Stieg Larsson. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Translated by Reg Keeland, Vantage, 2009.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was one of those books I felt I had to read. It was very popular and got great reviews. I wanted to see what it was all about.

It is a riveting story. Journalist Mikael Blomkvist has just been found guilty of libel for an article he wrote about a prominent Swedish entrepreneur, one Hans Wennerström. The year is 2002. Just as he was resigning from being publisher of his magazine, the Millennium, he was offered an interesting assignment.

Another prominent businessman, now largely retired, Henrik Vanger will pay him a handsome sum if he works for him for a year. He has two things he would like him to do: (1) Look into the disappearance and apparent murder of his grandniece Harriet Vanger in 1966, and (2) Interview relatives and examine family records to write a history of the Vanger family, five generations of industrial success and wealth.

Henrik lives a day’s trip north of Stockholm on an island off a small coastal town. He has an estate there, and a few relatives live in the adjacent village. Mikael will live in a cottage on the estate. He looks over the files and photos Henrik has collected and begins his own queries.

The day seventeen-year-old Harriet disappeared was a holiday in town. It was also a time when the whole extended family (over fifty people then) got together. The last photos of Harriet were of her watching the holiday parade. To complicate things, there was a traffic accident on the bridge going to Herr Vanger’s island. There were many photos of both the parade and the accident.

Of course, the events happened 46 years before, but Blomkvist is able to track down many of the people in the photos, and he notices a few things other people have missed. So part of the story describes some fascinating sleuthing.

Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo, would have been called a Goth in the United States. She indeed has a few tattoos, dresses in black with short hair dyed black, and shows various piercings. She keeps to herself and few people know much about her. She does contract work for a private detective who is always impressed with the thoroughness of her background checks.

That is how Blomkvist finds out about Salander. Henrik Vanger had the detective agency do a background check on Blomkvist before he hired him. When Blomkvist sees the report, he is impressed with how thorough it is. No one, he thinks, even his ex-wife, knows all this. So he hires Lisbeth Salander to help him in his research to find out what happened to Harriet Vanger.

The story of how they learn what happened to Harriet leads to the main plot. We also learn about Lisbeth’s life. Though twenty-four, she is still a ward of the state. Her new legal guardian is, to put it mildly, an unscrupulous lawyer. Lisbeth has learned not to trust anyone in authority. She seems to have her own way of dealing with crimes and injustices. The story is ingenious and clever as well.

Larsson clearly believes in Chekhov’s gun. I was able to correctly guess (at least broadly) what happened to Harriet about a third of the way through the story. A little more than halfway, I was able to deduce that another crime had happened. Neither one of those correct guesses detracted from the story at all. Larsson has the reader in his grip.

The story is not for everyone. There is a lot of sex. Some it is criminal, some is consensual, but one begins to get the idea that Swedes are obsessed with it. There are also a lot of Vangers. I had to refer to the family tree printed near the front of the book several times.

It turns out there are a lot of crimes. Harriet’s disappearance is just the tip of the iceberg. Much of the tale, then, is psychological. We learn something about why Lisbeth is the way she is and, maybe, get some insight into people who tend to Aspergers. We also get into the minds of some pretty crafty and maybe creepy criminals. If The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is your cup of tea, you will drink every drop.

The original Swedish title is very different: Men Who Hate Women. (Blomkvist is not one of them.) At one point Salander makes an interesting observation. She is doing a background check not related to the Vangers and learns that the man she is checking made a girlfriend get an abortion. She mutters, “One more man who hates women” (547). In the United States abortion is often seen as favoring women, but here Salander has it right. The chauvinist pigs want to avoid responsibility. The women are stuck. Some things are universal.

Amy Dockser Marcus. Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Viking, 2007.

Jerusalem 1913 looked like an interesting book to read in the light of continued conflict in the Holy Land over a hundred years later. Marcus served as a journalist in Israel for a number of years and describes the research she conducted in some detail. The story mostly focuses on two figures and reminds us that in 1913 things were quite different in Jerusalem.

In 1913 Palestine was still a part of the Ottoman Empire. A lot of the politics had to do with what the Turks would permit. If Turks were maybe a bit suspicious of Jews, they were no less suspicious of Arab nationalism. The last census done in Jerusalem in 1896 noted there were about twenty thousand Jews, and about eight thousand each of Muslims and Christians. Christians included both Arabs and Armenians.

The sad thing was that that the three groups had lived together for centuries with a certain amount of mutual respect and friendship. Yes, Jews were beginning to buy land and move there. The founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, had died in 1898, but Zionism was becoming a movement. I was reminded a little of T. E. Lawrence’s memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom. He noted that rural Arabs even back then were moving to the cities such as Damascus and Jerusalem. Demographic changes were already happening.

Also the Young Turk revolution had taken over in 1908. But five years later it was still hard for Arabs and Jews in Palestine to judge how the new Ottoman government would treat them. Would they sympathize with national movements of the empire’s ethnic groups, or would they still be emphasizing Turkish nationalism at the expense of others?

We meet the two principal figures from this time: Ruhi Khalidi, a member of a leading Arab political family (some might say “dynasty”) and Albert Antebi, a non-Zionist Jewish leader. Both men understood well the politics of the Ottoman Empire. We get the feeling throughout the book that one problem was simply that the Turks were losing grip of their empire even well before they joined the Central Powers in World War I.

Antebi’s grandfather had moved from Damascus to Jerusalem after he was imprisoned for one of the oldest accusations by anti-Semites, the blood libel. Even though he was released after over a year in jail, he realized that a Jew could never truly be trusted except in a place that tolerated Jews. This was in the 1850s, long before Zionism.

Albert never embraced Zionism, but he understood its causes. Because he and some of his associates were Ottoman citizens, they could legally purchase land in Palestine and then rent it out to Jews who had recently arrived. Indeed, one of the ongoing political conflicts was whether or not to allow Jews to buy land there. Sometimes they could; sometimes they were prohibited, but there were always ways to make a purchase.

Antebi would note after a violent confrontation in a rural village between Arab villagers and Jews who had recently moved there:

[I]f the Muslim role in the violence was not formally established and publicly acknowledged, then “tomorrow the story of the wolf will be applied to us,” he wrote, “our complaints will not be believed, and public rumor, well-formed by our adversaries, will accuse the Jews of systematic persecution of the farmers.” (111)

Plus ça change…

Khalidi was also something of a moderate. He tried to understand Zionism and would write essays and books on the subject. There was warning in his tone but also hope that the two groups could continue to co-exist peacefully. After all, Arabs were migrating to Palestine as well. (Later, Yasser Arafat himself would relocate from Egypt where he was born.)

We also meet Arthur Ruppin who lived well past 1913 and whose observations would be key primary sources. His Arab contemporary would be Kahlil Sakkini who kept diaries and whose observations from his perspective were prescient.

Jerusalem 1913 contains many other names as well. While it focuses on 1913, it takes us basically from the 1890s to the present (or to 2006, when the book was written). 1913, of course, was the last year with a relatively stable Turkish government. Starting in 1914, Ottoman citizens were drafted for the war, and neither Jew nor Arab were especially happy about that.

One interesting detail which I recall from my youth as a stamp collector—a number of European countries had post offices in the Turkish realms. The Turkish postal system was minimal at best. Once the war began, all those offices from Britain, Germany, Italy, and France closed.

The year 1913 was chosen because it was the first year that there was violence between Arabs and Jewish settlers. There were really just a few incidents, but both sides began to believe that the other side could not be trusted. In 1913 it was simpler: “the Muslims were convinced the Jews could never win, while the Jews believed the Arabs would someday yield” (50).

Even later under the British mandate, David Ben-Gurion tells an interesting tale. One of his best friends was an Arab leader named Yeya Effendi. Ben-Gurion had just been exiled by the British. Effendi said, “As your friend, I am sad…But as an Arab, I rejoice” (153).

Jerusalem 1913 is a fascinating account. Even at the time of the writing the author gave examples of toleration and respect that some Jews had for some Arabs and vice versa, especially as they attempted to understand each other’s history. The book does mention in passing the first proposal to divide the country among the two groups, but the differences were said to be “irreconcilable.” That has not changed even until today. No compromise at all has been possible.

One could argue that the conflict started much farther back in time, but certainly the modern conflict seemed to originate around 1913. It is a good place to start to understand why we are where we are today.

Alexander McCall Smith. The Kalahari Typing School for Men. Anchor, 2003. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.
Over the years we have reviewed many books by Alexander McCall Smith, who is a favorite author of ours. Included are numerous books from the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. The Kalahari Typing School for Men is an early one that we had somehow overlooked.

As always, the narrative is easygoing and relaxed, but it tells a delightful story. For readers of the series (or of our reviews) this one takes place while Precious Ramotswe is engaged but not married to Mr. J.L.B. Maketoni and Grace Makutsi has yet to meet the man she will marry.

As is typical of these stories, there is a lot going on. We read of some of the activities of the apprentices who work for Rra Maketoni’s garage, and none of these tales can happen without at least one visit to Mma Potkwane’s orphan farm. But there are a few things happening that do affect the Botswanan detective agency.

First, we learn that another detective agency has opened up in town. Its founder claims to be an experienced policeman from South Africa who has spent time in New York. His name is Buthelezi, a well-known name from South African news. He says his father was indeed Zulu, but his mother was from Botswana. His main advertising theme, though, is that men would do a better job as detectives than women would.

Her main client has an interesting tale to tell. Twenty years ago when he was a college student in Gaborone, he stole a radio from a family he was boarding with because he needed some money. He also badly treated a girlfriend from that time—no physical abuse, but as the song says, “he done her wrong.” He wanted to apologize to both the family and the ex-girlfriend and pay restitution for the stolen appliance.

He cannot locate either party and asks Precious to help. She does. Of course, there are complications, but Precious’s kindness and insight make his story work out well.

Mma Makutsi would like to earn more money than what she can from the detective agency. She uses her 97% graduation record from secretarial school to make some connections and begin an evening school for typing. She is seeing the transition from where typing was seen as a woman’s skill to something that, thanks to computers, everyone needs to know. She begins the night school that is the title of the book.

It gets interesting because one of the men in the class is falling in love with her. Could this be the one? While Precious does not do a background check on Grace’s suitor, she becomes aware of some information that might make Grace change her mind, but it also might break her heart. Again, we see Precious’s wisdom at work.

There is more, as always, in episodes about the detective agency, Speedy Motors, and the orphan farm. It does make the reader long for Botswana, or a least something better. One other thing: Though Grace Makutsi does have some problems in this story, none of them involve Violet Sephoto.

Donna Andrews. Terns of Endearment. Read by Bernadette Dunne, Dreamscape, 2019.

We have reviewed two other books by Donna Andrews. All her titles have something about birds. One thing is different with this one. Terns of Endearment does not take place at Christmas; however, the narrator and main characters are the same as in the other stories.

Our narrator, Meg Langslow, along with most of her family, accompany her naturalist grandfather on a cruise on an ocean liner. They took her grandfather aboard to give daily nature lectures on the voyage to and from Bermuda. She is accompanied by her husband, her two elementary-school aged sons, and various aunts and cousins.

Remember the folk song “Sloop John B” about a tragic sailing voyage in the Bahamas? One of the lines says, “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.” In this case, it is the captain, not the first mate, who gets drunk. But I am getting ahead of myself. Terns of Endearment tells of another bad trip. Oh, and a rare tern does figure in the tale.

It turns out that Grandfather is not the only celebrity aboard the ship. Desirée, a famous but possibly washed-up romance writer, makes her presence known, drawing attention to herself. But on the first night out, the ship is becalmed, and Desirée disappears overboard leaving a suicide note behind. Meg makes the discovery, so she finds herself once again in the middle of a crime/mystery. This time, though, her father the medical examiner is on the voyage. But the captain seems to consider the suicide a trivial matter. He says that authorities will investigate when they get to Bermuda.

The problem, though, is that they may not get to Bermuda. The ship is not moving because of a power failure. No propulsion, no electricity, so no running water, no air conditioning, no refrigeration. Things start looking really grim. And most of the crew is nowhere in sight. It turns out that they are first to get sick from rancid food. Things go from bad to worse. One ray of hope is that a cousin of Meg’s has a solar charger, so she can keep a few laptops and radios charged.

The captain has reported back to the port that there are a few minor problems, but they will be taken care of, no need to worry. Meanwhile, a crew member is murdered, and Grandfather’s assistant Trevor has never shown up. When they discover a book in Trevor’s cabin signed by Desirée—and he is not a reader of romances—they wonder if somehow he got involved with Desirée.

Also on board are four other authors. None of them have the sales or prestige of Desirée, but they are friends who each writes a different genre, and who blame Desirée for the death by suicide of a writer friend of theirs. In addition, they have uncovered evidence that Desirée may have plagiarized their late friend.

We also meet a few crew members, none of whom seem especially happy about the cruise line’s management. The implication is that such disasters would not have happened on a ship from a better run company like Royal Norwegian or Carnival.

As is true of Andrews’ style, there is a lot of humor (fish out of water?) but also she effectively tells the tale so that the listener begins to feel the heat of the steamy tin can in the water. Her “new age” cousin is convinced they are in the Bermuda Triangle, and things are going to get worse. Her two elementary aged sons don’t mind playing miniature golf if that is all there is to do, but they are getting tired of cheese and crackers. Andrews’ portrayal of the U.S. Coast Guard is reasonably accurate, too. We always enjoy appearances by Coasties.

As you might be able to tell from the bibliography, we listened to this on audio disc. Bernadette Duane reads exceptionally well. Not only is her pronunciation precise, but she voices the many different characters quite effectively. For those who prefer or who sometimes use recorded books, her reading makes this story even more fun.

Robert B. Parker. Walking Shadow. Berkley, 1994.

I have always had in the back of my mind to read a Spenser detective story. I knew they were set in my favorite city, Boston, and I recall back in the eighties students of mine talking about the TV show and Spenser’s buddy Hawk. Now I can say I have done it, and it was fun.

Spenser’s Harvard PhD girlfriend is on the board of a theater company in Port City. This fictional city sounds a lot like New Bedford, Massachusetts, except that it is north of Boston—a fictional mashup of a couple of towns. During a performance which they are attending, an actor is shot and killed while on stage. The shooter disappears before anyone can catch him, and Spenser gets involved.

There is a lot to get involved in. As is true of many such charitable boards, the board is mostly made up of serious donors. One of the board members is Rikki Wu, wife of a local tong leader. For the uninitiated, a tong is a Chinese criminal gang. Spenser gets a visit from Rikki’s husband and two bodyguards warning him to stay out of Port City. Of course, he doesn’t.

The chief of police in Port City is an acquaintance of Spenser’s, a former state policeman who left that force under some dubious circumstances. Port City was once a thriving mill town with a well known college (if it had not been in Massachusetts, I would have figured it for Brunswick, Maine). It also has a significant population of Portuguese fishermen and Chinese immigrants who work in fish processing or other menial labor in the area.

We get interesting views of Chinese immigrants (legal and illegal), organized crime, and struggling regional theaters. It also has a lot of the elements of classic noir: rain, beautiful but untrustworthy women, a criminal gang, kidnapping, corrupt officials, and dangerous love affairs. For those who like such stories, it is a lot of fun. And, yes, it gets the Boston vibe pretty well. (Spenser is fixing up a recently purchased house in the town next to the one where I grew up. Parker knows what he is writing about.)

As is usually true in such tales, things are not what they seem in Walking Shadow. The plot keeps twisting. The characters and stories keep us guessing with numerous interesting details and surprises. It also is quite literary with allusions to Chaucer, Shakespeare (more than just the title), Hemingway, Eliot, and Merle Travis among others.

Robert Jordan. The Great Hunt. Tor, 1991. The Wheel of Time.

When I reviewed The Eye of the World a little over two years ago, I wrote that while I enjoyed the novel, I had no urge to run out and obtain a copy of the sequel. Finally, last week I did get a copy and have just completed it, The Great Hunt. I found it as equally gripping as the first one, once again leading to a dramatic climax.

The main characters are the same as in the first one, but there are groups of new supporting roles as this takes us further along in the adventures of Rand al’Thor. Rand has been told that he is the so-called Dragon Reborn, an apocalyptic figure who is supposed to bring about a new era after an earth-shaking battle or battles. Rand wants nothing to do with that and resists all efforts of people who might know and might want to defeat evil to persuade him otherwise.

The main person who tries to persuade him of this is Moraine, an Aes Sedai, The Aes Sedai (“servants of all”) are a kind of female holy order who can channel the power of the Creator. Some people consider them like nuns, others view them more like witches. They have all taken vows of purity and honesty, but in the course of the story we learn that some have broken those vows. We also learn more about the different “Ajahs” or societies within the order, each having a certain characteristic or specialty.

Rand spends much of this story trying to avoid any Aes Sedai and getting away from Moraine. The irony is that two of his traveling companions in the first novel have decided to join the Aes Sedai. That involves training and initiation at their headquarters/convent, the White Tower at Tar Valon. Egwene and Nynaeve are both recruited because they can channel and otherwise have some supernatural or near-supernatural abilities. We read about the psychologically intense initiation rite Nynaeve goes through to become an Aes Sedai.

There are numerous complications. One obvious one to anyone who has read the first book is that Aes Sedai normally do not marry, and yet Rand and Egwene both see the other as a potential spouse. Part of the novel involves Rand trying to locate Egwene—many of his friends think he died. At the same time, he gets distracted by other women, or perhaps I should say, females since it is not clear that a couple of them are really human.

A main story thread involves Rand and a few associates trying to obtain the Horn of Valere, a literal battle horn from ancient times which is supposed to be blown to begin the end of the current age, perhaps an echo of the “last trumpet” mentioned in I Corinthians 15:52 or the seven trumpets of Revelation. Rand had obtained it at the end of the first book, but it was stolen, so he and a group of associates including Mat and Perrin from the first book try to get it back. Along with it is an ancient dagger with some supernatural associations that Mat had owned for a while and wants back.

Both objects are morally ambiguous. Whoever blows the horn, what will he or she start? Will it destroy the world or just the evil in it? Again the dagger gives its bearer some extra power, but we all understand that power can corrupt, and previous owners of the dagger have never ended well (not unlike the rings in Lord of the Rings).

Like The Eye of the World, we follow the adventures of several different groups at the same time. Occasionally they come together, but never, it seems, for very long. We meet some more Aes Sedai and learn a lot more about the White Tower. We also are introduced to the clever and complicated politics of a few different cities.

In the city of Cairhien, Rand, the tracker Hurin, and the Ogier Loial encounter the local nobility and royalty. In the government courts of that city-state, politics is seen as a Great Game. Everyone assumes Rand does not really mean what he says and is up to something. It is not so much that things get complicated, it is more that things are always complicated there.

Author Jordan understands pacing very well. When one group may merely be resting in a village or spending days on the same path, someone else is having a life and death struggle. There are still some Trollocs and Darkfriends around, but the continent has a new adversary, too.

The Seanchan, a group from overseas though originally from the continent, have launched a naval attack to re-take what they see as their original homeland. They have women not unlike the Aes Sedai, except that they have used their knowledge to enslave others—not servants of all, but all serve them.

Besides Trollocs and their allies, we meet monster three-eyed frog creatures. The Seanchan apparently have trained some of them for battle.

A major theme of The Great Hunt is trust. Whom can we really trust? Can we even trust the Creator and His plan? How do we know anyone is just not in it for himself? What if we are hurt even by “good” people. And what if it seems others are trying to use us? Even if it is for a just cause?

Yes, there is a lot of human conflict in this story, but there is also a lot of psychological conflict as well. The reader may know things that some of the characters do not know, but how can we even know which ones are truly on the side of the right? This is another sparkling tale in the Wheel of Time series. As with the first, it is a complete tale but does suggest a sequel will follow. Will I pick up the next book? Who knows? Time will tell.

P.S. I tried an experiment which I am not sure I would try again. I was watching the Amazon series while I was reading this. Season Two is basically the story of The Great Hunt. (Does that mean Amazon will take fourteen years to tell the whole story?) The TV series leaves a lot out, and modifies some of the characters and events. Min, a friend of Egwene and Nynaeve in the book, becomes a friend of Mat in the TV series. The politics of Tar Valon and Cairhien are different here. The TV series also tends to personify the evil more than the book. At times I felt like I was watching a horror movie. It serves its purpose, most of the acting was decent, but I liked the book better. I am more likely to read the next book than watch the next season on Amazon.

M. D. House. Crossroads of Awakening Memory. M. D. House, 2024.

Crossroads of Awakening Memory has an obscure title. Even after reading the book, I am not sure what it means. Having said that, let me tell you what the book is really like. Imagine Starship Troopers being a fantasy novel: You have Crossroads of Awakening Memory.

Rain is a fifteen year old military trainee on the planet of Tenris. Tenris has basic medieval technology—horses and wagons, swords and shields—with a certain amount of magic. In other words, a fantasy novel setting. We mostly follow Rain as he goes through the rigors and harassment of basic training under the tutelage of famous general Ileom.

Rain is a farm boy from the outskirts of New Haven, a peaceful city that has virtually no history of any wars, like Two Rivers in The Eye of the World. Suddenly it is attacked by a well organized group of bandits or guerrillas. Even though they have not finished training, the city is forced to call up the trainees led by Ileom to fight them, not unlike the Civil War Battle of New Market where cadets from Virginia Military Academy were called up to fight a Yankee army.

With the help of an uncanny horse, Rain, Ileom, and the other trainees manage to drive back the bandits. Rumors begin coming about other attacks and uprisings in other parts of the world. Something is going on. The significance becomes even more apparent as Rain and Ileom are visited by the beautiful Antara, who has certain magic and prophetic powers.

The New Haven battle with the bandits is just the beginning of battles and wars in this book. There is a lot of action. Perhaps Crossroads is an appropriate word in the title because not only do different peoples and nations in Tenris cross paths, but soon we see, thanks to some magic keys, different planets cross paths. Communities in Tenris are attacked by warriors riding griffons and being defended by others riding dragons, neither beast being native to Tenris.

Then there are other warriors, mostly dressed in dark green and carrying fire-spitting wands, in other words, guns. A third world has crossed paths with the conflicts, namely contemporary Earth. The author shows a certain amount of humor as Rain tries to figure out what those fiery wands and noisy mechanical “beasts” from Earth are.

Without going into too much detail, it appears that the people starting the fighting have been able to travel among all three planets and have a vision not unlike that of Hitler who wanted to create a Third Empire. There are also some people—from Tenris and not from Earth—who have special healing abilities, again reminiscent of other fantasy tales. So just as Starship Troopers involves an attack from another world, so does Crossroads of Awakening Memory. Just as Johnny Rico in that novel learns from a wise and experienced mentor, so Rain learns from both Ileom and Antara—not to mention a horse and a dragon.

One warning: This book is the first in a new series, and the book does not complete the tale. In other words, it is more like The Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord Of the Rings rather than The Eye of the World in The Wheel of Time. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it means we will have to wait to find out what happens next.

James Patterson and James O. Born. Ambush and Manhunt. Grand Central, 2018.

For a shorter review, go to the following:
Ambush by James Patterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading some heavy theological works, I felt I should take a break and read something a little less serious. After I picked up James Patterson’s Ambush and discovered that there was a second novel in the edition, Manhunt.

Patterson is famous for promoting reading. He writes that people who say they don’t like to read simply have not found the right thing for them to read. His police and action tales are not for everyone, but they will appeal to many readers in spite of the high body count in Ambush.

Patterson and Born produced a couple of page turners. The average chapter length was three pages. Both were entertaining. It would be easy to envision Ambush as an action film and the shorter Manhunt as an episode of a TV show along the lines of the old Columbo series.

Although critics may not take Patterson seriously because he writes potboilers, one other Patterson I read before I started this blog had a clever unreliable narrator. Ambush also had an interesting narrative technique. Half the chapters were first person narratives told by NYPD Detective Michael Bennett. The other half are third person describing the actions of the criminal.

Bennett is a very appealing character. He is a real family man—ten adopted kids and a grandfather who is a Catholic priest. (The grandfather went into the ministry after his wife died.) Bennett enjoys people, but also understands the criminal mind.

Our criminal is an intriguing character. She is a mother of two and a Colombian contract killer. She sometimes does her business in New York City. She is in town for a couple of contracts—and one of them is on Bennett. We read about how careful she is and that most people do not associate her various hits with the same person since she varies her technique.

The story indeed begins with an ambush. A relatively new homicide detective gets a tip about a suspect at a certain apartment. It is a setup organized by the contract killer. Not only were there bullets, but there was a hand grenade. Bennett escapes with some injuries, but the other detective is killed. Meanwhile, Alexandra, our hired gun, is down the street in a different building conducting a fashion photo shoot at the same time. We begin to see that no one suspects that an attractive Latina photographer is really a hired assassin.

While the plot is focused and Alex is clever, there are some clues that Bennett deciphers. His oldest son is attacked while serving in prison. Bennett understands that someone is sending him a message. Alex, who owns a stable in Colombia, goes on a couple of dates with a city mounted policeman. She likes the guy, but also learns a few things about the police department and Bennett from him.

The plot develops step by step leading to an ending that is tense and intense. The last fifty pages or so just fly by. It is not a mystery to the reader since we know who the killer is from the beginning, but it is a mystery to Bennett. How he discovers her and how he deals with her make for some real excitement.

Manhunt is shorter. Some might call it a novella. Bennett, his fiancée, and his nine children (Brian, the tenth, is still in prison) go to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. A truck with a bomb plows into the crowd near them. The bomb explodes and the driver runs away shouting something about Allah. Bennett chases him but the man gets away, but not before Bennett gets a look at his face.

Because he is NYPD and a witness, he is called in to help with the FBI because this is viewed as a terrorist attack. He partners with a Russian because a fingerprint from the truck points to a Russian from Kazakhstan.

This is more of a procedural story since the two of them question a number of people and contacts to see what they can find. The FBI agent in charge will actually dismiss Bennett from the investigation because he did not heed to their instructions, although he learned some valuable information. At one point the agent in charge even tells Bennett that he was thinking of joining the NYPD, but he chose the FBI because he “wanted to make a difference.” That is not how to win friends and influence people…

This plot has a few surprises. We learn some things about Russian immigrants to the United States and about Russian criminals. Even Bennett’s Russian partner works for the Russian embassy, but we wonder where her loyalties lie—or is the Russian government itself involved in organized crime?

Yes, the manhunt ultimately is successful in spite of FBI bluster and mistakes by everyone involved including Bennett.

Patterson and Born do have some interesting views expressed in a few places.

When Alexandra is talking to the drug lord who hired her, she admits she may have made a mistake in hiring some Dominican thugs to do some of her dirty work. “Besides,” she tells him, “they are expendable.” Her cartel handler says, “That’s the way I feel about you.” Hmm (99).

A member of the vice squad once noted about how some countries deal with crime:

“The Dutch had a problem with prostitution, so they legalized it. Then they had a problem with drugs, so they legalized them. Let’s hope they never have a problem with homicide.” (114)

And then there is a profound discussion in Manhunt among some of Bennett’s family after the terrorist attack on the parade.

Fiona looked at her great-grandfather [the priest] and said, “Why didn’t God stop the truck driver in the first place?” It was a simple question asked by an innocent girl, no trap or guile in it.

My grandfather turned and put his hand on Fiona’s cheek. “Because, dear girl, God gave man free will. It is not something he can turn on and off.”

Fiona said, “I learned about free will at CCD. Does it basically mean we are responsible for the things we do?”

Seamus said, “Exactly”….

Trent said, “C.S. Lewis wrote, ‘Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.’” (323)

Gee, maybe Carlo Rovelli should read Manhunt. He might learn something.

Aurelius Augustinius [St. Augustine]. The City of God. A.D. 410; Translation 1887; Edited by Philip Schaff, Translated by Marcus Dods, Monergism Books, 2021.

For a shorter review go to the following:
The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Glad I read this! This is a wide-ranging discussion of religion and philosophy. The first third discusses the Greek and Roman religions of his day. Readers who are unfamiliar with the Greco-Roman mythology may not get much out of this discussion; however, he treats such beliefs with seriousness and respect, even though he points out how they fall short of being true.

The main theme is that that there are two spiritual kingdoms (or “cities”) in this world: the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the World. Since the Fall, when Adam gave the authority he had been given to the devil, the devil has been in charge of the world. Jesus came to redeem the world from the devil’s authority. Now the two kingdoms clash.

There are detailed discussions of various philosophies (Augustine believes that Plato came closer than any other nonbeliever). He especially deals with the idea of reincarnation and the gnostic idea that the flesh is irredeemable. We learn about angels and demons, and we get a concise overview of Biblical history. What he says about miracles and end times would challenge a lot of what is being taught on these subject today. Augustine wants his readers to think–and, hopefully, to follow Jesus.

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Sooner or later I had to read The City of God. Augustine is considered one of the greatest and certainly most influential Christian writers in history. This is often considered his magnum opus. Protestants and Catholics, Arminians, Calvinists, and Lutherans all claim him. Let us see what he has to offer.

One note about this translation: The editor and translator both spell his name as Augustin. I have told my students that when they get to college, the serious academics pronounce his name as uh-GUST-in with the accent on the second syllable. In English this distinguishes him from Augustine (AH-gus-teen), the first missionary to the English. This edition takes the obvious next step to spell his name closer to the way English speaking scholars pronounce it. Since his name in Latin in Augustinius, it makes little difference.

The overall theme of this long work is simply that among the people of the earth there are two spiritual kingdoms, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the World (e.g. Revelation 11:15). One is ruled by God, the Creator and Father of the Lord Jesus, the other by the devil, who took authority when Adam sinned.

Augustine notes the legality in the story of the Fall. Adam was given authority over the world (Genesis 1:27-28). When Adam yielded to the devil in the Garden, he yielded his authority or dominion to the devil. The earth has been a spiritual battleground ever since.

Augustine spends a lot of time analyzing the significance of the Fall, the nature of angels and demons, and the false religions and philosophies that many people believe in.

Typical of ancient works, The City of God is divided into books, and then each book is divided into chapters. Traditional reference notation includes three numbers representing book.chapter.paragraph.

The first ten of the twenty-two books deal with the polytheistic and philosophical schools of Augustine’s day. Anyone familiar with Greek and Roman mythology, especially as told by Vergil and Ovid, would have no problem understanding his writings on the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian polytheism of his day. He also deals with the writings of various philosophers, especially Varro, Porphyry, and Plato.

He challenges the consistency and contradictions in the polytheistic stories, and demonstrates logical problems in them. He takes an interesting and respectful approach. He treats the mythology as serious history and quotes frequently from them. Since many people still took the myths seriously at the time he was writing, this worked effectively. As I read this, I began saying to myself, Augustine really is a genius.

Modern readers who were unfamiliar with the ancient mythology might find this drawn out too much. However, millions, if not billions, today still subscribe to polytheistic religions, especially in south and east Asia. If someone were to do what Augustine did and apply his reasoning to Hinduism and Buddhism and their offshoots, it could be powerful. (I understand that the late Ravi Zacharias did this some in his Jesus Among Other Gods, but I have not read that book.)

Throughout the book, Augustine also notes various philosophical schools. He shows why of the schools, the Platonic school makes the most sense. It is also very close to Christianity or Judaism since it shows the necessity for a “prime mover” or Creator who also is a lawgiver. I had heard from several sources that the first chapter of the Gospel of John was written for Platonists (“In the beginning was the Word…All things were created by Him”). Augustine shows a connection, but also explains why Plato falls short in some of his beliefs. Parts reminded me of the comment repeated in Lewis’s The Last Battle: “It’s all in Plato. What are they teaching in schools these days?”

Augustine also notes various ancient writers, including ones from India, that believe in reincarnation of some kind or another (even Vergil). He demonstrates problems with this system as well. His basic premise, which is orthodox Jewish and Christian teaching, is simple, “The gods of the nations are idols” (cf. Psalm 96:5) and “Idols are demons” (cf. I Corinthians 10:20). Some translations, apparently including the Septuagint, which Augustine refers to, Psalm 96:5 says “The idols of the nations are demons” period. This represents the two kingdoms directly again.

The next ten books are a survey of Biblical history beginning with the rebellion of Satan. There are some interesting discussions of free will and the consequences of sin and rebellion against God. He attempts to answer many questions, especially those posed by philosophers who question Christianity. He then focuses on the history of redemption as recorded in the Bible, noting Adam, Noah, Abraham, and various judges, kings, and prophets.

He includes a detailed discussion on the origin of death, and what the Bible says and implies about what happens when we die. That, of course, involves the two kingdoms—whose kingdom do we acknowledge and follow? In doing so, Augustine takes us through the Book of Revelation and the nature of eternal punishment and eternal salvation. Augustine seems neutral on Purgatory: He notes a few verses that might suggest some sins can be purged after death, but how that happens is unclear. Like anyone writing about redemption, he does spend time quoting not only from Revelation, but from the Epistle to the Hebrews.

I can see why both Calvinists and Arminians claim him. He does discuss redemption in the light of predestination, which appeals to the Calvinists. However, he also warns about falling away, something more in line with Catholic, Arminian, and Lutheran teaching.

With all these discussions, Augustine’s approach is philosophical. For example, he discusses at some length the question of the salvation of the soul and the resurrection of the body. Some Gnostics and Platonists consider the resurrection of the body anathema since they see the body as what causes people to sin and is, therefore, not salvageable. He shows how Christ’s redemption includes the body since Jesus came in the flesh and redeemed us through the death of his body on the cross.

He also spends some time enumerating different miracles happening in the name of the Lord in his day. This would seem to challenge modern Cessationists and appeal to both traditional Catholics and modern Pentecostals and Charismatics.

Above all, Augustine wants his readers to think. And not only think, but think about what is true and what their eternal destiny might be. Fascinating and wide-ranging.

Whose kingdom do you belong to?

Frank Spotnitz et al. The Man in the High Castle. Produced by Christian Baute et al, Amazon Prime Video, 2015-2019.

From my experience, a television or film series that follows a book closely—in other words, it is not rewritten for a one to three hour box office film—usually lasts six to ten hours. I seem to recall a BBC version of A Tale of Two Cities which copied most of the book’s dialogue and followed the story chapter by chapter had, I believe, eight episodes of 30 to 40 minutes each. (Correct me, if I am wrong. It was nearly forty years ago.) When I saw that The Man in the High Castle was ten episodes, I figured that they were following the novel line by line. After all, Dick’s novel is shorter than Dickens’.

When I got to episode ten, I discovered that this was just season one! This would take four seasons and a total of 38 episodes. I was already invested in the show, so I watched the whole thing over a period of about two months. It was worth it, I think.

The Amazon Prime show is very loosely based on the novel. At first, it seemed like there were a few modifications to make it more effective for an audience watching the show rather than reading the story. For example, instead of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy being a novel, it is a film—and instead of a single film, we learn that there are a whole series of films.

The basic foundation of the story is the same: The Axis won World War II; Japan rules the Western United States, Germany rules the Eastern States, and part of the Rocky Mountains is a semi-independent neutral zone (in the novel, it is run by Japan). One of the characters is a San Francisco antiques dealer. Another is a New York Jew who managed to escape to the Western States before the Nazis took over the East Coast. In the book, he is the same person.

Then there is the so-called Man in the High Castle who seems to believe in an alternate history where the Allies won the war, and, yes, his name is Abendsen. Yes, there is a German assassination plot as it seems Germany believes they can drive Japan out of North America. But then the current fuehrer dies—in the book he is Bormann, in the film Hitler still lives at the beginning (1961). There is also a Japanese official who consults the I Ching in both stories.

The Amazon version is an original work in its own right, though. Older viewers may get a kick out of the early sixties settings, especially those in Abendsen’s world. They include a lot of popular music from all genres, headlines concerning the Cuban missile crisis and the Beatles, and hints of incipient military action in Vietnam. In other words, the Amazon version takes the novel as a foundation and builds on it.

Because it has so many episodes, it is structured more like an epic than a novel. Because it was produced in 2015, it has sex, something missing from the 1962 novel. It does have a lot of action and many characters and subplots. Nearly every episode has a different director and different scriptwriter. Still, it hangs together pretty well. As it builds on the novel’s foundation, the Amazon series borrows from the film Inception and the television series Lost.

I am trying to avoid spoilers, but there are a few things I feel I must note so viewers do not miss them. There is a terrific juxtaposition of two scenes at one point in the third season. A group of Jewish survivors in the neutral zone are celebrating a bar mitzvah. Meanwhile in German-occupied New York, the government is starting a new calendar with the current year being year one. Tradition vs. Utopia. Which one will really last in the long run? We are told the bar mitzvah is 5,000 years old (well, really closer to 4,000, but we get the message). How long will the Socialist New World Order last? Or any other man-made scheme or empire?

As with the novel, there is an interesting juxtaposition of fate and free will. The oriental tradition as typified in the I Ching is fatalistic. The Nazis speak of the will to power. In one version a boy is killed by the Nazis because of a birth defect. In the “Allies win” version, the boy volunteers for Vietnam where it is implied he will be killed. The house always wins…and you can’t get out of the game.

Anyway, the miniseries of The Man in the High Castle flows out differently from the novel. Still, it is quite entertaining with some flashes of brilliance. As implied earlier, fans of Lost or Inception should get a kick out of it. Because of its scope there is something or someone in it for everyone.