Flynn

Inspector Francis Xavier Flynn (Confess, Fletch) arrives home at 2:30 AM to find his 12-year-old daughter awake and mooning over a fancy pin she received from I. M. Fletcher.  It is far too valuable for a girl her age and he intends to hang onto it until she is 18.  While he explains this, his twin 15-year-old sons enter yawning to declare that their violin was stolen from a locker at school.  Flynn is quizzing them about it when the sky explodes and the kitchen window shatters.  A plane departing Logan Airport plummets in three flaming chunks into the harbor.  He has had no sleep when he is summoned to see the commissioner about the plane crash.  Among the passengers were a boxer who just one the championship, a Federal judge, a famous actor, and a finance minister from a Middle-Eastern country.  No, Flynn is not expected to solve the crime, but he is to serve as liaison for the FBI.  After meeting with the taskforce, Flynn generally ignores them thereafter and proceeds to investigate on his own.

Not dissimilar from a standard Fletch novel, Flynn has plenty of wisecracks for the authority figures and often unusual questions or requests for the various folks he interviews.  It is repeatedly noted that he has little knowledge of the law and isn't really a cop.  Indeed, it is made clear that his position in the Boston Police Department is unique; he is the only inspector and housed at the hall of records rather than a precinct.  He has high-powered contacts that provide international intelligence.  Of course, where Fletch is just as likely to come to the wrong conclusion, Flynn makes some connections that lead to the solution.

Though his backstory from Confess, Fletch is not rehashed, it should be noted that his parents were killed in Munich by the Nazis toward the end of the war.  He had been something of a teenaged spy and continued in that line of work thereafter.  The book takes place in the 1970s, so Flynn is probably in his late 40s.  He has a contentious relationship with the police sergeant assigned to him, in fact, often insubordinate.  Of course, Flynn calls him Grover, which isn't his name, so there is cause for discord.

Interestingly, when the story is all told, there are still several items that are unresolved.  That actually made the mystery all the more real.  There are often conflicting reports in such events, many that don't pan out.  Not just suspects who prove to be innocent, but witness testimony that doesn't mesh with the final conclusion.  So common in real life but rarely found in detective fiction; all those loose ends are nicely resolved by Holmes or Poirot.

Good read and recommended.

History of Texas

This Captivating History telling of Texas history is little more than a collection of thumbnail articles that scratch the surface of Texas through the centuries.  Not exactly a dispassionate telling, the book takes the side of Mexico in the Texas Revolution, the side of Mexico again in the Mexican-American War, and regrets the fact that Texas joined the US as it could have dodged the Civil War if it had stayed independent.  After the Civil War, Texas had an oil boom, became home to NASA, and was also the site of JFK's assassination.  Oh, and there are Texas Rangers.

To say I am disappointed would be an understatement.  This was in no ways captivating and only marginally history.  The Texas entry on Wikipedia is a far better source.  Avoid!

A Night in the Lonesome October

Snuff is a dog.  His master is Jack the Ripper.  In the house where he lives, he must guard against the Thing in the Attic, the Thing in the Trunk, the Things in the Mirror and the Thing in the Basement.  The neighbors include a crazy witch, the Count (Dracula), the Good Doctor (Frankenstein), a werewolf, and a few other colorful characters.  In the wake of a murder early in the month of October, the Great Detective (Sherlock Holmes) arrives in the area and begins to investigate.  It just so happens that there will be a full moon on Halloween, which signals an opportunity to unleash the Elder Gods (a la H P Lovecraft) upon the world.  There are those who want to open a gateway and those who want to keep it shut.  All of them are preparing their spells, potions, and magical devices for the full moon.

The story is told entirely from the point of view of Snuff, each chapter detailing one day in October.  In his wanderings, he contacts the animal companions of the other players.  Graymalk the cat is teamed with the witch, Needle the bat with the Count, Bubo the rat with the Good Doctor, Quicklime the snake with the mad monk, and several others.  That they all chat with one another, bartering for gossip and information, is quite entertaining.  Another funny bit was that all of the Great Detective's clever disguises were useless against Snuff, who could always recognize him by scent.

Being Roger Zelazny - most remembered for his Chronicles of Amber - means there must be some sort of magical pattern.  Sure enough, the midpoint of where all the players reside will be the sight of the final confrontation.  That seems simple enough, but the Count has multiple coffins hidden for safety, some players are unrevealed, and some odd residents may not be players.  Snuff has an interesting time trying to pin down the site where the gateway can be opened.

It was unexpected to find Jack the Ripper as a hero, an apparently immortal figure who - with the help of his faithful dog - has repeatedly kept the Elder Gods at bay.  Hugely entertaining and highly recommended.

Navy Seals (1990)

A ship has been attacked at sea by terrorists and is on fire.  An American Navy helicopter is dispatched from a nearby warship to rescue the crew.  Instead, it comes under fire from the terrorists and is downed.  On a beach in Virginia, Navy Seals are waking up from a bachelor party.  One of them is getting married today.  While at the church with the bride walking down the aisle, pagers start blaring (pagers!  Ha!  Well, it was 1990).  The Seals have a mission.  Somewhere in the Middle East, the surviving crewmen of the downed helicopter are about to be executed when Navy Seals come through the windows and kill all the terrorists.  The extraction proves difficult.  Moreover, Lt. Hawkins (Charlie Sheen) comes across a stockpile of Stinger Missiles!  He wants to expand the mission to include destroying the Stingers but Lt. Curran (Michael Biehn) overrules him.  The team extracts and then faces a debriefing where Curran's decision is second-guessed.  When an airliner is shotdown by a Stinger in Spain, Curran takes matters in his own hands.

A by the numbers action film, it provides several opportunities for the Seals to deploy, each time in a different method.  Here they parachute in, there they are inserted via SCUBA from a sub, by helicopter, by boat, and so on.  Joanne Whalley plays the love interest.  The casting of the Seals is good.  Biehn and Bill Paxton had both been Colonial Marines in Aliens (1986).  Heck, Biehn had played a Seal previously in The Abyss (1989) and afterwards in The Rock (1996).  Rick Rossovich, a Top Gun (1986) pilot, plays the Seal medic.  Charlie Sheen and Paul Sanchez had both starred in Platoon (1986).  Overall, it is entertaining but run-of-the-mill.  The tragedies are telegraphed, the characters see little development, and the plot is predictable.

Good popcorn fun.

Support for the Spoils System

In his latest Substack essay, Glenn Harlan Reynolds explains why the Pendelton Act of 1883 has failed and how a return to the spoils system that preceded it would restore government accountability to the voters.  Check it out!

The Conquest of New Mexico and California

In 1878, Brigadier General Philip St. George Cooke penned The Conquest of New Mexico and California: An Historical and Personal Narrative.  It opens in July of 1846, when Cooke was a lieutenant in the 1st Dragoons.  Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny had been given command of the Army of the West and set out to conquer New Mexico and California.  Shortly after arriving in New Mexico, Kearny ordered Cooke to ride ahead and demand the surrender of Santa Fe.  After a refusal, he departed with the witty comment, "I'll call again in a week."  Indeed, when he came back with the rest of the army, Santa Fe fell without a shot fired.  The army spent the next month securing the territory before Kearny set out for California.  He had not gone far when word of the Mormon Battalion arrived.  Its original commander, Colonel James Allen, had died.  Kearny placed Cooke in charge of the battalion and ordered him to make a road to California.  And here follows a rather dreary accounting of a trek across the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona via the Gila River.  There are the occasional bits of excitement (battle with wild bulls, Charboneaux's encounter with bears, the capture of Tucson), but it is mostly a bland narrative of thirst and starvation.  Upon his arrival in California, Cooke abandons his personal chronicle and relates the reports of others.  Thus, he details Kearny's disastrous battle as San Pasqual, squabbles with Fremont and Stockton, and the successful campaign to recapture Los Angeles.  He also outlines some battles in the bay area.  The allocation of his battalion is only vaguely discussed.

Mostly disappointing.  Being a first-person account, I had expected a lot more.  Not surprisingly, his desert crossing sounds like a balance sheet; 6 mules died today, acquired 11 mules from local Indians, no water in 2 days, etc.  That was surely important information, but it makes for very dry reading.  Of note, he did detail Fremont's march south, which saw multiple encounters with Californios who managed to delay the California Battalions' arrival in Los Angeles.  I do not recall reading that before.  Of course, Kearny captured Los Angeles without Fremont but his coming from the north while Kearny was approaching from the south would surely have made defending the city more difficult.  Here was a rare success for the Californios.

Cooke resigned his position as the Lt. Colonel of the Mormon Battalion in May 1847 and, once again just a lieutenant, joined Kearny on the march back to Fort Leavenworth.

This is a book only for the diehard historian.  Skip.

The Last Camel Charge

The title is misleading.  This book is so much more than the last, and only, camel charge in the United States.  Here we have the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, the California Gold Rush, the clash of cultures between whites and Indians, between Mormons and non-Mormons, and even between North and South when the Civil War intrudes.  Fact is stranger than fiction when Edward Beale, a Navy Lieutenant, was chosen to lead an expedition across the American southwest on camels.  Coincident with his 1857 camel expedition from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Los Angeles, California, there was the threat of war between the United States and the Mormons.  This combination created a shift from the California Trail - which passed through Mormon territory - to Beale's newly established (barely) trail.  It turned out the trail was not yet safe as the Mojave Tribe did not appreciate trespassers.  In 1858, a wagon train of migrants were attacked on the banks of the Colorado River, survivors fleeing back toward Santa Fe while leaving most of their belongings to the Mojave.  In 1859, the Army planned to subdue the Mojave by marching north from the mouth of the Colorado.  By happenstance, Edward Beale was working on improving the trail and had sent news to his colleague in California, Sam Bishop, to bring supplies to the Colorado River.  Bishop arrived well ahead of either Beale or the Army.  He had around 50 men, several mule-drawn wagons, and 20 camels.  The Mojave refused passage across the river and skirmishes ensued.  All efforts to cross the river were repulsed and the number of Mojave grew to 1500.  Unwilling to turn back, Bishop called for volunteers.  At dawn on April 7, 1859, Sam Bishop led a camel charge into 700 waiting Mojave braves!  Pistols blazed and the Mojave sought to dodge out of the way of this most unusual attack.  Amazingly, none of Bishop's men were lost and they successfully swam the camels across the river to meet Beale in the Arizona desert.

There is so much more to this book.  It covers everything found in the US Camel Corps, details the mythology of the Mojave, the persecution, migration, and settlements of the Mormons, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the various explorers who crossed the Southwest before Beale, The Rose-Baley Wagon Train, and much more.  One of the most surprising things about the tale is how close we were to having a camel corps in the deserts of the Southwest.  If not for the Civil War, it was quite possible that troops in that region would have been mounted on camels.  However, some of the biggest camel supporters had sided with the South.  Jefferson Davis had purchased the first bunch of camels while he was Secretary of War.  His successor, John Floyd, sought to purchase a thousand camels.  Both of these men joined the South, one as president and the other as a major general.  Is it any wonder their pet project was not revived after the war?

Forrest Bryant Johnson has written a truly terrific book that reads like an action-adventure novel.  Highly recommended.