Book Log 2014 #20: Dark Invasion by Howard Blum

It's 1915, and Germany is looking to keep the officially neutral United States from trading with the UK and France, but can't do so openly for fear of pushing American into the war. Thus begins what might be the first modern use of state-sponsored terrorism, as the Germans use their own agents, and Germans located in the US (either as immigrants or sailors stuck in US ports) to strike at US shipping, horses, and other potential materiel of war.

To fight this, the US only has a unit of the New York PD, built off its bomb squad, to track down and stop the saboteurs, combining police tactics with a brand of counterespionage that they learn on the fly. It was surprising how much success Germany had given the ragtag (and often unstable) cast of characters they had carrying out attacks, though it does demonstrate that proper planning and attention to tradecraft can overcome other obstacles. And given the security state we live in now, it was interesting to see the way a group of determined but decided amateurs developed tactics to combat the growing threat.

This isn't a corner of World War I we've often seen, and this is a suspenseful and well-paced accounting. I only wish that the book didn't come to a sudden stop once the US entered the war. The book could really use an epilogue, if just to give some closure to the spy ring and the eventual fates of the individuals involved.

Book Log 2014 #19: The Stolen Ones by Richard Montanari

A string of killings linked to an infamous - and now closed - asylum is the latest in this series featuring Philadelphia detectives Kevin Byrne and  Jessica Bolzano. Once again, I've stumbled into a series in the middle and didn't realize it until I'd started reading, and while there were clearly references to earlier books you can read this as a stand-alone.

And it's worth the read, as the partnership between Byrne and Bolzano is mature and well-defined and the story is complex without being needlessly convoluted. I do plan on going back to start at the beginning, but if you did want to jump in with this book it's worth the read.

Book Log 2014 #18: A Darkening Stain by Robert Wilson

The last of the books in the Bruce Medway series is also the darkest (hence the title), as our anti-hero gets involved (and helps engineer) a complicated plot involving smuggled gold, human trafficking, police corruption, organized crime, and murder. Medway's involvement, fueled by the inclusion of loved ones, takes him to places he'd previously avoided (figuratively and literally), and by then end forces him to make decisions on his life, his work, his relationship with his longtime girlfriend, and his whole reason for being in Africa in the first place.

It's a fitting end piece for the series, probably the best book of the four. It also reminds me that Wilson's new series, featuring a kidnapping consultant named Charles Boxer, is two books in and I need to get to the first one.

Book Log 2014 #17: The Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen

This fourth Department Q novel takes as its starting point a period in Danish history where eugenics were in vogue and young women - often girls, really - were put into facilities and often sterilized against their will. From this Adler-Olsen creates a convoluted case that involves one of the women subjected to this treatment, a doctor forming a "purity" party on the far right of Danish politics, and a number of seemingly unrelated people who went missing.

While this use of painful recent history makes this a more somber case, there is still a fair bit of humor pulled from the department and Carl Morck's personal life (though that even gets pulled down a bit as Carl is implicated in both the drowning death of his uncle years before and the shooting that left one of his coworkers paralyzed). I do look forward to learning just a bit more about Rose and Assad with every book, and this one certainly moves things forward for both of them.

If you're not reading this series, and you like Scandinavian crime fiction, you should start reading these. It'd be timely, too, as the fifth book in the series was released in the US just this week.

Book Log 2014 #16: Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya Von Bremzen

I went into this book taking the title in a more literal sense, that the book would be about Soviet food and whatever passed for social realism cuisine. And while that's in there, this book is really a memoir about the author's life in the USSR and eventual emigration to the US. Food plays a prominent role, weaved into stories about family and life under communism.

The most interesting parts to me, though, come once the author and her mother relocated to the US, as their joy at being out from under the Soviet thumb is often tempered by the realities of being in a place where you don't speak the language (or don't speak it as well as you'd like) or understand the customs. Watching the pair adjust and get used to the US (and even begin to miss the USSR) is pretty amazing. I don't know if I'd have the guts to do that, even with the daily indignities that were part of Soviet life.

I'll admit to having wanted a little more straight food talk (I'm always interested in goofy products and the like), but that's just me. This is a really well-written memoir that's got plenty of food talk (on top of the usual memoir topics) and is worth a read.

We were at the dinosaur pool in the middle of a warmish late August afternoon, our week-long vacation at its tipping point. It was pretty much as advertized - a large, pink dinosaur with a slide surmounting its middle was in the center of the pool, with various non-dino attractions at the edges. The water was a foot deep, perfect for a five year old who loves the water but has demonstrated in swimming lessons a tendency to sink rather than float.

The boy was enjoying the pool quite a bit, going down the slide as often as possible while exploring the other objects in turn (and getting told off more than once for climbing on the top of a blue tube that seemed tailor-made for climbing on). And every once in a while, he'd come out so I could towel off his face.

And each time he came out, he'd ask to go on one of the water rides that flanked the dino pool. One was a tandem ride whose height restriction would prevent him from riding. The other was a fairly high waterslide, built for speed more than turns, that he was just a little too short for, but could potentially buffalo his way onto.

Each time, though, I told him that he couldn't go on the rides, that he was just a bit too short, and wasn't he having fun in the dino pool? He considered this each time, and concluded each time that he was in fact having fun in the dino pool, and off he'd go.

At some point in this repeated process, I told him that the next time we came back he'd be tall enough to ride the other rides. This is almost certainly true; we've never vacationed in this part of the world (western New York) before, and it was unlikely we'd be back for at least a year, probably more. By that time he'd be plenty tall to ride, and if our return is farther down the road he may even be old enough to negotiate the rides on his own.

He ran off again, happy in the thought of future rides. While I thought of the future, his growing up and the challenges he'll face in school, developing friendships, and so on.  I thought about me, being older, eventually not having kids to take on vacation. And I thought that, as much as he wanted to go on the big rides, I would be happy with him staying in the dino pool for a little while longer.

Book Log 2014 #15: The Curiosity by Stephen Kiernan

I find it fairly easy to suspend disbelief when I read, which is a good thing with a book like this, in which a man frozen in a specific type of arctic ice is reanimated by a process developed by a well-known scientist. While the scientist looks to take the Boston-based project to the next level of funding, the unfrozen man is mainly tended to by a female scientist, who becomes his link to the modern world.

But over the course of the book, little factual errors started to nag at me. The unfrozen man and the female scientist go to a Safeway.  The closest Safeway to Boston appears to be in the Philadelphia area. There's another plot point involving the unfrozen man knowing the words to the Dropkick Murphys song "Tessie," which the book presents as the same song sung by the Royal Rooters in the early 20th century. It's not.

And then it's on to bigger questions. There's little work done to trace the man's family, which is odd given how easily a lab like this could prepare DNA samples and do some basic online research into his family. This is kind of covered by the main scientist's lack of interest in the human element of the project, which then raises an even bigger problem when you consider how thinly drawn the lead scientist and the female scientist are. The main scientist is an extreme caricature of the type, while it's a little on the nose to have the female doctor be the one to create a strong emotional connection.

Funny thing is, I still kind of liked the book. Much of it is solid storytelling, and some of the supporting characters are interesting. But one things started to cascade, it was hard for me to not get annoyed at little things, or even big things (the ending seems pretty implausible to me, which is kind of a funny thing to say about a book starring a reanimated human). You may have better luck with it if you're not from Boston, or get less hung up on the details.

Book Log 2014 #14: The Men Who United the States by Simon Winchester

Winchester, a newly-minted American, takes this opportunity to discuss the men - and it's pretty much only men - who worked to united the states that make up the US, not politically but geographically and commercially. Using the five unifying forces from Chinese cosmology, he discusses thinks like the Lewis and Clark exploration, the interstate highway system, and the Internet, and how they've all made the US what it is today.

A lot of this is familiar, but each new item helps to show how the changes to our connectivity helped to shape the other changes that fueled America's growth. I do think it lagged a bit towards the end (perhaps we're a bit too frayed now to be seen as truly unified), but overall it's an enjoyable read. Winchester peppers the history with his own personal history, which adds a personal dimension of how he became united with his new country. Worthy of a read, especially if you want to learn more about this view of American history.

Book Log 2014 #13: Tatina by Martin Cruz Smith

The latest book featuring investigator Arkady Renko sees him take on a case involving the death of a crusading journalist - or perhaps non-case is more accurate, as the death is ruled a suicide. When the case intersects with Moscow's organized crime leaders and the disappearance of a translator from a Kaliningrad beach. The clues that may help to tie the cases together and solve them both include some audio tapes and the interpreter's notebook, kept in a series of symbols and marks intended to only be legible to the author.

Renko's personal connections are stronger in this case than usual - he knew the victim, and his prodigal ward, Zhenya, gets involved when he tries to decode the notebook with the help of a fellow chess player (also a potential girlfriend). Renko's father makes a brief appearance, as he usually does, but it seems like his presence is fading, which I guess makes sense as Russia moves farther away from the socialist paradise Renko pere fought to defend.

I think I liked this one a little more than the last couple of novels, thanks to the more personal touch and the use of Kaliningrad, a sliver of Russia disconnected from the motherland and thus prone to be a little different. Certainly a worthy installment to the series.

Book Log 2014 #12: The 34 Ton Bat by Steve Rushin

Highly entertaining look at the objects that surround the national pastime, from the equipment to stadium features to what you eat and drink at the ballpark. I do wish some of the later chapters were a little less chronologically-oriented (in my memory, these chapters more or less tell the story of how the item became linked to baseball rather than looking at specific objects or people). The author's personal connection to the theme - he used to work in Metropolitan Stadium, where the Twins played before moving to the Metrodome - gave me another way to connect to the book. Recommended.

Book Log 2014 #11: The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell

The continuing saga of the English born and Danish raised Uhtred sees him leading his own army of mercenaries and planning to retake his ancestral home from the uncle who took it. But the Danes, who have been quiet since the death of Alfred, seem to be plotting something. Not in favor with the new English king, Uhtred once again has to choose between the land of his birth and the land where he was raised.

A very solid outing in the series, good battle sequences and good to finally have Bebbanburg play more of a role.

Book Log 2014 #10: The King's Deception by Steve Berry

And we stay with thrillers, this one the latest Cotton Malone outing, where he and his son are involved in a plot to quash the release of a Libyan terrorist from a Scottish jail by proving that Queen Elizabeth I was actually an impostor (meaning that anything done in her name could be legally invalid, including the transfer of lands in Northern Ireland to English and Scottish Protestants). 

The story is actually told in flashback, and includes the revelation that Cotton's son is actually not his son, biologically at least. We're also introduced to two characters we'll likely see again, one a streetwise teen, the other a British cop who has a bit of a wild streak (and just may wind up being Cotton's latest romantic interest).

Things go pretty much as you'd expect, but I liked it better than his previous couple of outings.

Book Log 2014 #9: The Labyrinth of Osiris by Paul Sussman

Our favorite pair of mismatched Arab and Israeli detectives is back, investigating poisoned wells, the murder of an Israeli journalist in Jerusalem's Armenian quarter, and how they may be connected. The titular labyrinth - an ancient mine - figures prominently, as you might imagine.

But so does the personal lives of our two protagonists. Ben-Roi has lost his girlfriend - and mother to his unborn child - due to his obsession with work. Khalifa has the double whammy of being displaced due to a massive building scheme and coping with a family tragedy that has left his wife nearly insensate.

But as they work together and uncover new connections - an American energy company and the 1930s death of an archaeologist become important to the investigation - the personal issues work their way in, too, and by the time the pair come together for force a conclusion, it's not always clear where the line is between their professional functions and personal obligations to their families and to each other. There's also one very surprising twist, which led to me to wonder how it would play out in future books.

But, sadly, there aren't going to be any more books in the series. Not long after this one hit the shelves, Paul Sussman died from a ruptured aneurysm. There is a posthumous book that came out in May, not part of the series. I'm both looking forward to reading it and sad that it's the last of book his available to read.

Book Log 2014 #8: Inferno by Dan Brown

I hadn't planned on reading this - The Lost Symbol was bad enough to put me off the series - but when I found myself short on reading material and copies of Inferno readily available, I figured I'd give it a go.


Unlike previous books, Inferno takes a more direct thriller approach rather than trying to shoehorn a worldwide conspiracy into the plot. In this story, our symbologist hero Robert Langdon wakes up in a hospital with no idea where he is or how he got there. Over time he begins to figure out the where (Florence) and when (a day or two after his last memory), but is still stumped by the why, and what his visions of a grey haired woman has to do with any of it.

An attack on the hospital leads him to flee with one of the doctors, whose brilliance belies her attachment to a fairly mundane hospital. Over the course of time the pair learn what Langdon was doing in Florence - trying to stop a mysterious, Dante-loving figure from releasing a man-made plague into the world.

It's still not the most compelling writing out there, even for the genre, but it's miles ahead of The Lost Symbol. There's still too much exposition for my taste - memories of a lecture given on Dante at some point in the past pop up quite a bit to explain how Langdon makes connections, for example - and there's some unproven mumbo jumbo about how the shadowy Consortium in the book is an actual thing. But for what it is, it's surprisingly not bad. Not the most ringing endorsement, but better than what I was expecting to say about it.

As entertaining as the World Cup has been so far, the corruption allegations for Qatar's 2022 hosting linger, a specter that seems to be staying on the fringes just until the current tournament ends. That specter took center stage briefly when it was reported that FIFA had contacted the US soccer federation about taking over. That blew over after a few days, but leaves the thought: how would the US host the World Cup if it was reassigned?

Group Stage

For the eight groups, I would pair two reasonably close stadiums to host three group games each:

New England - Gillette Stadium and Rentschler Field or the Yale Bowl. Gillette is a no-brainer, as Foxboro hosted in 1994. They'd have to use the grass trays, but that's hardly a drawback at this point. The other venue would either be an expanded Rentschler Field (capacity is currently 40,000) or the Yale Bowl (which is old but a reasonable size at just over 61,000).

Mid Atlantic - Lincoln Financial Field and M&T Bank Stadium. Two newer stadiums with capacities in the high 60,000s and low 70,000s. No brainers.

Southeast - Bobby Dodd Stadium and EverBank Field. I went with Georgia Tech's home over the new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons as Bobby Dodd Stadium is open air, and I'm favoring those where I can (though the use of the Pontiac Silverdome in 1994 shows they could be used). EverBank Field hosted a pre-Cup friendly earlier this year and it went pretty well, so I'm giving them the nod. Jacksonville is also closer to Atlanta than Tampa or Orlando.

Mid-Central - Heinz Field and Ohio Stadium. I'd thought about putting both stadiums in this group in Ohio, but opted to go with Heinz Field instead. Ohio Stadium reflects the support Columbus has given the USMNT over the years and the reality that Crew Stadium is too small to host Cup games.

Great Lakes: Ford Field and Michigan Stadium. Ford Field has hosted Gold Cup matches, and is plenty big enough for the World Cup. And the idea of the World Cup at the Big House is certainly appealing. Maybe too close to each other?

Show-Me: Arrowhead Stadium and Edward Jones Dome. Kansas City gets in thanks to supporting their MLS team and to recognize Lamar Hunt's support of soccer. St. Louis, while a historically important city for US soccer, doesn't have a great venue for it. I'm reluctantly going with it for now.

Lone Star: AT&T Stadium and Reliant Field. Like Mid Atlantic, two newer stadiums with plenty of seating, as well as two cities with MLS teams.

Northwest: Levi's Stadium and CenturyLink Field. Also not particularly close, but both home to dedicated MLS crowds, Seattle especially.

Round of 16 and Quarterfinals

Also two stadiums per group, three games in total.

Garden State: MetLife Stadium and High Point Solutions Stadium. MetLife, of course, gets you New York atmosphere with New Jersey location. Getting actual New York location is a problem, as Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, and both planned soccer-specific stadiums are too small. So we do down to Rutgers to borrow their stadium, which is on the smallish side as well but larger than any other option.

Sunshine: Raymond James Stadium and Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium. You could flip these two with the Atlanta/Jacksonville pair and it would be OK with me.

Midwest: Soldier Field and Lucas Oil Stadiu. Indy can handle one game, right? Solider Field was a host in '94, and unless the renovation made the field to narrow they'd be an easy pick to host again.

Southwest: Qualcomm Stadium and University of Phoenix Stadium. OK, not particularly close, but for three games you can make it work.

Semifinals and Finals

Rose Bowl. Of course. Why would it end anywhere else? 

Book Log 2014 Extra: Esquire.com Book Lists

I suppose one could troll the Internet for lists of books that you should read and find no end to them, but these found me while I was getting my daily dose of Charlie Pierce.What's interesting is that I found lists of 75 and 80 books all men should read, and a list of 10 books men should read before they die, and there were some books on one list but not another. How does one of the 10 books I need to read before I die not get on the list with 80 books all men should read? Someone over there needs to straighten this out before I expire!

In any case, it turns out I've read very few books on any of these lists. From the 80 books every man should read (warning, slideshow), I've covered:

• A Sense of Where You Are, John McPhee's book about Bill Bradley, which I enjoyed greatly.
• The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer's WWII epic that I also enjoyed greatly (if you can used the word "enjoyed" in that context).
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I read for AP English about a million years ago but remember liking.
• Master and Commander, which I didn't like as much as I thought I would. Probably worth another look.
• A Confederacy of Dunces, also read a long time ago but remember enjoying.
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, which introduced me to the concept of the literary spy novel.
• Winesburg, Ohio, which I didn't care for all that much. 
• Lolita, which caused me some conflict between the great writing and the awful subject matter.

 I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by the number of war books on the list. I was also reminded of the books that I'm surprised I've never read (Slaughterhouse-Five, for example). Overall it's not a bad list for something billed as "an unranked, incomplete, utterly biased list."

Moving on to the ten essential books for life (the "read before you die" tag was in the link to yet another slideshow), I seem to be missing most of the essentials, except for U.S.A. (the John Dos Passos trilogy that I never quite finished but found interesting if for nothing else than its format of mixing fiction in with news and biography from the period) and A Sense of Where You Are.

The list of 75 books took me back to the list of 80 books, which I guess is a good thing as it keeps us from having one more list floating around.

Book Log 2014 #7: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Six stories, told in advancing - and retreating - order make up this novel about the human civilization and how our drive to learn, explore and conquer may lead us to places we'd rather not take ourselves.

Not that all the stories are about warfare and strife. Really, all of the stories are personal, looking at one person and their experiences within the civilization. There is some linkage between stories, but it's generally not central to the stories (though the author did state that all of the main characters, with one exception, are reincarnations of the same person, as seen in a shared birthmark).

Five of the six stories are split in two, so you get the first halves of the first five stories, then the whole sixth story, and then the second half of the other five stories in reverse order (so the first story makes up the first and last section of the book, for example). It's an interesting device, and I did find it helpful in seeing how each of the stories led to central, uninterrupted story.

Oddly enough, it's that story that I had the most trouble with. Not sure why; could be that the structure of the book made me less able to stick with the one longer story. Or the use of a local dialect was just that too distracting. Whatever the problem, it wasn't significant, and mostly manifested itself as a desire to get to the conclusions of the other five stories.

I do recommend the book, though I think it's one I'll have to revisit at some point to see if what I've taken away from it has changed.

Book Log 2014 #6: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

I was surprised to see that I'd never written about this, but I likely read it first before I was logging books here. In any case, this is the story of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the serial killer who took advantage of it (and the general population boom Chicago was experiencing) to find victims.

The story of the fair is one of triumph over adversity, between the long delay in Chicago getting the fair and the difficulties encountered in trying to build it quickly in a section of Chicago short on amenities and long on difficult, unimproved terrain. The personal conflicts are given equal attention, and proved equally as daunting, from the rivalry between Chicago and New York/Boston architects to competing interests in how the fair should be run and funded.

This is countered by the way in which Dr. H. H. Holmes is able to build "the castle," the hotel and retail building into which so many people entered and never came out. It's kind of amazing to think in this day in age that a man could con so many people into providing him goods and services without getting paid, or that so many people could disappear more or less completely, but it does demonstrate how much difference a century can make. Holmes wasn't perfect by any stretch, but the fact that no one could ever quite determine the total number of his victims suggests he wasn't off by much.

If you haven't read this by now it's worth reading, as are pretty much all of Larson's books.

Book Log 2014 #5: The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

A reclusive book seller, still reeling from the untimely death of his wife, finds himself drawn into a mystery when he discovers a painting of his wife in an old book, a painting that dates to well before his wife's birth. In trying to track down this mystery, he gets pulled into a greater one - whether or not Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him - that is proving to have deadly consequences.

There's a lot to like about this book - the historical chapters tracing a book central to solving the Shakespeare question are a nice change of pace - but I did find some of the story set in the present day a little too neatly wrapped, especially the ending.  Maybe that's intentional, reflecting some of the unlikely coincidences and neat endings you might find in Shakespeare. Still, it wasn't a bad book, worth a read if you're into the Shakespeare question.

Book Log 2014 #4: The Fire Witness by Lars Kepler

I didn't realize how much I'd been putting off the Book Log until I noticed we were nearing the halfway point of the year and I'd logged all of three books. Time for some catch up in the form of talking about books I vaguely remember.


This is the latest in the series featuring Joona Linna, who is investigating a gruesome pair of murders at a home for troubled girls. Progress on the case is slow, but picks up when a woman claiming to be a medium - or who had at least been pretending to be one in order to earn some spare cash - has a vision about the case.

I find I've liked each of the books in this series more than the first, and that holds here. There's a good balance between the formal investigation and the involvement of the medium, and we get more background as to how Linna wound up in Sweden and what happened to his family, which appears to be setting up the next book in the series (which looks like will be released in the US this August).