero Danny Coughlin caused my suspension of disbelief to fall. Here’s the checklist: He’s good looking, tough to bullies, but kind hearted to the underprivileged. Despite the fact that every woman alive is in love with him, he chooses the scullery maid with a heart of gold for his affections. (And she’s no pushover, you see, she knows the real Danny. Unlike those phony society folks!) Oh, but he has weaknesses. Danny just can’t help but sleep with beautiful women. And that temper of his! If there’s an injustice, he is liable to blow, no matter if it's not the kind of behavior they expect in polite company… You can’t help but roll your eyes at the cardboard cut out. When you write a historical novel you’re always going to run into trouble when applying today’s conventions and values onto the past. In The Given Day, we have the communist anarchist insurrection of 1918-19. Bombs are going off. There’s one at a police station that Danny survives and one at the house of the US Attorney General Mitchell Palmer in Washington. These terrorist incidents really did happen, and American authorities were, I think, reasonably concerned considering that Russia was overthrown by the communists in 1917. However, the Feds are made out as bug-eyed, paranoiacs. Terrorism, bombs, overzealous authorities…hmmm are we seeing something that resembles our own times? In a recent KQED in San Francisco (NPR) interview, Lehane said that through his writing, you could never guess who he votes for in real life. It’s a laughable statement, because I would bet my life savings that he isn’t pulling the lever for the Republicans. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lehane is one of those people who believes that Bush and Congress got too carried away after 9-11. That the destruction of the WTC and blast at the Pentagon were one-off incidences, perpetrated by few kooks. Nothing to be afraid of, nothing to see here folks, move along. (If you look at the approval rating for Osama bin Laden in the Middle East, you might not think that.) One can see the underlying message on terrorist issues during the novel. For example, the authorities who want to infiltrate the communist cells are scoffed at by Danny. Even though by a miracle he survived a bombing himself he still says: “The Reds don’t bother me much. They’re mostly harmless." How many times after 9-11 was the statement, -They did this because they hate us for who we are- laughed off as a naïve assessment by hick Americans? My thought was always: Isn't it true? The same goes for the communists, didn’t they hate America for what it was? So I cringed, at the part when a federal officer gets a overly zealous during a speech and says, “… these cocksuckers hate the life we have” and Danny claps sarcastically when he’s finished. Despite the racist times, Danny’s best buddy is Luther, a black man. OK, fair enough. Danny’s a hero after all. You can almost hear Lehane thinking: “Boy, if I lived back then, this is what I’d be like.” Luther is a good character who you can’t help rooting for. At first, I was a bit wary about a white person writing the thoughts of a black man living 90 years ago. It’s interesting that Lehane did some writing for HBO’s The Wire, which was criticized because the writers were white guys writing about blacks. I have not seen the show, but it is highly regarded critically. So, I let it go. A good writer can write about who he wants. I really enjoyed the Babe Ruth vignettes that were sprinkled throughout the novel. In a stream of consciousness manner we get the Babe drinking, whoring and hitting baseballs out of the park. Little is written about his days playing for the Red Sox. Overall, I was disappointed because it was a letdown from Mystic River. I could never shake that the plot and message overtook the characters. It was painfully obvious that they were bent into shape to fit the vision. It’s still worth a read for those who enjoy a historical novel that takes you to a different time and place. Just watch out when it transports you back to 2008.