The Gold Coast – Nelson Demille

Summary: A WASP lawyer lives with his wife on the Gold Coast of Long Island, and his life has gotten to the point where it obviously needs some excitement. I don’t think a mafia boss moving in next door is just what the doctor ordered though. This may sound vaguely like a sitcom plot from the ‘80’s, but it’s really not.

 

Setting: Long Island, 1980’s

 

Plot: John Sutter lives an existence that’s a bit more complicated than you’d expect from the outside. From the outside, he’s a successful tax lawyer with a beautiful wife who lives in a mansion. Inside though, it’s a bit more complicated. He’s getting a bit bored with his life. His marriage blends two of the oldest (and therefore, most prestigious) families on the Gold Coast. The money (and the roof over his head) belong to his wife, because of the draconian pre-nuptial he signed. His salary, while comfortable, places him among the lowest earners in their circle of friends and acquaintances, while his last name and family history place him among the highest, in terms of status. His wife (based on the same family factors) is quite a bit lower on the social register, while she’s much wealthier. All of this is explained quite well, within the terms of the story.

 

Enter the antagonist. Frank Bellarosa  is the largest remaining head of the different organizations in the mafia, and he’s bought the estate next door to the Sutters.

 

In the beginning, John fights off Bellarosa’s efforts to reach out and start a friendship. In time (over the course of the book) John needs to call on Bellarosa for a favor. Italians love their favors, don’t they? Now, John owes Frank. Turns out, Frank may have purposefully caused the situation that forced John into needing a favor from Frank to start out with.

 

Just that last sentence might have given you an idea of how twisted this book can get, but wait, there’s more! Now, let’s add Susan Stanhope Sutter (John’s wife) into the mix, and she gets some sort of relationship going with Frank (we’re never point blank told whether it was a sexual relationship or not), and that complicates John’s life even more, making him reevaluate his marriage in addition to his career and the direction his life has taken up to this point.

 

Now, Frank is indicted for a murder that he (allegedly) did not commit, and he calls a favor in from John to defend him in the eventual court case. John’s a tax lawyer, but he would bring “blue blood” to the proceedings, along with being a member of one of the oldest families in America.

 

Criticisms: Parts can get a bit gruesome. There’s quite a few ethnic slurs thrown around. Stereotypes abound.

 

Wrap-up: I don’t know how Demille does it, but all his books are impeccably researched, and he knows what he’s talking about. He gives good information about the first families to crawl off the Mayflower, the social structure and geography of one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the United States, the mafia, law (including tax law), Italian culture – and that’s just this one book!

 

This book boils down, though, to one man’s journey from a happy normal life, to a state of mind where he sinks his own $300,000 boat to keep it out of the hands of the IRS (a felony, by the way), takes tours of mob areas of New York City with the head of a mafia family, and takes on the U.S. Attorney at a very personal level. It comes across as a decent into madness kind of journey, but presented in context, his actions (no matter how outrageous they are) are mostly within the boundaries of what we would consider “normal behavior”.

 

That’s one of the things that make this book such a joy to read, John comes across as a normal guy, and when he encounters situations which don’t meet his definition of “normal”, his behavior (while at times a bit aberrant) is the exact thing we would all like to do in his situation.

 

Overall, it makes you think, and makes you feel for John (and for Frank as well), as they’re pushed outside their comfort zones and the rains of reality wash off the patina to show their true colors.

 

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a solid A.

Gates of Fire – Steven Pressfield

Summary: The fictionalized historical account of one of two Spartans who survived the battle at Thermopylae, previously fictionalized in the movie “300”.

 

Setting: Ancient Greece.

 

Plot: I put the plot back in for this review. It’s worth it!

 

King Xerxes from Persia is taking over the world, and King Leonidas of the Spartans refuses to allow Xerxes’ forces to march in unopposed. He selects 300 warriors (and their squires) and leads them and their allies to make a stand at a natural choke point in northern Greece. Of those 300 warriors and their associated support personnel, there are 2 survivors. The narrator is one of them, commissioned by King Xerxes to tell the story of the Spartans.

 

The narrator tells the story from the point of view of one of the squires; essentially a helper to a knight and a punching bag for that knight as he goes through training. The story covers the squire’s journey from a sacked and abandoned village in northern Greece all the way to Sparta in southern Greece, and his assignment to different Spartan knights.

 

While the stories in the narration are quite entertaining (humorous, compelling, poignant and sometimes quite ghastly), the concepts that Pressfield presents are quite hard hitting, and force quite a bit of self-examination. The concepts of valor, honor, and duty are explored in great depth, and attempting to compare any values that you (the reader) hold dear against the values that the Spartan warriors (and their wives) lived by on a daily basis leaves you with a haunting feeling of inadequacy.

 

A bit of an example: The whole city knows that Leonidas will be calling up 300 knights to go face Xerxes. Only knights who have male descendants will be chosen – effectively, Leonidas is acknowledging that this is a suicide mission. The wife of one of the main characters conspires to save her nephew by claiming him as her own son, knowing full well that her husband (who’s fathered only daughters) will now be eligible to be called up. She knows that her husband’s sense of honor will be shattered if he’s not allowed to participate in the defense of their homeland. The king pulls her aside afterward and explains his reasoning for choosing only certain knights (including her husband) to participate:

 

“When the battle is over, when the Three Hundred have gone down to death, then will Greece look to the Spartans, to see how they bear it.

 

But who, lady, will the Spartans look to? To you. To you and the other wives and mothers, sisters and daughter of the fallen.

 

If they behold your hearts riven and broken with grief, they, too, will break. And Greece will break with them. But if you bear up, dry-eyed, not alone enduring your loss but seizing it with contempt for its agony and embracing if as the honor that it is in truth, then Sparta will stand. And all of Hellas will stand behind her.

 

Why have I nominated you, lady, to bear up beneath this most terrible of trials, you and your sisters of the Three Hundred? Because you can.”

There’s a bit more of an explanation, she cries a bit, then declares:

“Those were the last tears of mine, my lord, that the sun will ever see.”

There are so many parts of this book that gave me the chills; it’s very rare to read such a strong story of valor, honor, and duty. Current era stories about the military (and some civilian stories too) highlight these same concepts, but for the most part, the protagonists in the current stories succeed against insurmountable odds, or know heading into a situation that there’s a chance that they won’t survive.

 

These soldiers knew for a fact that they would not be returning from the Hot Gates. Theirs was a suicide mission. Their goal in facing down Xerxes in this particular spot was twofold: to hurt him enough in this one battle that he would think twice about taking on all of Greece’s military might, and to set an example for the rest of Greece in the lengths that they should all be willing to go to to preserve their country and their way of life.

 

Contrary to the popular image, there were not only 300 men standing up to the Persian invasion. There were 300 Spartan knights, but some allies joined with them in this battle; true historical accounts differ, but there were between 7,000 and 10,000 defenders. Historical accounts differ as well on the number of troops the Persian king brought; anywhere from 250,000 to 2,000,000 troops are acceptable numbers within the context of the true story. There is also no hard evidence of how many casualties were suffered by the Persian troops. I have seen figures quoting as many as 50,000 casualties of this one battle on the Persian side alone.

 

Nearly universal though, are the number of Spartan deaths. Leonidas sent all of the remaining allies away at the end, and only the remaining Spartans of the original 300 (along with their remaining squires) and one ally (numbering around 200 troops) remained at the end. Historically, there may have been a handful of survivors from the final clash, but it’s universally agreed that none of the Spartan knights survived.

 

Criticisms: Quite gory at times.

 

Wrap-up: This is a very hard book to read. The language can be quite antiquated at times, but it really gives you a good feel for the time period. Some of the moral concepts brought up force what can be some painful introspection. Extremely gory at times. A very good book, but definitely not for everyone. If you can watch 300 without flinching at the amount of gore, and the time period interests you, I would highly recommend this book.

 

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book an A.

Up Country – Nelson Demille

Summary: Evidence of a 30 year old murder has recently come to light. There are a few catches, though: There was only one witness to that crime, and that witness may have died in the intervening years. The murder happened in the aftermath of a significant battle in Vietnam. The witness was a combatant for North Vietnam. How do you find the witness, if he lived through the rest of the war? How do you pick the investigator to assign? 

Paul Brenner, recovering from the aftermath of “The General’s Daughter” ; in truth he retired after that debacle. He’s called back to active duty and coerced to go back to Vietnam (for a third time), only this time during peacetime. Why can’t diplomatic requests be put through to talk with the witness? Is his government lying to him? What’s so important about the dead man, or the murderer?

Is there any way that Paul can make it back from Vietnam a third time, especially with the information he discovers while investigating this murder?

Setting: Vietnam, 1990’s – flashbacks to 1968 and 1972

Plot: Paul Brenner (last seen in “The General’s Daughter”) is contacted by his old boss and asked to take one last assignment. Next thing he knows, he’s on a plane to Nam, for the third time in his career. He’s got contacts he’s supposed to meet up with, who will give him information and assistance, as required. Before he even leaves the airport though, he catches the eye of Colonel Mang, a fairly powerful member of the Vietnam National Police Force, and in the course of the story, brazenly pisses Mang off and starts getting in trouble before his assignment even truly begins.

Once free, he has to find his way from the very bottom of the country to the very top, avoiding detection and questioning (by Mang’s men) the whole way. He’s “aided” in his journey by his first contact, an ex-pat who speaks Vietnamese, and a few additional people he meets along the way. What happens when he finds the witness? Will the witness even be alive? Based on the information the witness has, will Paul be able to tell what’s really going on?

Criticisms: This was a hard book for me to read, as I have a great deal of empathy for Vietnam vets. This book gives a glimpse into some of the experiences of a Army infantryman, surviving jungle warfare any way he can. The book can feel a bit ragged, but Demille was an established writer when this book came out, and I believe that the narrative style used in this book was chosen on purpose. Some readers might find the emotions that this book dredges up to be a bit strong. My next read will be much lighter, possibly a comic book, with pretty pitchures.

Wrap-up: Nelson Demille is one of my favorite writers. He’s a Vietnam Veteran, and this is one of only a couple of his books that touches on his experiences in the war. I would give this book an A++++++++, if such a grade existed in my arbitrary scale. I did, however, mark the final grade down a bit for subject matter. His work in technically perfect, no runs, no hits, no errors. I have read this book at least 10 times, and this last time through, I caught one single outright mistake. One. In this entire book. He should have caught it, his editors should have caught it, his proofers should have caught it, I’ve never caught a single bald-faced, point-blank mistake by Demille before, in any book, in any form or any fashion. That’s how good he is. As far as the attributes of the book itself? This is a book about a tortured soul, and his journey to peace and redemption. It’s set in a war zone; if you’re staunchly anti-war, this book will reinforce your beliefs, based on the accounts of some of the atrocities committed by both sides. If you support the troops no matter what, this book will make you weep for the pain that the characters go through almost reliving these times with them. I cannot recommend a book any higher than this one, if you can stomach a true fiction war novel.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a solid A.  I’ll save the elusive A+ for a book with more universal appeal.

The Wheel of Darkness - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Summary: Aloysius Pendergast is back. If you haven’t read any of the Pendergast novels, you’re missing out. Stop reading this review, and  go pick up one of the earlier novels, I would suggest Cabinet of Curiosities. Anyway, Pendergast is a special agent with the FBI, who investigates strange crimes. I’m not certain that he really takes any direction from the FBI at this point, he just uses his badge to open doors that would be closed to the general public. He’s chasing down an ancient Tibetan artifact which has been stolen from a monastery deep in the mountains on the border of China and Tibet. This monks are convinced that the artifact is linked with the end of the world, and it must be brought back to its home.

Setting: Current day Tibet, China, London, and an intercontinental ocean liner.

Plot: Pendergast is studying Tibetan meditation at a monastery in Tibet when he’s asked by the monks to chase down a box that’s been stolen. They have the identity of the thief, just need Pendergast to chase him down. Pendergast chases the thief and the box across Asia and Europe, finally catching up with the box on an intercontinental ocean liner where the artifact starts driving anyone who gazes upon it insane.

Pendergast’s superior intellect is his only usable weapon against the artifact, but will it be enough? 

Criticisms: None whatsoever. If you haven’t read any other books in this series, you may want to read the earlier ones first, as the series reads in order, and there are some significant spoilers in this book regarding the earlier books.

Wrap-up: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child hit the ball out of the park on this one. They’d been writing this series for long enough (at the time of this book) that the characters are still fresh, and this is one of the best in the series. If you like mysteries, and don’t mind a bit of supernatural content thrown in, there’s not a series that I’d recommend more than this one.

Pendergast is superbly written, and has a lot of idiosyncratic traits that endear his character to the reader. His roots are in New Orleans, and he’s portrayed as a syrup voiced Southern gentleman, almost a renaissance man; he’s a master of a wide assortment of disciplines, from art and music to unarmed (or armed) combat. One of the best written characters I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. There are 11 books in the series (thus far), so once you get to know Pendergast, you can have a nice long trip with him, if you wish.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book an A.