Reflex by Dick Francis

Read/Heard weekend of Mar 21-22 09, on long drive.
I am a huge fan of Dick Francis. His mysteries have good pace, interesting twists and are always tied in some way to the world of Horse Racing. When I read him, I always enjoy his precision and succinct phrasing. He can create great characters, give them appropriate accents for their status and geography in the UK, and do it all without wasting words. This book is one of the very good ones as he weaves multiple threads of mystery together, while also building a romantic relationship for the protagonist in the process.
The main character has a peculiar upbringing and unusual combination of skills. He is a middling steeplechase jockey, who also learned photographic skills, which are key to unraveling one of the multiple mysteries.
One mystery involves finding a lost sister at the request of his estranged, wealthy grandmother. In the process, he must work back through his own unusual upbringing, and along the way, appreciate the peculiar chapters that made him the person he has become. Another mystery involves looking into the death of a racetrack photographer (using a 'Reflex' camera) and the ensuing burglaries and attacks on the dead photographer's wife and the destruction of their home. Ultimately, he weaves 4-5 complicated stories together, keeps them interesting, and in order.
I listened to the audio version which is always a treat as the British reader does an amazing job of shifting voices for the huge cast of characters. Kept me awake on a very long solitary drive, fortunately finishing the last tape a half hour from home.

Joker One by Donovan Campbell

Donovan Campbell joined the USMC after graduating with honors from Princeton. He wrote this book as a firsthand account of his second tour of duty in Iraq, his first as an Infantry Platoon Leader. His style is detailed, without overdoing the details. Much like Nathan Frick's book "One Bullet Away" from several years earlier, Donovan describes the process of pulling together a team (under some unusual time pressure) and then adapting to an unexpected level of insurgent violence when they were sent to Ramadi. Moreso than Frick's book, which is a tremendously compelling firsthand account of leading the "point of the spear" in the assault on Baghdad, Campbell's book explores the feelings and emotions of one of the toughest war situation our troops have faced. Without being unnecessarily graphic, Campbell describes the emotional tension of bringing peace and order to Ramadi, without support or the slightest recognition from the local populace. The emotional and spiritual details are as gripping as the details of the battle tactics. Not for the lighthearted, but the best insight into going to war in this era.

The Shack by William P. Young

Better than usual book about a "tangible" encounter with God in the Christian concept of Three Persons in the Trinity. Certainly thought provoking for me as a spiritual exploration of the Trinity, it has a tough mystery to solve that allows the principal character to be "processed" through conversations with these three unique characters. For conservative, tradition-based Christians, the license of having for example a large, ebullient African American woman as "God the Father" (a la a similar character in The Matrix) might be too much. But, the main character wrestles through personal pain in a process that would be familiar to most psychologists. Found it readable and less "pop religion" than other books of this type. If someone is wrestling with pain, it might give some inspiration. Unfortunately, some of the circumstances in the plot might not be worth exploring for some readers.

Sea Wolf by Jack London

Recommended by someone after hearing about my interest in the Vendee Globe, an around the world solo sailing race just completed by 11 sailors. A Jack London classic discussion of a wealthy, prim office type falling from a boat in San Francisco Bay, then ending up on a seal boat and being toughened by serving under the maniacal captain, Lars Wolf. In fact, there is not a lot of insight into sailing and the challenges of rigging and manning a sailboat until about 3/4 of the way through the book. But, the character growth and the philosophical debates between Lars and his shanghaied educated crew member are well worth the read. The romance that develops and the ultimate ending are tied to the time of the writing, but still a very good classic novel. This was a book that I had in print and on Audio tape (unedited) so I could listen during my workouts. I became addicted to the audio version and enjoyed finishing the book with the tapes.

Rising Tide by John M. Barry

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

Great book about Mississippi river policies and great flood of 1927; helped elect Hoover.

To read this book post-Katrina gives a tremendous sense of perspective. The flood of 1927, which extended all the way from Southern Illinois through Missouri, Mississippi, and Louisianna, happened almost in slow motion with cascading events over weeks and months that were unstoppable. Unbelievably, New Orleans' city leaders made the cold hearted decision, which turned out to be unnecessary, to purposely flood certain poor parishes to save the heart of New Orleans, with the implicit approval of Washington DC. This is like watching Katrina unfold in forward motion over years of poor flood control policies, then with more graphic tension as the weeks of rising waters broke levees all the way down the Mississippi.

The book reads like a novel and impacts American history in peculiar ways. When Northwestern Mississippi fell to the floods, an 'instant' migration of unemployable African Americans fled north to settle in Chicago, changing the face of that area in less than a generation. The principal engineer sent by Washington DC to address the crisis was Herbert Hoover, who rode the national press recognition right into the White House. The evolution of New Orleans and its peculiar customs and politics is traced before and after this, pardon the pun, watershed event.

The final lesson is this. Mother nature eventually wins. Most engineers expect the Mississippi to cut a more efficient path to the sea in the next generation, despite any and all efforts to the contrary.

Reading this reminded me of reading "The Johnstown Flood" by McCullough (yep, the John Adams Author) as so many events unfolded in sequence ahead of time that eventually led to an immutable crisis.

Blog written later, Jan 2010