The Odyssey of Homer

No, not the movie.  However, I did read the book because the movie is currently in theaters.  When I was in college, I read The Iliad and enjoyed it immensely.  The book included The Odyssey and I started reading it next.  Amazingly, I lost interest about halfway through.  That was in 1993.  I picked it up last week.

The story opens with an argument among the gods.  Athena wants Odysseus to be allow to return to Ithaca after 20 long years.  Zeus ascents and Poseidon is not around to veto.  While Athena ushered Telemachus - Odysseus's son - to travel abroad in search of news about his father, Hermes informed Calypso that she was the release Odysseus; she had him sequestered on her island for the last 7 years.  Odysseus sailed toward home but was once again shipwrecked.  He found himself on an idyllic island of Scherie where the residents treated him with the greatest of honor and eagerly heard his tale of woe.  Interestingly, virtually all of his adventures from departing Troy until arriving on Calypso's island are detailed here as he narrates them to the credulous folk.  There are sirens, a cyclops, giants, divine bags of wind, a sorceress who transformed his men to pigs, a journey to the underworld, the wreck that killed the last of his men, and so on.  Here is all the crazy adventures and it is all told by Odysseus.

The folk of the island sailed Odysseus back to Ithaca and bequeath him with tremendous wealth, far more than he had - and lost - from Troy.  No sooner has he set foot on Ithaca than he met a young man - Athena in disguise - and he spun a tale of being from Crete.  Athena brushed away his needless deception and sent him to Eumaeus the Swineherd.  Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus told a tale of being a prince from Crete who had fallen on bad times in Egypt and was now reduced to begging.  When he went to his palace and mingled with the suitors who sought to marry his wife, Penelope, he again spun a tale.  Penelope asked to meet this stranger and Odysseus lied through his teeth, testing his wife.  Soon thereafter, he dispatched the suitors, though he was aware his vengeance would not be appreciated by the families of the suitors.  Next he went to his father's farm.  Laertes was an old man who looked more like a laborer than a former king of Ithaca.  Of course, Odysseus went up to him and... spun a tale of being someone who had met Odysseus some years before.  When the suitors' families arrived at the farm to kill Odysseus, he and his coterie of loyal men slew several before Athena intervened.  She said, effectively, 'knock it off.'  They did and peace returned to Ithaca.

Odysseus is a larger than life type of fellow who demonstrates impressive combat prowess and great feats of strength.  However, he and honesty have a tentative relationship.  It is peculiar that the only folk with whom he does not assume an alias was on the island of Scherie.  Were the adventures he told true or just another fantastical tale?  It all depends on whether Odysseus is a reliable narrator.

Odysseus is not a particularly likable fellow.  He spoke with pride about sacking a random town on his way home from Troy.  He's just a roving pirate, a band of coastal raiders.  Then there are the suitors.  Penelope led them on, giving the indication that she might marry one of them, using a strange stratagem to hold off when she would make a decision.  And regarding that, why are these men trying to marry a woman who has a 20-year-old son?  It appears that the estate should be Telemachus' and that Penelope would move to the home of the winning suitor.  It felt like she was a tease who wanted the attention.  Then again, it has been 20 years!

The translation was done by Samuel Butler in 1900.  In his preface and throughout the endnotes, he refers to his previous book, The Authoress of the Odyssey (1897), where he posited that the poem was written by a young woman on Sicily.  Initially, that sounded preposterous, but the more I read the more I thought he might have a point.  The frequent weeping and moping of Odysseus and several other male characters struck me as odd.  Penelope has spent the majority of the last 20 years weeping.  Maybe that is just a Mediterranean thing.

There is a lot more to the book than any movie could ever cover.  It tells all sorts of tangential stories from Helen, Agamemnon, Achilles, Hercules, and more.  It was a good read and recommended.

An Artillery Officer in Mexico

Robert Anderson, best remembered as the commander of Fort Sumter at the beginning of the Civil War, was a captain in the 3rd Artillery Regiment.  He was stationed in Tampa Bay when he received orders to go to Mexico.  Where others kept journals, Anderson was a prolific writer of letters.  Those to his wife were collected and printed in 1911.

The letters begin in November on the very day that his wife departed by carriage from Tampa Bay bound for her father's estate in Georgia.  Anderson spent the next month or so packing, selling, or donating all their belongings.  Though he had moved aboard the John Potter - a brig that would transport him and his company to Tampico - in December, it did not leave port until January.  The trip to Tampico was uncomfortable.  He arrived in Tampico in the last week of January and spent several days aboard ship until it could enter the harbor and lodgings ashore were settled.  The entire month of February was spent in Tampico and Anderson relates the adventures of Col. De Russy.  By the end of the month, he feared that Colonel Gates - commander of the 3rd Artillery - would retain his company to garrison Tampico.  He dodged that fate and sailed to Veracruz.  Here he was in his element, commanding one of the batteries during the siege.  After the city was taken, he was stationed at the famous fort, San Juan de Ulua.  It was a flee-infested mess.  Happily, his division set off for the interior a week later.  His company was not engaged at the battle of Cerro Gordo.  Over the following months, he was stationed in Perote Castle, Tepeyahualco, and Puebla.  In August, the army moved on Mexico City.  He was seriously wounded during the battle of El Molino del Rey.  Just over a month later, he was sent back to the United States to recover.

Anderson spends most of his time telling his wife about his daily life in the various places he stayed, the accommodations, the men he socialized with, the food he ate, the cost of food, the oddities of Mexico, and most especially his desire to rejoin his wife.  The letters are more of a travelogue than a military campaign record.  This is a very devout man who closes most letters by praising God.  He refers to his letters as 'chats' with his wife and is always eager for mail to arrive or to have an opportunity to send mail.  He numbers his letters so that she can know if she missed one.  Once deep into Mexico, he warns her that the mails are often intercepted.  The letters were generally sent as a packet, with many days detailed before being sent.

Anderson is a man who does not seek praise or favor but often feels he has been overlooked.  He is occasionally miffed to see comparative novices getting high rank in newly formed regiments while established officers are not considered.  He is no fan of President Polk, viewing him as a politician of the worst sort.  On the other hand, he has the highest of regard for General Winfield Scott.  The clash of personalities within the military is often on display in the letters.  Anderson was more partial to Ethan Allen Hitchcock than William Jenkins Worth.

Anderson was 41 when he set foot in Mexico.  His wife, Eliza, was 19.  She was the daughter of General Duncan Clinch.  Anderson died in 1871 and his wife died in 1905.  His daughter discovered the cache of letters and, after redacting purely personal details, had them published.

Interesting but not for everyone.

An Immigrant Soldier in the Mexican War

Frederick Zeh (Tsay) was an educated immigrant from Germany who found himself working as a farm laborer in Pennsylvania. He had been a book seller in Europe.  Discouraged by his status, he tried to join a volunteer regiment that was headed to Mexico.  One regiment had already been filled, and it had many Germans.  The 2nd regiment had few, if any, Germans and Zeh was refused.  However, he discovered that the regular army was recruiting for a special unit, the Mountain Howitzer and Rocket Company.  The mountain howitzer could be disassembled and loaded on three mules, which allowed it to be placed in locations too difficult for regular guns.  Then there were the Hale's rockets, an improvement on the Congreve rocket from the War of 1812.  The company recruited a hundred soldiers, half of whom were German or Irish, and three officers.

Zeh sailed from Philadelphia to Virginia, where he received military training.  Then, they set out for Mexico.  The company landed on the beaches near Veracruz and setup their battery.  The howitzers were underpowered for siege warfare but were kept busy.  Zeh's job was to keep the battery supplied with ammunition.  After the surrender of Veracruz, the company marched inland and fought at Cerro Gordo.  In fact, the portability of the mountain howitzers resulted in them being emplaced on a nearby hill to engage the Mexican defenses.  Captain Robert E Lee had blazed the trail to place the howitzers.  From there, the company continued to Jalapa and then Puebla, mostly to while away the summer.  In August, the army marched on Mexico City and the company was engaged in the battle of Contreras & Churubusco.  Mostly unsupported, the howitzers drew a lot of fire and many of the men were killed or wounded, including Zeh.

Zeh found himself in the hospital and worried he might die.  He willed his worldy goods, such as they were, to a fellow German in the company.  He survived.  The doctors arranged for him to stay on at the hospital since he could speak fluent English and German, very useful skill when many of the German soldiers couldn't speak English.  Thus, he missed out on the final battles of the war.

The account was written decades after the events but many of his details lined up with history.  It was interesting that the Germans didn't much like the Irish and the two groups often clashed.  Zeh mentioned that the officers were not keen on foreigner soldiers, but this was most especially the case in volunteer units.  Regular units were more tolerant.

The Mountain Howitzer and Rocket Company was an oddball unit.  Though fielding artillery, it was not part of an artillery regiment; it was an Ordnance company.  Like the Voltigeurs, it was an experimental unit that, despite its contributions during the war, was disbanded upon returning to New Orleans in 1848.

At just over a hundred pages, this is a quick read and a different account of Winfield Scott's campaign into Mexico.  Recommended.

Surfboats and Horse Marines

U.S Naval Operations in the Mexican War, 1846-48

K Jack Bauer, who wrote an overview of the Mexican War, focuses on the US Navy in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Pacific coast.  The first half of the book details the actions of the Gulf Squadron while the second covers the operations along the California coast, Baja California, and the west coast of Mexico.  In each theater, Bauer discusses and critiques the commanding commodore.

Commodore David Conner was commanding the Home Squadron at the outbreak of the war.  Conner directed operation in the gulf from the start of the war - May 1846 - until the Siege of Veracruz - March 1847.  With his limited fleet, Conner maintained a blockade of the major ports along the gulf coast of Mexico.  As Mexico didn't have a navy, ship to ship action was limited to capturing trade vessels.  He successfully captured and occupied the port of Tampico (Nov 1846) and made a couple of abortive attempts on Alvarado.  When General Winfield Scott arrived, Conner worked hand in glove with him on the landings at Veracruz and provided naval support for the siege of that city.  Conner was replaced in command during the siege.

Commodore Matthew Perry, younger brother of the famous Oliver Hazzard Perry, arrived in the gulf as second in command and eventual successor to Commodore Conner.  Perry was much more energetic than Conner, leading the smaller vessels in the fleet upriver to capture lesser ports.  Though Perry proved to be more active, he suffered the same limits that had hamstrung Conner: not enough ships and men.  When illness swept his fleet and Winfield Scott borrowed 500 Marines for his attack on Mexico City, Perry's operations ground to a halt.  Plans for a joint operation with the army to cross the Tehuantepec Isthmus to the Pacific were canceled.  With the capture of Mexico City, Perry's operations in the gulf shifted to maintaining the blockade until the war concluded.

Commodore John Sloat commanded the Pacific Squadron when the war began.  However, he was uncertain that it had actually begun and feared repeating the error of Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones.  In 1842, Jones mistakenly believed a war had been declared with Mexico and thus captured Monterey, California.  The overcautious Sloat waited until July 1846.  Before the month was out, Sloat's replacement arrived on the scene and took over.

Commodore Robert "Fighting Bob" Stockton was a man of action.  Stockton intended to control the coast from San Francisco to Acapulco.  He teamed with Captain John C Fremont to capture California, which was accomplished in short order.  Leaving entirely inadequate forces to hold California, Stockton prepared to repeat his success in Baja California and the west coast of Mexico.  Then the Californios rebelled and he was forced to reconquer California with the help of a newly arrived General Stephen Watts Kearney.  In January of 1847, California was once again conquered and Stockton's replacement arrived.

Commodore William Shubrick gladly handed California to General Kearney to manage and turned his attention to blockading Mexico's Pacific coast.  Like Conner in the gulf, he was a competent commander who lacked the resources for extensive actions.  Additionally, only a month after he had taken command, Commodore James Biddle sailed into the theater; he was senior to Shubrick and thus took command.  However, when Biddle sailed away in July, Shubrick once again controlled the Pacific Squadron and made active use of the fleet, in actions throughout the Gulf of California and seizing Mazatlan.

Commodore Thomas ap Catsby Jones assumed command of the Pacific Squadron in May of 1848.  The war was over though the withdrawal was still underway.  The Treaty was ratified at the end of May and US troops withdrew both on the gulf coast and along the west coast.  Jones merely maintained Shubrick's accomplishments and oversaw the evacuation of American forces.  The last troops left La Paz, Baja California, on September 6, 1848.

This is a terrific book with extensive appendices.  Bauer changed my opinion of some of these officers, most especially Stockton.  I'd always liked Stockton as a man of action after Sloat, who seemed afraid of his own shadow.  However, Stockton was reckless and something of a jerk.  Likewise, Perry was clearly competent and aggressive, but he too proved to be a jerk.  Shubrick and Conner were the best of the bunch.

Highly recommended.

Confronting the Presidents

Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard proposed to examine the 45 men who have served as president and give a no spin assessment on each.  They failed utterly.  The book is 400 pages.  Do the math.  That is less than 10 pages per president and a lot of what is discussed is the daily routine of each.  What hours did they work?  What did they like for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?  What kind of exercise routine did they have, if any?  How'd they meet their wife?  These are so many thumbnail sketches that only scratch the surface of each man.  There is hardly any foundation to make an honest assessment.  The greatest failing is that the authors will condemn the actions of one president that they gloss over when done by another president.  Harding is pummeled for his adulterous affair while FDR and JFK are merely chastised.  The more recent the presidency, the more the authors' politics bleed into the assessment, more Dugard's than O'Reilly's.

The biography of each president is shallow, having to cover entirely too much in a short span.  Generally, the history is correct - maybe a wrong year listed here or the wrong name there - but the assessment follows the standard ratings that you would find among a typical poll of historians.

Though he clearly starts showing some personal opinions, I give O'Reilly credit for not going overboard.  That doesn't hold for his co-author.  The book was completed in 2024 and Dugard still held that Biden was up to a second term.  Seriously?  You call that no spin?  He even called 2020 the most contention election in US history while writing a book which included the 1860 election that led to Civil War!

This is a book for a novice.  It would have been better if the assessments had been left out and just let the reader judge.

Not recommended.

Damnation Alley

Hell Tanner rode his Harley toward the Mexican border, but there was soon police pursuit.  The Harley was fast, but the roadblock ahead stopped him.  The police handled him with kid gloves, needing him intact and healthy.  Returning to LA in a bizarre storm that saw rocks plunging from the sky, they arrived in time to take cover.  Denton was disappointed.  Tanner had agreed to drive to Boston in exchange for being released from prison.

It is the post-apocalypse, and the world is drastically changed.  The skies are purple or black with wild weather that prevents flight and most radio communication.  There are only pockets of humanity remaining, notably Los Angeles and Boston.  However, it is almost impossible to travel from one to the other.  The irradiated middle has come to be called Damnation Alley.  A man from Boston recently made that trip and then died from radiation poisoning.  Boston is suffering a plague and needs a serum that LA has.

Tanner drives one of three cars headed to Boston.  Car is a misnomer.  It is more like a tank with missile racks, flamethrowers, machine guns, and heavy armor plating.  The vehicles set out with a planned first stop in Salt Lake City.  They are assailed by lines of tornadoes, huge bats, snakes that are gargantuan, volcanos spewing radioactivity, near impenetrable hedges, and bandits.  On top of that, Denton gave orders to burn Tanner if he tried to run away again.

The book is very different from the movie.  Where the movie has Denton and Tanner traveling to Albany, NY with some notion of joining a surviving community, this has Tanner on a mission of mercy.  Where the book Tanner is a criminal on a journey of redemption, movie Tanner is just some guy who happened to survive the apocalypse and rides a motorcycle.

Several chapters of the book detail the deteriorating situation in Boston as the plague wipes out the population.  Each chapter follows someone else, giving it no connection.  Here is the story of how this character died.  Here is a preacher offering a sermon while a bell in the background rings with each death.  Who would set up such a bell?  When Tanner finally gets there, he meets none of the characters detailed in these Boston chapters.  Annoying.

The bike gangs were also an oddity.  Tanner encountered a bike gang, which operates as road bandits like in Mad Max, but that doesn't make much sense.  With the lethal weather, motorcycles look to be the worst road option.  During an encounter with a bike gang, Tanner absolutely mauled them with missiles, machine guns, flamethrowers, and grenades.  Despite 90% casualties, the bikers kept coming!  Really?  Yes, at that point, the willing suspension of disbelief snapped for me.

I was reminded of scenes from Steven King's The Talisman and The Black Tower series.  His alternate universe also had characters traversing an irradiated wasteland between California and New England.  Was this book an inspiration for him?

Just okay.

My Confession: The Recollections of a Rogue

Samuel Chamberlain was a boy from Boston with a grand sense of adventure.  He viewed himself as a romantic hero right out of the pages of a novel.  He wooed the ladies, clobbered the bullies, and traveled to his next adventure.  Is his autobiography just so much nonsense and self-promotion?  Oddly, a lot of it proved to be true.

Sam was an artistic lad whose father died when Sam was 14.  His wild streak began shortly thereafter.  Being more trouble than not, he went west to live with his uncle in Illinois.  Before long, he was fighting with his cousin, which caused his uncle to come at him with an axe!  Sam fled to Louisianna, where he became an accountant.  An affair with another man's wife sent him flying back to Illinois.  He had hardly arrived when there was a call for volunteers to go to war in Mexico.  Though only 16 years-old, Sam joined immediately.  He traveled to Texas with an Illinois Volunteer Regiment, but he didn't get along well with the command structure.  In San Antonio, he joined the Dragoons and found himself marching with General Wool to Monclova.  Being something of a hellion (his horse's name was Lucifer!), he found himself in several scrapes, sometimes with other troops, sometimes with Mexican guerrillas, and frequently on account of senioritas.

In December 1846, General Wool marched to support General Taylor at Saltillo.  There was a rumor that a grand army was marching north.  The army arrived in February and General Santa Anna attacked.  Samuel Chamberlain joined his first battle, the most epic one of the war: The Battle of Buena Vista.  The Dragoons didn't see a lot of action, but they were posted as sentinels during the breaks.  As action began on the 21st, expanded on the 22nd, and concluded on the 23rd, there was a need for lookouts during the nights.  Thus, Sam was posted between the two armies to be aware of night attacks.  Needless to say, he didn't get a lot of sleep.  It is a very different view of the battle where he spent much of it idle.

For the remainder of the war, he fought guerrillas and wooed the ladies.  When the war ended, he stayed in the service to head to California.  Halfway through the march, he deserted and joined a notorious band of scalp hunters.  Scalp hunters killed Apache and sold the scalps to Mexican authorities; it was a method of curbing the depredations that the Apache committed against the Mexicans.  Sam's tale of adventure ends in the California deserts between Yuma and the Salton Sea.

Like a good James Bond movie, Chamberlain had a new love interest in each adventure.  There was his true love in Boston, the woman met on the coach heading to Illinois, the girls at an all-girl school in Illinois, the married woman in Louisianna, and on and on.  Each is more beautiful than the last, but dreams of happily-ever-after are always foiled by circumstances.  Though the autobiography is built on actual incidents, his love life is almost certainly wishful thinking.

Chamberlain went on to become a general in the Civil War and lived until 1908.  Of note, his book and the many sketches and watercolors that accompanied it, was not published until 1956.  Doubtless, this book was an inspiration for George MacDonald Frazer's Flashman Papers.

Here is a great read with plenty of action, adventure, and romance.  Highly recommended.

An English Soldier in the United States Army

In the summer of 1845, George Ballantine arrived in New York.  Born in Scotland, skilled as a weaver, and a veteran of the British Army, he sought work.  His best offer was to become a whaler, which did not appeal to him.  Instead, he joined the US Army.  He details his life as a soldier from induction at Governor's Island in New York, to his training at Fort Adams in Rhode Island, his transfer to Fort Pickens at Pensacola, then to Tampa Bay.  The Mexican-American War began less than a year after he joined.

Corporal Ballantine served in the First Artillery Regiment, Company I.  The regiment was sent to Tampico, Mexico, as part of General Winfield Scott's invasion force.  In February 1847, the regiment has shipped south but did not land until March 9.  To George's surprise, the Mexicans did not contest the landing on the beaches south of Vera Cruz.  Assigned to General David "Old Davey" Twiggs Division, he took part in the siege of Vera Cruz, and the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, and Chapultepec.

Where most of the memoirs of the war were written by officers (q.v., Lt. Francis Collins, Lt. Henry Benham, Lt. John Hollingsworth, Lt. Harvey Neville, Lt. Albert Brackett), this one was written by a man in the ranks.  As such, it has a very different point of view.  He discusses the discomforts of a soldier's life, the frequent waiting even during the heat of battle, the harsh punishments meted out by officers which contributed to the high desertion rate, the high mortality rate from illness, and the constant quest for alcohol.

Occasionally, he discusses the generals.  He indicates that the men liked Old Davey, but also knew he was not much of a strategist.  Had General Patterson not intervened to prevent it, Twiggs intended to throw his division into a frontal assault at Cerro Gordo.  The men knew it would result in heavy casualties, but Twiggs was raring to go.  When Scott arrived the following day, he sent scouts to find a way around the Mexican strong points.  The men knew that Scott was stingy with their lives, thus his popularity despite his Fuss and Feathers reputation.

Very readable and highly recommended.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Kate was at Heathrow with plans to fly to Norway.  The man in front of her at the ticket counter proved to be a massively built though apparently dull-witted fellow and not owning a credit card to book his flight.  Growing increasingly frustrated, Kate offered to buy his ticket.  Then it turned out he didn't have a passport.  No sooner had she abandoned her trip to Norway than Heathrow exploded!

Dirk Gently slept through the urgent ringing of his phone.  Eventually, the repeated phone calls ended and he was able to slip back into a pleasant sleep.  When he finally awoke, he realized that he was late for an appointment with a paying client!  That explained the phone ringing!  How to explain his lateness and still get paid?  He made his way to the client's home and was troubled to see so many police cars parked out front.  His client was inexplicably dead in a basement locked from the inside.  Suicide?  Unlikely.  His decapitated head was sitting on the record player.  The situation was clearly impossible, which was just the sort of mystery Dirk liked.  If only he had a paying client.

Odin, the All Father of the Norse Gods, has retired to a mental hospital where his linen sheets are changed frequently and he lives in comfort.  Annoyingly, Thor had demanded a challenge in Valhalla, which was going to interrupt Odin's joyous retirement.  Yes, it turns out that the gods still exist though they have not adapted to the modern world.  Most of them are tramps wandering the streets.  In fact, until very recently, Odin had been one such tramp, but he sold off the power of the gods for a clean bed and fresh linens.

Dirk proves to be a hapless oaf, a man who puts immense effort into avoiding small tasks until they became insurmountable.  The most obvious example of this was his fear of opening his refrigerator for discovering what might have become of the contents.  It hadn't been opened in months and his cleaning lady had likewise avoided opening the refrigerator.  Funny?  Not really.  He was so determined not to open it that he bought a new refrigerator and had the old one hauled away, unopened.  In the course of the day, he managed to get his nose broken, his hand clawed by an eagle, twist an ankle jumping out of a window, rip his coat, crash his car twice, and get run over by a motorbike.  Is this an effort at slapstick?  Dirk was quirky and mysterious in the last book, here he is mostly an idiot who literally crashes into the solution to his questions.

Thor is a lot of fun.  He is full of godly fury and has an epic temper-tantrum to clear his mind.  He's usually gruff and laconic, but his interactions with Kate are fun.  His punishment of having to count all the stones on the beaches of Wales was rather funny, especially when he refused to say how many.  "Count them yourself!"

As for the mystery, it really isn't explained.  Like in the last book, Dirk's great solution - if there was such - takes place off screen.  What happened to get Odin back to his linens and Thor on his way to Norway?  The end is very abrupt and unsatisfying.

Skip.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Richard MacDuff, a computer programmer, attends the Coleridge dinner at his old college, St. Cedd's, with his advisory professor, Reg Chronotis.  Reg has a horrible memory but proves to be a genial fellow with a talent for parlor magic.  After the dinner, they return to Reg's on-campus lodgings only to discover a horse in the upstairs bathroom.  Hmm.  Suddenly, Richard remembered that he had promised to take his girlfriend, Susan, to the dinner!  As Reg's phone was out of order, Richard rushed off to find a phone.  She did not answer so he left an ill-considered message.  He immediately regretted the message and set out to break into her apartment and erase it before she could hear it.  As it happened, Susan had become infuriated by Richard's forgetting her and thus went out with the odious Michael Wenton-Weakes, a wealthy scion with no talents beyond moping about his misfortunes.  Elsewhere, Gordon Way, who happened to be Susan's brother, Richard's employer, and the cause of Michael's most recent misfortune, was driving to his cottage and talking on his car phone.  He was recording a meandering message on a variety of random subjects on his sister's answering machine when the boot of his car bounced open.  Pulling over and leaving the phone on the passenger seat, he opened the trunk only to be blasted by a shotgun.  He was quite alarmed to be dead.  Despite being a ghost, he continued on to his cottage.  Eventually, Dirk Gently - one of Richard's college acquaintances - stepped in to untangle the evening's events.

While reading the novel, I was most reminded of some Dr. Who episodes.  As it happens, the two episodes were written by Douglas Adams.  How interesting.  The story is often difficult to follow as early events are not yet interconnected.  What is this dark tower on a desolate planet in the midst of a muddy valley and what is the cause of the explosion?  Why does this peculiar door keep appearing in unlikely places?  How could a sofa get into a stairwell and then be impossible to remove?  How did the horse get in the bathroom?

Overall, an entertaining book and very much unlike what I had expected.  Dirk doesn't look like either of his onscreen incarnations.  Of the two versions, Stephen Mangan is far closer to the mark than Samuel Barnett.  The book feels rushed at the end, and I didn't follow the conclusion.  One moment, the characters have 2 minutes to save humanity and the next chapter they are in Georgian England to have a conversation with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  Yes, of course, it is so obvious.  After having followed the ruminations of a horse in a field and the efforts of a Dodo bird to get fed some nuts, the resolution felt very rushed and vague.  The book ends with "To be continued...", so perhaps this was intentional.

Meet the Tiger

Simon Templar, a man who has been dubbed the saint on account of his initials (ST), arrived in the ocean-side city of Baycombe in England.  He was on the trail of a mysterious bank robber known as the Tiger.  The Saint was a gentleman adventurer, a man willing to skirt the law in order to bring the 'godless' to justice and perhaps get rich in the process.  Though Baycombe was a sleepy town with only a couple of automobiles (the story takes place in the 1920s), the Tiger and his cohorts - playfully called 'tiger cubs' by the Saint - have laid up here until the time is right to split the spoils.  The question becomes, who is in league with the Tiger and who is just an ordinary citizen.

Much of the tale involves the Saint having snarky conversations with the various suspects to see if something slips out.  Surprisingly, a good chunk of this is outsourced to the lovely and gracious Patricia Holm.  Patricia was orphaned and has lived either at schools or at her Aunt Agatha's house in Baycombe.  Every description of her aunt paints her as a man in drag, which later proves to be the case.  Yeah, that was a pretty weak part of the book.  Back to Patricia, she has such a large part in the book that she is the co-main character with Simon.

The Saint doesn't care for guns.  He is armed with a knife named Anna that is perfectly balanced for throwing.  The Saint has buckets of confidence, an unshakeable certainty in his inevitable success, and a generous portion of charm.  He also has a sidekick named Orace, a military man with a heavy accent, an imposing physique, and a limp.

Though it might have been unprecedented when published in the 1920s, the story feels very cliche.  The mystery of who was the tiger proved less difficult than hoped.  I had my suspect early and it proved to be the correct guess.  When revealed by the Saint in the climax, the Tiger was a disappointment.  What looked like it might have been clever maneuvering on his part was instead nothing but happenstance and, as it turned out, incompetence.

This Simon Templar is very different from the one played by Roger Moore on the long-running TV series.  Here, the Saint is out for a reward - the finder's fee for recovering the gold that the Tiger stole - rather than random do-gooderism.  Where Roger Moore disdained weapons in general and weekly resorted to fisticuffs, the literary Simon likes his knives.  I have no idea how Val Kilmer's Saint became a master of disguise.

The Saint is dangerously reckless throughout the book and only survives because the villains don't shoot him when they have the chance.  He pins his life on the timely arrival of allies or the intervention of fate on his behalf.  Oh, so reckless.  Sure, it dials the suspense and tension way up, but it also paints the Saint as foolhardy rather than courageous.  Just okay.  It has not aged as well as Ian Flemings Bond novels; read those instead.

Stranger in a Strange Land

To explore Mars, humanity gathered a diverse and accomplished group of people - half men and half women - and sent them off.  Earth lost contact with the explorers before anything was learned of Mars.  25 years later, another ship was sent.  This one discovered a survivor of the first mission.  It was a young man named Michael Valentine Smith, who was born from the first crew and raised by Martians.  Yes, there are Martians.   Michael then returned to Earth with the second mission and finds he is bewildered by the actions of humanity.  He is soon adopted by Jubal Harshaw, an all-knowing sage who rambles about how the world is and how it should be.  However, it turns out that Martians are vastly more advanced than humans, such that Michael can perform real magic.  When Michael was attacked, his attackers simply vanished.  Nothing can truly threaten Mike unless he allows it.  As he matures, he discovers women.  You see, there are no sexes on Mars.  He is quite delighted by women.  When he explored religion, he decided it was all wrong and established a religion of his own, the Church of All Worlds.  This did not go over well with existing religions and Mike was soon the target of law enforcement and mobs.  Where will it all lead?

The book is long and mostly plodding.  Jubal will talk your ear off.  He is a lawyer and medical doctor, but earns a living by writing stories.  By the end, it felt like Heinlein had inserted himself into the book in the person of Jubal Harshaw.  For a sci-fi book, there isn't much sci-fi.  Sure, Mike can do telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, astral projection, and various other things, but that's nothing new.  There are flying cars, bounce tubes (new-fangled elevators that seem dangerous), space travel (not that it plays any part in the story after getting Mike to Earth), and what sounds like a 3D television.  Ugh.  You think commercials are bad now, the commercials interrupt the action in the future.  "And now back to the mob violence, sponsored by Space Soap."

Though Mike is the main character, he is mostly off screen.  His actions are described by others to the latest recruit or - most often - Jubal.  His new religion is communal living in a 'nest' where orgies and naked swim parties occur.  Yeah, there is a lot of sex, discussion of sex, sexual mores, and so on.  Learning Martian is key to gaining Mike's powers and he works at breakneck speed to generate a Martian dictionary and train his followers in Martian.  That learning the language led to special abilities reminded me of Arrival.

Overall, it was mediocre.  Maybe I didn't grok it.  I have liked most Heinlein books I have read, but stopped reading him after Friday.  The heroine was named Friday and she was an artificial person who, unbeknownst to her, was pregnant.  I don't recall much beyond that.  It was no Starship Troopers, Space Cadet, or Have Spacesuit Will Travel.  But there was a similar vibe between that book and Stranger.

Skip.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

This is a quirky, slow-paced novel with features that commend it and failings that detract from it.  The pacing is hard to overcome.  Generally, I maintain a rapid pace through fiction, but this was a long hard slog.  No sooner do you get involved in one storyline than Clarke plods off to some other character.  Steven Black, Lady Pole, Arabella, and the Graysteels were more often speed bumps than enjoyable characters.  By and large, they were helpless victims, which is rarely fun to read.  On top of that, many of the other characters lacked any redeeming qualities (e.g. Drawlight, Lascelles) and were therefore also a slog to read.  Moreover, if the words “I dare say” were removed from the book, it would probably be 20 pages shorter.  Why must everyone begin their sentences with ‘I dare say?’  That got old really fast.  On several occasions, Clarke would restate something obvious (e.g. ‘they left the dining room, where they had been convened’).  Um, yeah.  I was just reading how they were convened in the dining room, so you don’t need to explain to me that they had been convened there now that they are leaving.  Gads.  Early in the book, she also had a nasty habit of refusing to use pronouns.  Then she had some odd devices (thankfully abandoned in the later part of the book) such as suggesting conclusions to the reader rather than just stating them.  At one point, a lady is speaking and the author as a parenthetical note “who we must now presume to be Mrs. Wintertowne.”  Why must we presume?  Tell us or don’t tell us but this is almost insulting, as if I wouldn’t have figured it out on my own.  Finally, the narrative is murky.  The author refers to herself more than once but then drifts back to generally a 3rd Person Omniscient.  The footnotes give the impression that this is a scholarly work.  Then, there is the use of ‘we’ that includes the reader so that perhaps it should be viewed that she is reading to us in the drawing room, adding her comments as she goes.  Messy.  Distracting.

Jonathan Strange is clearly the hero of the novel and he is generally a likeable character.  However, he is curiously incurious about some things that should have demanded his attention.  Mr. Norrell had been brought to the pinnacle of success by having revived Lady Pole.  Despite several years as Norrell’s apprentice, Strange apparently never asked how Norrell achieved this feat.  Oh, he argues the minutia of a dozen other things but shows no curiosity over the defining achievement.  This is made all the more troublesome when Strange’s wife dies.  Gee, if only there was a way to bring her back.  Hey, Norrell did it!  I’ll ask him.  No, such does not happen.  Why?  Perhaps there are good reasons that he didn’t consider reviving his wife but that should be explained to the reader.  Speaking of his wife’s death, there was so much that was peculiar and yet he never saw magic in it.  He had credible reports of his wife in two places at the same time but never considered magic.  He had dueled with some invisible magician but never thought that magician would trouble him again, perhaps stealing his wife.  While trying to locate his missing wife with magic, he determined that she was not in England, Ireland, Scotland, or France but it didn’t occur to him that perhaps she had been magically spirited away.  No, he fully accepted that his wife had inexplicably wandered the snow-covered hills over several days and that led to her fatal illness.  Too often, this supposedly smart man was profoundly stupid.

Who was the man with Thistle-down hair?  Oh, he was a fairy but what was his history and how did he relate to the Raven King?  Clarke showered us with deep discussions on the history of English Magic, footnotes on obscure stories about minor magicians, and countless legends about the Raven King but she never explains who the villain is.  During the novel, we are told that a curse will end with the death of the person who cast the curse.  Okay, that’s good to know.  So, is Strange freed of the man with thistle-down hair’s curse?  No.  Why not?  And what kind of curse is that anyway?  It’s always nighttime around you?  Sure, it causes the candle bill to go up but that’s about it.  Strange seemed just fine otherwise (excepting the self-inflicted insanity).

There is a lack of focus.  Much attention was placed on the shopkeeper who had a crush on Steven Black and then, after the glowing coins incident, she simply vanishes.  The same can be said of Strange’s apprentices who are important for a while then, poof, he leaves them behind and, except for the brief incident of the disappearing book, they are not seen again.  Why did we get such a strong introduction of Jeremy (Strange’s servant) and his dealings with Strange’s father only to have him devolve to a very minor character?  Clarke feels compelled to provide massive character sketches for people who will soon vanish from the book or be relegated to minor support characters.  In many ways, the book can be seen as a number of short stories stitched together to make an overlong meandering novel.

It was nice to finally see the Raven King though his role was quite small.  However, we are led to believe that the prophecy that Vinculus repeated for the three concerned parties (Norrell, Strange, and Steven Black) was in truth just part of a spell to dislodge the Thistle-down man from Lost-Hope.  Could not he have been a bit more direct?  Am I to take it that John Uskglass arranged everything to work out just as it did?  Why didn’t he crush the Thistle-down man himself?  Why this roundabout solution?

It was hard to like any of the characters.  Norrell, who dominates the first part of the book, is extremely unlikeable.  Here is a man whose stated goal is to return magic to England and yet he spends most of his time squashing would-be magicians and concentrating all sources of magical learning in his own private collection.  Yes, he wants the return of English magic as long as he is the sole practitioner.  Hardly a return at all.  Worse still, he knows exactly what has happened to Lady Pole and makes no effort whatsoever to rectify the situation.  He takes on an apprentice and then intentionally misleads him about the true breadth of magic, best exemplified by the discussion over magic rings.  Norrell is to magic knowledge what China is to the internet.  As Norrell’s pawn, Childermass was usually on some disreputable task.  However, he developed into a far more likeable character than Norrell.   By the end of the book, I wanted to see more of Childermass.  Norrell’s other disreputable associates, Drawlight & Lascelles, were scum who took far too long to die.  This too speaks volumes about Norrell.  I have already discussed the problems with Strange.  Lady Pole starts off with promise but simply becomes a shrew – with cause certainly but a shrew, nonetheless.  John Segundus is rather bland and unexplored.  He has promise but his appearances are too far apart.  It is clear that he has some natural talent for magic (e.g. he sensed the labyrinth at Norrell’s home, he invaded the dream with Strange, he saw the rose over Lady Pole’s mouth, etc.).  Vinculus was the breakout character, fun in his every appearance.  A fraud, a charlatan, a bigamist, a mystical book, a vagabond, a prophet, and apparently unable to die (for now); this character was more interesting than any three other characters combined.  Unlike most character, he had real purpose, one that he diligently performed in his peculiar manner.  The rest of the characters are just victims, helplessly waiting for the mean Norrell or the oblivious Strange to rescue them from their captivity.  When they were finally rescued, I really didn’t care.  They had become nothing more than useful plot devices for the story, not actual characters that the reader should care about.

Clarke does a good job with Lord Wellington.  I enjoyed his appearances, such as they were.  Of course, the presence of Strange in Wellington’s army can’t help but diminish Wellington.  The book posits that Wellington would surely have lost Waterloo but for the help of Strange.  In truth, he won without Strange.  Still, that is a minor quibble that only a stickler for history would mention.

The massive background for English magic is amazing.  There is much on the history of John Uskglass the Raven King, as one would expect.  However, there are details on the Golden Age Magicians, then the Silver Age Magicians, even talk of the merely theoretical magicians, the qualities of Fairies, the lands of Fairy, and tales of Martin Pale, Catherine of Winchester, Ralph de Stokesey, Thomas Godbless, and others I have forgotten.  The depth and breadth of magical history is unparalleled.  I am reminded of Tolkien’s appendices that detailed the rulers of Gondor over the millennia.  With this impressive foundation, Norrell and Strange fit much more easily in England during the Napoleonic Wars.

The book ends in such a way as to provide plenty of room for a sequel.  There is the oddity of Childermass reviving the Learned Society of York Magicians to decode Vinculus the Book.  There is Strange assuring Arabella that he will return to her once he and Norrell undo the curse.  There is the tantalizing fact that the Raven King is still active though we saw but a glimpse of him.  However, I am unlikely to read anything else from Ms. Clarke on account of her failings.  If I had one suggestion for her, it would be to repeat Shakespeare’s observation that "Brevity is the soul of wit."  She needs a better editor who can cut away the vast excess in her narrative and keep her on point.

Two stars.

Project Hail Mary

The patient awoke to find himself strapped in a bed, barely able to speak or move.  A robotic doctor tended to him and administered cognitive tests.  He had been in a coma and was now suffering from amnesia.  Not good.  Worse, his two bunkmates were dead and in an advanced state of decay; he was in a coma for a long time.  As he explored his surroundings, he discovered that he was on a spaceship!  It turns out he knows a lot about space.  Using onboard instruments, he thought the sun looked a bit strange.  That's not the sun, it's a different star!  Holy moly, he was in another solar system!

Scientists discovered that something was eating the sun.  A single-celled organism has infected the sun and, if not stopped, would dim the sun by 10%; that would bring on an ice age and wipe out much of humanity.  After much investigation, scientists discovered that the organism had already infected neighboring star systems.  However, Tau Ceti was unaffected.  Why?  Project Hail Mary was launched to find out what made the Tau Ceti system immune to the sun-eating microbe.

The story takes place in the near future.  The narrative switches back and forth between the present in Tau Ceti and the past with the discovery of the sun dimming.  Dr. Ryland Grace had written a speculative paper on non-water-based life, which made him an ideal candidate to examine a newly discovered lifeform that somehow lived on the sun, not known to be water-friendly.  Soon, he became an important figure in the effort to reverse the sun's dimming, which must explain why he was in the Tau Ceti system.

Like in his other book, The Martian, science plays a major role.  Though some of the technology is more advanced than today, physics works correctly.  That first contact proves to be with a microbe is funny and also probably more likely than meeting Spock.  It is an entertaining read though the hero is diminished as the story progresses.  Why is a PhD teaching middle school science?  Why does he cry so much?  The more his amnesia faded, the less I liked him.  Kind of sad.  Nonetheless, recommended for any sci-fi fan.

The War with Mexico, Volume II

In the second volume of The War with Mexico, Justin H Smith opens with a discussion of Mexican politics.  The country had been ill-managed since its founding and had succeeded in chasing its entrepreneurial, wealth-generating class back to Spain.  The country had been stripped of most wealth, with the exception of the Catholic Church.  Unable to secure loans thanks to its long history of financial mismanagement, the government looked to plunder the church.

Meanwhile, Winfield Scott landed his army virtually unopposed on the beaches south of Veracruz.  Over the next 7 months, Scott's relatively small army trekked across Mexico in a path not unlike Hernan Cortes.  Veracruz was pounded into submission with artillery by early March.  Santa Anna was once again sent retreating to Mexico City after the Battle of Cerro Gordo in April.  Though some of his generals argued for an immediate assault into the capitol, Scott wanted more troops, supplies, and money.  The campaign stalled until August when he resumed his march to Mexico City and captured it.

The differing viewpoints of the Americans and the Mexicans is one of the more interesting parts of the book.  Where the Americans would willingly halt after a victory to discuss peace, the Mexicans - especially Santa Anna - viewed this as just an opportunity to rebuild his shattered army and somehow appropriate more money to take another crack at defeating the Americans.  Nicholas Trist, the plenipotentiary minister for the United States, had many conferences during the lulls in fighting and nothing ever emerged.  It was not until the Americans captured and occupied Mexico City and Santa Anna was forced to flee the country that real peace talks could take place.

Where the first chapter discussed politics in Mexico City, the final chapters look at the politics of Washington, from financing the war to lobbying for or against it, to international relations regarding it.  The overwhelming victory by American forces was in spite of, rather than thanks to, the machinations of DC.  Polk had wanted an inexpensive war but the costs grew rapidly and the Congress was not eager to provide funding, thus explaining Scott's halting advance.  Arguments about how much of Mexico to annex ran the gamut from virtually nothing to all of Mexico.  Polk himself was leaning toward a much larger chunk than was ultimately secured if only to justify the expense.  However, Trist's unauthorized treaty - though not to Polk's liking - was an opportunity to end the war as soon as possible.  As for international relations, Mexico had not won itself the allies it had expected because it had so often reneged on loans and harassed foreign merchants.  The US earned grudging respect for winning what many - even Lord Wellington! - thought was an unwinnable campaign.

Of particular note, Smith paints a picture that is mostly approving of the US arguments for the war.  The US invasion of the 1840s for unpaid debts was not unique. France invaded during the Pastry War of 1838 and again during the Franco-Mexican War (1861-1867), which initially saw Great Britain and Spain as French allies.  Smith argues that Mexico brought most of its troubles upon itself.

The final chapters are dreary reading.  Where the marches of Taylor and Scott offered a strong narrative that drew the reader along, the jump among various politicians and their disparate goals was often hard to follow and not very interesting.  However, the footnoting is spectacular and so expansive as to make one wonder how one man could have gone through so much material for this work.  Of course, he won the Pulitzer Prize for The War with Mexico.

Recommended.

Climax at Buena Vista

In this 1966 book, David Lavender tracks the paths taken by Zachary Taylor and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to the epic battle at Buena Vista.  He details how Taylor established Camp Jessup on the Texas border as far back as 1821 and how Santa Anna himself had crossed La Angostura (the Mexican name for the narrows where the battle was fought) as far back as 1813.  In the wake of the annexation of Texas, Mexico and the United States had a diplomatic break and no effort by the US to cajole Mexico into negotiations worked.  So it was that Zachary Taylor was dispatched to the Rio Grande.  Both sides grew weary of the stalemate.  President Paredes ordered his army to attack the Americans.  Before President Polk even knew a battle had happened, he was composing his war message for Congress.  The war had begun.

While Taylor fought his way toward Buena Vista via the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterrey, Santa Anna had to smuggle himself back into Mexico.  He had been exiled in 1844 but the war offered opportunities.  He convinced Polk to let him through the blockade and he would negotiate.  Ha!  Once back, he assembled the largest army he could and marched north to crush the Americans.  Of course, it is entirely possible that Santa Anna was sincere when he made promises to negotiate but the political situation in Mexico would not allow it.  He was a man to capitalize on the currents rather than fight them.

Taylor heard rumors of a grand army but repeatedly dismissed them.  It would be impossible to march an army through the desert from San Luis Potosi.  The Mexicans had captured dispatches exposing the planned landing at Veracruz and it was more logical for Santa Anna to oppose General Winfield Scott's landing.  Even as more credible news arrived of a grand army approaching, Taylor dismissed it as overblown.  Boy, was he in for a surprise.  By the time he was convinced, it was almost too late when 15,000 troops appeared in the distance; Taylor had fewer than 5,000 troops.  Taylor abandoned his forward camp and raced back beyond the narrow pass at Buena Vista to secure his supplies and rear.  He left General John Ellis Wool to layout the planned battleground.

As Santa Anna assembled his troops, he requested Taylor's surrender.  Taylor declined.  Most of Taylor's regular troops had been taken for the landing at Veracruz.  He was left with mostly volunteer regiments; Taylor had long distrusted volunteer soldiers, but now his career - his life! - depended on them.  Luckily for Taylor, the Mexican troops were exhausted.  They had marched through the desert and were sent to battle with hardly a rest and hungry.  Santa Anna urged them on by saying the Americans had food aplenty if only we break through their lines.  And break the lines did!  The America left retreated before a strong Mexican press.  Jefferson Davis and his Mississippi Rifles, among others, plugged the hole and sent the Mexican Lancers back to their side of the line.

The battle began on February 22 and was resumed on February 23.  It was a very near thing.  In fact, Taylor fully expected to resume the battle the following day, but Santa Anna withdrew.  His troops were starving and exhausted.  Where the Americans had almost 300 killed and 400 wounded, the Mexicans had 600 killed, over 1,000 wounded, and nearly 2,000 missing (probably deserted).

Lavender does an outstanding job of leading both principal generals to the field of battle and detailing their epic clash.  A Mexican victory would have changed the war.  No other Mexican general could have assembled so great an army.  Polk had allowed the most potent threat against his war aims into the country!  Santa Anna came so close to victory.

Taylor was not a great tactician but he was a boon to troop morale.  His homespun demeanor and absolute fearlessness as bullets and cannon balls whizzed about him transferred to his troops.  He was unflappable.  After his first couple of battles, he was willing to hand off further fighting to General Winfield Scott.  However, then there was talk of him as a presidential candidate.  At first, he brushed it aside as nothing but as time went on, he warmed to the idea.  After he had captured Monterrey, he was sold on the idea.  This also made him see political machinations in everything thereafter.  President Polk was trying to ruin him, General Scott was out to sabotage him, Secretary of War Marcy was bypassing him.  He needed one more battle to cement his candidacy, but not as big as the one he got.

The book is absolutely terrific.  It is well-researched and makes for a gripping narrative of Taylor's part in the war.  Highly recommended.

General William S Harney: Prince of Dragoons

William Selby Harney was born in Kentucky in 1800 and joined the military in 1817.  His family was acquainted with Andrew Jackson and Harney found himself accompanying the great general to the transfer of East Florida from the Spanish to the United States.  Harney didn't see action until the Black Hawk War (1832) where he met Abraham Lincoln and served with Zachary Taylor.  Through his political connections, Harney rose rapidly in rank.  However, he had made an enemy of Winfield Scott, the top general for the majority of Harney's career.  Though he fought in the Mexican War, his career was mostly defined by his reputation as an Indian fighter.  During the 2nd Seminole War, he saw the failures of the European mode of combat against the guerilla style of the Seminoles.  He used disguises, new colt revolving rifles, and riverine warfare to counter them.  Despite orders to the contrary, he led a campaign with such tactics into the Everglades and won plaudits from the newspapers for his daring.  When the 3rd Seminole War erupted (1858), it was no surprise that the military sent Harney back to Florida.  In 1855, he had given a band of Souix such a drubbing at the Battle of Ash Hollow that he was ever after viewed with awe among the Plains Tribes.

Known as a hothead with a short fuse, Harney was quick to attack.  This belligerence nearly led to disaster more than once.  Most notably, the Pig War (1859) in the state of Washington.  Though the border between the US and Canada was mostly settled in 1846, some islands between Victoria Island and the mainland were left in contention.  Harney escalated a case about the value of a pig into an international incident.  His old foe, Winfield Scott, was forced to quell the situation in person and give Harney a lecture.  No sooner did Scott leave than Harney started his shenanigans again.  In another instance, he became so furious with a black servant that he beat her to death.  He fled St. Louis to avoid arrest.  He was eventually indicted for murder and tried.  Unsurprisingly, he was acquitted.

Like most people, Harney mellowed with age.  In the case of the Civil War, perhaps he had mellowed too much.  Having command of the Western Department - most importantly the state of Missouri - Harney was too slow to counter rebellious activities.  Erring on the side of caution, he allowed the Confederate-leaning governor to maneuver toward rebellion.  Of note, he saw that he was probably the wrong man to be posted in Missouri at the time and asked for a transfer.  Instead, he was sent into retirement and sat on the sidelines during the Civil War.

Having encountered Harney in my many readings over the years, he always appeared as a difficult, bellicose, and generally mean villain.  He is often painted as vindictive and cruel, which was frequently true.  However, George Rollie Adams gives a more complete view of the man.  Though his bad qualities stand out in works where he is mentioned, his good qualities are overlooked.  Here was a soldier who was intensely loyal to the United States, had courage to burn, had a keen understanding of the various Indian tribes, and proved to be a better planner and tactician than many of his contemporaries, especially as regards the Indians.

Outstanding book and highly recommended.

Flynn's World

It is late at night when Flynn is summoned by Jenny, his 13-year-old daughter, to a nearby cemetery.  There, they find Billy, Jenny's boyfriend, with his ear nailed to a tree.  Billy refused to say who nailed him to the tree, even if it costs him his ear.  The following day, Flynn is sent to meet with the president of Harvard, who would like Flynn to investigate potential threats to an elderly professor.  Flynn finds that the man, once a beloved academic, has somehow become a pariah.  Moreover, threatening letters, phone calls, and even websites abound.  What could be the cause of this?  Lastly, a particular detective has an outstanding conviction record and yet the demographics of his arrests is 100% minorities.  Peculiar.

Where previous Flynn novels have tackled monetary shenanigans (The Buck Passes Flynn) and the undeserved power of the rich and powerful (Flynn's In), this one explores the decline of academia, racism, and the first inklings of co-ed sports.  The story of the Harvard professor involves both anger at his failure to retire (he's 76) and his clinging to old-fashioned thinking that Western Civilization is objectively better than those being promoted.  Of note, the faculty is shown to break into little cliques based on their race, ethnicity, or age.  This Balkanization of academia is viewed negatively.  Clearly, McDonald preferred an earlier version of Harvard's faculty; it should be noted that Gregory McDonald attended Harvard.  In another of the storylines, Flynn shows displeasure at co-ed sports, notably wrestling in this particular instance.  Were McDonald still alive, one supposes he would be against transgenderism, at least as regards sports.  Lastly, the corrupt cop proves to be a Nazi.  Wow, subtle on the racism storyline!

Though better than the previous two entries, it has some serious problems.  First, it takes place when it is written: the late 1990s.  With Flynn's first appearance being in 1976.  In the late 1990s, his daughter is still only 13.  Hmm.  Also, it is again mentioned how his parents were murdered by Nazis at the end of the war when he was 14.  So, born in 1931, he would be in his late 60s by now.  Yeah, I am reminded of comic book characters who never age.  Bart Simpson has been in the 4th grade for more than 30 years.  Second, the mysteries are not really mysteries.  While investigating the nailed ear case, Flynn spoke to a person who knew the reasons but failed to offer them.  The resolution for the Harvard professor was just as disappointing, the main culprit being unbelievable.  As for the corrupt cop, good grief.  Let's just stick a secret Nazi on the police force and have Flynn figure it out.  Ugh.

The much-maligned Grover, Flynn's dull-witted assistant, has an opportunity to shine by attaching himself to the good professor.  Yes, by the end, Flynn finds that there may be hope for Grover.  This was a nice change of pace as I had grown tired of Grover the clown.

Having now read all the Flynn novels, I'd say that McDonald should have stuck with Fletch instead.  Flynn was a terrific support character in Confess, Fletch, and would have been fun to see return as many other characters had.  As the central character, he was not a particularly good detective, never lived up to his super spy hype, and all too often offered asides meant purely for the reader.  He had to be surrounded by dullards to seem smart, which is exactly what happened.

Flynn's In

Inspector Flynn receives a call from the Police Commissioner who asks him to pack a bag and head to the Rod & Gun Club, which is located in a neighboring state.  Also, tell no one where he is going.  Flynn wakes his wife and tells her where he is going.  Next, he calls retired Detective Walter "Cocky" Concannon to see if he is up for a drive to the country.  Indeed, he is.  The pair arrive at the retreat for the ultrawealthy and politically powerful to learn that a member has died.  Of course, in order to avoid any legal entanglements at the club, the body was moved to a nearby motel.  Flynn quickly determines that the 'accidental death while cleaning a shotgun' story doesn't fly.  The man was clearly murdered, but by whom?  There are plenty of suspects.  No sooner have Flynn and Cocky begun the investigation than there is another body.  Once again, the corpse is spirited away to prevent a scandal.  With the Police Commissioner onsite and seemingly approving of such antics, Flynn is overruled in his desire to call in the state police.

As with the previous Flynn novel, McDonald explains the workings of the world through Flynn and his observations.  The rich and powerful are mostly amoral fools who nonetheless rule the world.  Laws and ethics don't apply to them.  That wouldn't be so annoying if there was actually a mystery that Flynn solves.  Instead, he finds a basketful of motivation for each person just before that person is murdered.  The members cover up the murder but remain at the lodge, knowing full well that the murderer is still on the loose.  Like I said, fools.  When the murderer is discovered, it came out of the blue.  Though the author repeatedly tells us that Flynn is brilliant, he doesn't show us that he is.  He's no Sherlock Holmes.

While Flynn is stuck at the rich man's lodge, he is often on the phone with the increasingly dull-witted Grover.  Grover is on the case of a hit-and-run, which seems to interest Flynn quite a bit.  Does this somehow tie into the various murders at the Rod & Gun Club?  No, not at all.  No idea why it is even included.  When Flynn was first introduced in Confess, Fletch, the murder tied in with the painting investigation in a surprise twist.  No such thing here.  Just a pointless tangent.

One interesting part of the novel was the ongoing game of chess between Flynn and Cocky.  The moves are all listed as the two discuss the case.  When Flynn makes the final move, Cocky looks at the board bewildered and concedes defeat.  A serious chess fan could setup a board and see how the game went.  Neat idea.

By the end, it was just too ludicrous.  Flynn is all talk and no action.  His deductions lead nowhere and really just tell us how bad these rich and politically-connected fools are.  Skip.

General William Jenkins Worth - The American Murat

In his PhD dissertation, Edward Seccomb Wallace researched the life of General William Jenkins Worth, hero of the Battle of Monterrey.  That battle was the high watermark of Worth's career.

The book details the Worth family and how the son of a whaler became a soldier rather than a sailor.  Joining the army during the War of 1812, Worth found himself serving with Winfield Scott.  The two would become fast friends for the next 30 years.  Worth was seriously wounded in the leg and had a limp for the remainder of his life.  He became the first Commandant of Cadets at West Point, a position he held while Robert E. Lee was a cadet.  The man who succeeded him, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, became a lifelong antagonist.  From West Point, Worth became the commanding officer of the newly formed 8th Infantry.  The 8th was posted along the Great Lakes to prevent a Canadian independence movement from using the US as a hideout and also to prevent Americans from supporting the rebels; a very peculiar situation.  He was later sent to Florida, where he became the leader who finally 'won' the Second Seminole War (1835-1842).  The annexation of Texas in 1845 saw Worth and the 8th Infantry posted in Corpus Christi and later marching to the Rio Grande.  Thinking that there would be no fighting and having been disrespected by the military (as he saw it), Worth resigned.  A month later, the war had commenced and his men had fought both Palo Alto and Resaca de La Palma without him.  Chagrined, Worth withdrew his resignation and hastened to the Rio Grande again.  Now he had to somehow restore his tarnished reputation.  He intended to achieve promotion or death.  His standout performance at Monterrey in September 1846 earned him the promotion he desired.  He served with Windfield Scott again during the march to Mexico City, but they were no longer friends.  After the war, he was posted in San Antonio, TX, where he died from cholera in 1849.

The most interesting part of the book is the political rivalry among the generals.  Though often mentioned in books on the Mexican-American War, it is generally told from Hitchcock's perspective.  As such, Worth is often seen as one part of a spiteful triumvirate of officers.  Here, that story is flipped on its head and Ethan Allen Hitchcock comes across as a devious manipulator.  Hitchcock had been Worth's subordinate at West Point.  Later, he was given the rank of major in Worth's 8th Infantry but did not report for duty.  No, he was on long term detached assignment, something fairly common at the time.  However, that left Worth without a major.  Later, when the 8th was in Florida, Hitchcock somehow wrangled repeated extended leaves from duty.  Worth developed a very low opinion of Hitchcock.  However, Hitchcock was a master of regulation and the lawyerly side of the military.  Both Worth and Hitchcock were on the Rio Grande in April 1846.  Worth, who had a brevet rank of brigadier general but a lineal rank of colonel, viewed himself as the obvious second in command to General Taylor.  However, Colonel David Twiggs had only the lineal rank of colonel but this pre-dated Worth's lineal rank.  Hitchcock argued on Twiggs side (behind the scenes, of course) despite the fact that he well knew that Worth was the far more competent commander.  Taylor dodged a decision on the matter by sending it to Washington.  Washington, lobbied by Hitchcock, favored Twiggs.  When word returned to the Rio Grande that Twiggs outranked him, an indignant Worth resigned.  A few days later, Hitchcock requested leave and also departed.  This was not the last clash between Worth and Hitchcock.  As Worth died in 1849 and Hitchcock lived until 1870, history mostly remembers Hitchcock's point of view.  Hitchcock was a prolific writer and diarist.  By contrast, there is only correspondence to tell Worth's side of things.

Unsurprisingly, my opinion of Worth was greatly improved by this book.  Though certainly possessed of an inflated ego - he wasn't called "Haughty Bill" for nothing - he was a competent and diligent leader who could be relied upon to get the job done.  Here is an outstanding biography of a now little known general.  Fort Worth, Texas was named in his honor.