Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana - Ann Louise Bardach

An ajiaco is a spicy Cuban stew. Cuba Confidential is just such a book, filled with myrid tasty insights, bubbling quietly in hidden corners.

Written by the experienced and thoughtful journalist Ann Louise Bardach, Cuba Confidential helps shed some light on what, to an outsider, is one of the most puzzling political stews leftover from the twentieth century.

Taking the recent Elian Gonzalez case as its starting point, the author delves into the intricacies and byzantine political machinations of the both the Cuban exile community and the stolid and enduring dictatorship of Castro, recasting what many see as a Cold War leftover into a bitter family feud that divides Cubans on both sides, sundering relationships and tearing deeply personal scars. The author's expertise and long-relationship with both sides of the Cuban coin reveals the depth of political intrangience that cripples both sides, preventing both true discourse and productive change - trapping both countries in a mutually destructive relationship that neither encourages nor rewards finding common ground.

Bardach is particularly chilling when she digs into the role of Miami's imbittered and politically powerful Exile community of Calle Ocho (the so-called Third Rail of Florida politics (as in the rail that will electrocute you if you touch it)), the control and dominence they have established over South Florida, the strings they pull and power they wield. Filled with vivid glimpses of the inside wheels of power and personal motives (Janet Reno, the Miami-born US Attorney-General under Clinton weeping in her office over the vicious characterizations and personal attacks that exploded in the wake of the Elian affair; the particular callous disregard for the well-being of Elian by his exile relations; the manipulation of the press....and so on. Read the book for a full view.), the book in particular highlights two constrasting characters - the greying Fidel Castro and the Exile leader Mas Canosa and CANF.

One of the particular nuggets of note in the book is the intricate ties between the Exile community and the Bushes; George Sr., George Jr. and Jeb (Governer of Florida); and the infamous "hanging chad" electioneering that in the end, decided the presidency and shaped dramatically the future of the US. Interestingly enough, prior to September 11, 2001, one of the most infamous acts of terrorism in the Western hemisphere was the bombing of Cubana 455 in 1976 which killed 73 people (including almost the entire Cuban National Fencing Team). Carried out by Orlando Bosch (an exile with strong ties to CANF and Mas Canosa), Bosch was later pardoned by - you guessed it - George Bush Sr. This tends to make anyone who follows the current adminstration's pronouncements on terrorism a bit leery...

Cuba Confidential starts a bit slow and I for one found the intricacies of Cuban family ties to be difficult and somewhat tedious to work through, but persistant readers are well-rewarded with a well-written, quality glimpse inside what can only be called the unrivaled family feud of the last century.

For a recipe for ajiaco, check out this site.

Check out the CIA's Cuba page in the CIA's World Fact Book or check out the latest news from Cuba here.

Check out Amnesty International's report on Cuba here, and learn about Cuba's contribution to modern dance with the Mambo, the Rumba and the inevitable Cha-Cha.

For more insight on Cuba check out Cuba Diaries: An American Housewife in Havana by Isadora Tattlin, or This is Cuba: An Outlaw Culture Survives by Ben Corbett.

The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd - Richard Zacks

Pirates and blue water took hold of me as a kid and never really let go.

I blame those early-morning black-and-white film classics that our local TV station ran where I thrilled to such worthies as Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., as they jaunted their way through the Spanish Main, with Erich Wolfgang Korngold's blaring trumpets offering rich accompaniment...

Those celluloid pirates offered only the barest reflection of the reality of the pirate life.

The Pirate Hunter tells the tale (and a richly detailed, well-researched, highly charged tale it is) of Captain William Kidd, who, together with Blackbeard, is probably the most well-known figure in pirate lore. Interestingly enough, most public knowledge of Kidd, his activities and his piratical life, is entirely wrong. In this well-written work, Zacks sheds new light on the legendary Captain Kidd, who was a prominent and well-respected captain and merchant in early New York, painting an authentic picture of Kidd as a privateer captain, sanctioned and backed by certain individuals high in the British government, to seek out and destroy pirate activities (incidentally enriching his investors/backers and himself in the process). Privateers were, as Zacks points out, legally contracted to prey on enemy shipping, so it may well be treading a fine-line to paint Kidd as an innocent abroad, but the evidence Zacks presents that Kidd was a Pirate Hunter, not a pirate himself, is highly compelling, particularly after Kidd returns to await trial. Interwoven with Kidd's story is the tale of a true pirate, Robert Culliford, whose ongoing piratical career weaves in and out of the narrative (and Kidd's life) like an unrelenting Nemesis.

Zacks work is copiously backed by research, documentation and records, and wonderfully enhanced by period details, pirate lore and backroom political intrigue, including such tidbits as the surprising democratic structure of most pirate crews, their general distaste of battle (they prefered to frighten and bluff unwary ships into submission), the truth about the legendary lost treasure of Captain Kidd, and the inevitable and unenviable fate that the Admiralty reserved for convicted pirates.

Zacks paints a vivid and exciting picture that makes The Pirate Hunter a hugely entertaining read. Highly recommended!

Avast there - seeking new reads to plunder? Look no further, check out Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life among the Pirates by David Cordingly. I also recommend the old classic adventure tale, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (also available here as a free online version). Another classic author who knew pirates well was Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe who wrote one of the first "pirate histories" called A General History of Pyrates in 1724 (unfortunately not available yet free online).

If you are looking to fall out of your chair with laughter, I highly recommend George MacDonald Fraser's The Pyrates. It offers a tongue-firmly-in-cheek look at the Brethern of the Coast that could possibly cause you to rupture something while reading...

For more information (and a terrific link list) on pirates, check out Pirates of the Spanish Main. Find out about the legendary pirate haunts of Port Royal (which sank beneath the waves one cataclysmic morning in 1692), the Island of Tortuga, and Madagascar and the activities of modern-day pirates here.

Looking for lost pirate treasure? Try Gardiner's Island, off Long Island, where Kidd hid some of his disputed treasure; or , if you are feeling very energetic, head for Oak Island, Nova Scotia, another reputed repository of pirate gold...

Lastly, check out the sunken site of Blackbeard's famed pirate ship, The Queen Anne's Revenge! Here's a brief excerpt from Blackbeard's journal (courtesy of Daniel Defoe):

"Such a day, rum all out: — Our company somewhat sober: — A damned confusion amongst us! — Rogues a-plotting: — Great talk of separation — so I looked sharp for a prize: — Such a day found one with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, damned hot; then all things went well again."

Hoist the black flag!

Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket - Richard Holmes

"All gentlemen that have a mind
to serve the queen that's good and kind
come 'list and enter into pay..."

The Duke of Wellington called them "The scum of the earth". Although he on occasion added as an afterword "But what very fine fellows we have made of them...", he was not far off the mark. They were uneducated, generally illiterate, frequently drunk, poverty-stricken, disease-ridden, itinerate looters, vagabonds and thieves. They were the redcoats and they were, for the better part of a century, the finest infantry in the world.

Richard Holmes excellent history is entitled Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket, and within its pages the redcoat has never been more vividly portrayed. How did the British Army, playing perpetual second-fiddle to the British Navy in both public respect and budget, rise to become Kipling's legendary "thin red line"?

Holmes touches on every aspect of the life of the Redcoat from the expense of the uniforms (and the recruiters' treachery at charging it against new recruits pay and recruitment bounties), the purchase system for buying officer's promotion, to the weapons (the famed Brown Bess musket - .75 inch muzzle-loading flintlock musket or as Kipling termed it "out-spoken, flinty-lipped brazen-faced jade") the redcoats typically carried.

One of the common problems in a book of this type is that for the average reader, the terminology lends itself to obscure references (particularly the endless reams of regimental names, colors etc.) that can be confusing and tiresome. To be honest, I don't care if the 11th Foot wore buff or yellow facings and to his credit Holmes doesn't dwell overlong on these trivialities. Instead he delves deep into how the British Army functioned in the era of Horse and Musket, the tactics and strategies it used, the sounds and experience of battle (for men of the line as well as the officers), how regimental society (at home and abroad) functioned, the unique position of wives and camp-followers, the soldier's entertainments, food, dueling, the roles of the cavalry, gunners, surgeons, the army bureaucracy (which was notable even then for obtuse behavior. One unit, stationed in the Caribbean was scheduled to return to Britain. The administrators very kindly stopped the unit's pay, clothing and food allowances on their scheduled departure date - six months prior to the actual departure), and the soldier's copious appetite for alcohol and liquor.

Holmes goes to the original sources - the unvarnished, unwashed commentary of the men and officers who stood in the Line, bringing a real voice to the facelessness of the era. From the wry observations of Edward Costello, Rifleman ranker of the 95th on the practice of looting, to the irritated commentary of the Duke of Wellington disparaging British cavalry, the book covers the gamut of viewpoints on every related subject.

Well-written, well-illustrated, with clear prose and solid detail, Redcoat is, hands-down, one of the most enjoyable and readable military histories I have ever encountered on this subject area.

All ranks - CLOSE UP!

For a quick outline of the life of the Iron Duke, click here. If you are interested in a good bio on Wellington, I recommend Wellington: The Years of the Sword by Elizabeth Longford.

Find out about the history of the British Army at this solid site and refight the Battle of Waterloo here.

Looking to sign up? They can always use a little more cannon fodder...

If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of A B-Movie Actor - Bruce Campbell

"Such is an actor's life. We must ride the waves of every film, barfing occasionally, yet maintain our dignity, even as the bulk of our Herculean efforts are keel-hauled before our very eyes." -Bruce Campbell.

You've very probably seen Bruce Campbell onscreen or flickering brightly (albeit briefly) as you channel-surfed the cable hinterlands at 1 A.M, even it you didn't realize it at the time. He is the ominipresent "blue-collar" working guy of the film and television industry, a solid, industrial-chinned actor who pops up routinely (on such television shows as Xena, Homicide, Ellen; and in roles such as the (soon to be dead) scientest in Congo, a soap opera star in Fargo and, most recently, as the Ring Announcer in the big-budget hit Spider-Man), and has developed a long, somewhat twisted yet steadily successful career in the entertainment industry.

He also is a "cult" hero for his work in several B-movie splatter fests (The Evil Dead series), a well-known speaker on the convention and college circuit and, in If Chins Could Kill, a surprisingly good teller of tales.

If Chins Could Kill is part biography (touching on his misspent youth in the Detroit suburbs and the creation of the "Detroit Mafia", a loose collection of young up-and-coming Detroit movie makers including his friend Director Sam Raimi), part how-to-make-low-budget-independent-films-involving-huge-amounts-of-karo-syrup (used for fake blood), and part philosphical musings on the entertainment industry, movie-making and of his place in the Hollywood foodchain.

Somewhat chaotic in style, and for the most part almost wholly irreverant throughout, the book mainly concentrates on Campbell and the Raimi brothers initial forays into film-making that culminated in "Evil Dead", a low-budget ($350,000) horror flick that, using frugal special effect tricks, cheap actors and a determined crew, managed to create what author Stephen King termed "the most ferociously original horror film of the year". The book is wildly funny at times and provides an excellent guide to any would-be film-makers on how to do more with less (ranging from the creation of a smoothly panning "vas-o-cam" (camera plus board plus vaseline equals smooth pan), to the best formula for fake blood).

If Chins Could Kill suffers marginally from the episodic tone as Campbell recounts his story, most significantly near the end of the book where much of the latter parts of Campbell's career is crammed into a couple of chapters (none of them as fully fleshed out as the early pages). The end of the book almost feels like it was "rushed" through development, instead of being rewritten and "chewed over" properly.

Be that as it may, the first half of the book is a terrific romp through a life in B-movies. Campbell's enthusiasm for his profession, his cynical asides and genuine enjoyment permeate the book, giving you a look at the Hollywood you don't see in the more glossy tomes (Don't believe me? Check out the back cover of the book and just read the blurb If that doesn't give you taste of who you are dealing with, nothing will...).

If you are interested in more, check out Bruce Campbell's own website (with complete filmography, complete with caustic commentary, and excepts from his book).

So as Bruce says "buy the damned book already and read like the wind!"

For more on movies visit The Internet Movie Database.

For fun, try out University of Virginia's Oracle of Bacon (just so you know Bruce Campbell's Bacon Number is 2).

Letters from MIR - Jerry M. Linenger

For 132 days, Dr. Jerry Linenger was away from home, away from his 14-month old son. Away on the longest, most distant business trip it was possible to take: stationed on the Russian Space Station Mir.

Letters from Mir is not notable as an account of his time in space, but it is notable as a heart-felt, sincere testament from a father to a young son. Letters from Mir is what it's name implies: letters from a father to a son, on everyday events, life in space, growing up, the role of fathers....It is, without hyperbole, a moving and expressive book.

The book is also notable for what is alluded to, but not generally focused on: the dangers that Dr. Linenger faced while stationed on Mir. During his time Mir suffered several almost crippling blows, the worst of which was a deadly and life-threatening fire that nearly consumed the station. The disaster's impact certainly permeates through Linenger's later letters as the tone shifts away from the everyday and roams deeper into the paternal essence of a father's love for his son. A short, but terrific book.

I think one reason I identify so strongly with this book is I've been doing a similar project for the past year, prior to having even heard of Letters from Mir, with my other weblog The Dad Chronicles. It's a damn strange world at times....

For Linenger's full account of life on Mir, check out Off The Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir.

Check out the view from above at NASA's Earth Observatory website or get a good look at Mir before it's fiery plunge into the Pacific Ocean in 2001 at Mir Space Station or at NASA's Mir Page. You can also find out about life onboard the ISS here.

Ever wonder where the futuristic flying cars and jetpacks you saw on Jetson's went? Look no further - here you go - and here.

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before - Tony Horwitz

"Ambition leads me not only further than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go." - The Journal of Captain James Cook.

So opens Blue Latitudes, author Tony Horwitz's searching and thoughtful examination of Captain James Cook, whose three great voyages to the Pacific from 1768 to 1779 were the grand finale of the age of Discovery. Part whimsicle travelogue, part historical study, Horwitz tracks Cook's path from the lush islands of Polynesia to the shattering reefs of Australia and the mind-numbing waves of the Aleutians.

Cook was born in Yorkshire, England, a child of the peasant working class, who built his sea-going experience first crewing on coal-ships. Horwitz chronicles his rise to pre-eminence as one of England's most famous sailors and possibly the most famous navigator in history (some of his highly accurate coastal surveys were still in wide use well into the 20th century). Blue Latitudes seamlessly blends Cook's voyages with the author's modern-day visits to his many destinations, examining clues to Cook's character and the important legacy he left both Pacific cultures and the West. Horwitz is careful to examine the mixed nature of that legacy, with Cook alternately being seen as the personification of oppression and destruction for the Polynesian cultures scattered across the islands of the Pacific and aboriginal cultures of Australia and the sterling-true British hero and discoverer. Ironically, as Horwitz outlines, Cook was probably one of the most enlightened encroachers on the Pacific, but as the first, his reputation must bear the weight of the destructive forces that followed in his wake.

Blue Latitudes is a fascinating read, not the least for the history, but also for the flat-out humor that permeates the author's misadverntures and wanderings through Oceania. From the drunken festivities of Cookstown Australia's Cook Celebration ("Why do you think Cook ran up on the reef? He was on the piss.") where the Endeavour was nearly wrecked, to his wayward Australian friend recreating Cook's arrival on a Tahitian beach (" 'This is a solemn moment,' Roger declared. 'We're seeing just what Cook saw. Tropical mountains, swaying palms, topless crumpet.' ").

Blue Latitudes is not only a great read, but great fun and thought-provoking to boot. Highly recommended.

Interestingly enough, Cook's own journal, along with that of Joseph Banks the Endeavour's naturalist and botanist, can be found online here in a hypertext version.

For an excerpt from Blue Latitudes, and a first-rate interactive timeline map of Cook's various voyages, check out the Blue Latitudes website.

For additional information on Cook and his voyages, check out the Captain Cook Society website or this site for some good background on the good Captain.

Other recommended reading: Paul Theroux's The Happy Isles of Oceania - a good read, but at times Theroux's sometimes depressed and caustic take on exotic locales and travel can be grating. He really is an acquired taste.

The Wailing Wind - Tony Hillerman

I like a good mystery.

I started reading Sherlock Holmes in high school, thrilled with the Hound of the Baskervilles, and then moved onto more hard-boiled characters such as the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald, Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels and others. After reading Gorky Park (centered on a grisly murder in a Moscow park, back in the good old, bad old USSR-days), I developed a taste for mysteries with unique settings. Someone pointed me at Tony Hillerman and I have remained a faithful reader ever since.

Tony Hillerman's books are set on the Navajo Reservation of the American south-west, the Four Corners (where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah meet). Blending the dusty beauty of the extraordinary landscape with the voice of the Dinah, the Navajo, Hillerman has created a unique and fascinating setting and ethos for his stories.

The Wailing Wind finds his two staple characters, the now retired, legendary lieutenant of the Navajo Tribal Police (who patrol an area in excess of 27,000 sq. miles), Joe Leaphorn, and the younger, slightly more muddled, Navajo traditionalist Sergeant Jim Chee, investigating the labyrinthine connections between an abandoned pick-up truck with dead body, a long-lost gold mine, a two-year old shooting, and La Llorana, the Wailing Women of the south-west.

Hillerman weaves modern culture with mythic lore, seamlessly making the leap from the intricate Navajo belief system to 21st century police work, building a very believable and reasonably involved mystery. The two overwhelming elements found in all of Hillerman's 15 novels are his unabashed appreciation for the land and his ability to evoke it so strongly that it literally represents another ongoing character in the story, and his ability to bring the reader into the belief system of the Navajo, replete with the religious ceremonies, cultural observances, and the dreaded presence of evil, often manifested as skinwalkers or Navajo witches. In particular he does an excellent job developing the characters and reflecting the directions and thinking that leads them to solve their particular puzzles in their own particular ways, Leaphorn with logic and pattern, Chee with the intuition and understanding that his training as a Navajo hataalii (shamen or healer) has developed.

The Wailing Woman is not the best of Hillerman's work. I would rank it as a middle-of-the-pack read, but as Hillerman is damned fine spinner of yarns, I would still place it head and shoulders above much of the rest of the detective fiction littering the store shelves. For fans of the series, it is like visiting an old friend.

Interested in learning more about the Navajo? Visit Explore the Navajo Nation. You can also drop by Tony Hillerman's website here for some interesting background on the books.

Find out about Navajo sand painting (and here as well), traditional Navajo rugs, and legendary figures such as Coyote and the Flint Boys.

You can check out some of the wonderous scenery of the sacred land of the Navajo at Flight Over Four Corners , a National Geographic website.

P.S. The Comments system is now active, so if anyone has any additional links, comments, books suggestions or feedback, please feel free to click below.

By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions - Richard A. Cohen

It is telling that swords are so often named. Excaliber, Charlemagne's Flamberge, Beowulf's Hrunting, the Sword of Damocles ....

How many other weapons or objects for that matter, carry the weight or significance of a sword? In the 600-odd years that firearms have made their noisy presence felt, few, if any, of them carry the aura or mystique of the blade. The sword carries a power, elegance and personality within it, reflecting the user. The sword is, above all, a personal weapon, wielded up close, not remote or distant, whether on a battlefield, a dueling ground or a piste, it reflects the personalities behind them. Swords have always been symbols: of power, of choices, of status and honor, of elegance, skill, romance and justice. And of death and resolution.

Richard Cohen, Olympian and five times U.K. National Saber champion, has written a book that amply demonstrates that, while the pen maybe mighter then the sword, the sword has an abiding fascination and magic. By The Sword is a memorable and evocative history of swords, swordsmen (and women), duelists, swordsmiths, swashbucklers, fencers and beau sabreurs throughout the ages.

The book covers the earliest known history of the sword and fencing, stretching from ancient Egyptian wall murals and bloody gladiatorial Rome, to the heavy blades of the medieval European knights. Cohen paints a global picture, examining the samurai of feudal Japan who, when testing their blades, used criminals and peasants but for the honor of their swords, disdained testing them on murderers and those suffering from skin diseases. Cohen looks at the European culture of the sword, dissecting the age of the Musketeer's and beyond with a discerning eye to detail and the people behind the blade. The book covers virtually ever facet of the sword including the hidden alchemy of metallurgy, the evolution of the design of the sword, it's impact on fighting styles, the formalities (and legalities) of the duel and dueling culture (Ever wonder why you shake hands with your right hand? It demonstrates good faith as it was your sword hand), German schlager fighting, the rise of fencing as an Olympic sport, and modern fencing technology and styles.

Cohen brings an authoritative voice to the proceedings, if somewhat marred on occasion by the usage of technical terms that may be obscure to non-fencers. The book is filled to the brim with rich snippets of sword lore (Fencing elephants for example. Read the book if you don't believe me) and vivid historical personages. Take for example such personages as the cross-dressing La Chevalier d'Eon, who's prowess with a sword was superceded only by the public uncertainty over his/her sex (a matter not settled until after d'Eon's death), or the deadly female duelist (and opera singer) Julie d'Aubigny, La Maupin, who scandalized Parisian society with her bisexual affairs and topped off her reputation by dueling three men at once (and defeating all three) during a masked ball at the Palais-Royal. George Patton, d'Artagnan, Descartes, George Washington, Basil Rathbone and countless others, famous and infamous, populate these pages, helping to make By The Sword a fascinating read and one of the very best history books I have read in a very long time.

For more information on fencing, or to learn to fence, check out U.S. Fencing or Fencing Online.

Learn how they stage elaborate sword fights and the art of fight choreography for theater and film here, or if you just prefer to watch the swashbuckling action, click here.

Interested in Japanese swords? This may be the site for you.

Now please excuse me, I've got some buckles to swash.....

The October Horse - Colleen McCullough

The October Horse is the latest and last in an epic series chronicling the end of the Roman Republic and the beginnings of the Roman Empire. You can't read The October Horse without being in awe of Colleen McCullough's scholarship, attention to detail and painstaking historical acuman. You also can't really read it without having read the previous five volumes (The First Man of Rome, The Grass Crown, Fortune's Favorites, Caesar's Women, and Caesar), so don't start in on them unless you have a lot of time on your hands (total= 4,916 pages).

I started reading them about three years ago (blame Gladiator), without any real expectation of what I was reading, either in scope, granduer or involvement. McCullough's Rome is not the Rome you typically find in historical fiction. Battles (although present and often filled with serious reprecussions) are not the driving force of the novels. It is personality that drives McCullough's vision of Rome and the Romans within. Her vivid portraits of Marius, Sulla, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Anthony, Cato and the countless others that inhabit her pages, are highly realistic, almost evocative personalities, reflecting the daily lives, ambitions, philosophies, obsessions, egos, emotions and respective madnesses of the historical personages.

The October Horse outlines the final phase of Caesar's civil war with Pompey, his dalliance with the young Queen of Egypt Cleopatra, and his subsequent reforms of Republican Rome, setting the stage for an Empire whose roots still can be found today across most of the Western world. There are no surprises here - Caesar ends up dead in the Senate - and a new character dominates the final half of the book - Octavian, Caesar's heir, who is intelligent, charismatic and ruthless by turns, jostling with Anthony and the Liberators to avenge Caesar and continue Caesar's unfinished work.

Drawn from letters (literate Romans were inveterate and constant letter-writers), original sources, historical studies and her own interpretations of the world of Rome, the books are a must-read if you are interested in the era. If not, best to stay away as the sheer bulk of the volumes makes slogging through them a herculean task.

For more information online on Roman history, check out the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, LacusCurtius: Into the Roman World, and, as cited before, Caesar's weblog.

If you are interested in Egypt and Cleopatra, be sure to check out The Theban Mapping Project, and find out about Cleopatra's royal palace in Alexandia, recently uncovered by underwater archaeologists.

Read Shakespeare's take on royal romance with Anthony & Cleopatra online. Enjoy!

The High Rise Private Eyes: The Case of the Climbing Cat - Cynthia Rylant, G. Brian Karas

It is harder and harder to find kid's books that aren't tied to some commercial enterprise such as a toy, TV show or movie. It is a shame because while it is now easy to find children's books with characters such as Scooby-Doo as they garner large tracts of shelf-space in the store, it is harder to pick out good, general, non-commercialized reads for kids.

The High Rise Private Eyes is a series of (so far) 6 children's books written by Cynthia Ryland and well illustrated by G. Brian Karas. Each book involves an unlikely pair of detectives, Bunny Brown (a rabbit naturally enough) and Jack Jones (a raccoon), a mild mystery and a snappy, gentle Nick-and-Noraesque banter between the two that makes the characters stand out. The book is terrific for the beginner reader or to read to your children directly. I couldn't resist putting a Bogart spin on Jack's sly responses when reading to my son, an imitation that fell on deaf ears when I realized that no one outside of myself thought I sounded anything like Humphrey Bogart.

So far, my son and I have worked our way through just two of the six stories (the Case of the Climbing Cat, and the Case of the Disappearing Monkey) and we will probably be looking at the others in the near future. The only minor quibble: It would have been nice to have them in a compilation instead of as separate books, but as most of the titles were released in the past year, so I expect we will see a compilation in the near future.

Crusade : The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War - Rick Atkinson

Generally, my thought was that I would alternate my reviews on this site between fiction and non-fiction, but lately I've been reading nothing but non-fiction, so my apologies for failing to provide enough variety to readers seeking good fiction. Don't worry, I'll probably swing to the other extreme in the near future....

As Gulf War II: The Sequel is now manifestly preparing to get underway, I thought it might be useful to go back and re-read Crusade, the definative overview of the 42-day Persian Gulf War, which, among other things, made SCUD a household world, and catapulted CNN into the major leagues of reporting.

Crusade tells a complete story of the war, from its early beginnings to its questionable end, with an exhaustive account that outlines strategies, tactics, weapons and politics, and more importantly, the people behind them. From Marine recon units trapped by the Iraqi assault on Khafji to the windowless basement rooms of the command center, the book keeps rolling along, mixing anecdotes with good, solid strategic analysis and background. Atkinson does an excellent job outlining the give-and-take of structuring the plans behind the war, and delving into the sometimes acrimonious relationships between the various arms of the military (namely the proponents of air power versus ground force (with the Navy toddling along last, like an irritating little brother, continuously piping up "Me to, I wanna play!").

Of particular interest was General Norman Schwarzkopf, whose incandescent rages made him a figure of terror to much of the command staff. Atkinson spends a good deal of time examining "Stormin' Norman" and his role at the center of the storm. The book also illuminates a number of interesting side-issues that, quite frankly, still offer highly valid observations for the upcoming conflict (Assuming it actually kicks off). These include some good discussion on why the war was halted so abruptly (arguably allowing much of the Republican Guard to escape); on why, despite repeated attempts to curtail them, Iraqi mobile SCUDs still managed to pop off shots at Israel and Saudi Arabia (and why Norman Schwarzkopf hated the Special Forces and repeatedly resisted their use); how the most low-tech weapons the Iraqi's used (sea-mines) proved to be the most damaging weapon they deployed; and the marginal usefulness of the chemical and biological defenses that the military touted.

The most engrossing thing about the book by far are the characters of the people involved, from exhausted pilots ill from flying at night for a month straight, to a flamboyant British tank commander who, living in absolute dread of trigger-happy U.S. gunners, attaches an enormous British flag to his vehicle to prevent fratricide (It was somewhat successful in that he himself was not fired upon by U.S. forces however it is telling and sobering to note that all but a handful of British casulaties of the war were inflicted by U.S. troops.).

Overall Crusade is an excellent and fairly well-balanced account of the Gulf War. Whatever your war sentiments and opinions happen to be, the book should be a must-read towards understanding where we are today and how we arrived at this perilous state of affairs.

And now, for good or bad, Atkinson can write a sequal.....

There are a large number of books, studies and publications on the Gulf War, far too many to list here, but if you enjoy the ground-pounder's view of the action, try Bravo Two Zero by Andy MacNab for a riveting true account of an 8-man SAS team inserted into "SCUD-alley". Not for the faint-of-heart.

Online, you can find one of the best sites on the Gulf war at PBS. PBS's Frontline produced a number of excellent documentaries on both the war, international terrorism, biological warfare and Saddam Hussain's Iraq. Check it out at Frontline: The Gulf War. Completely engrossing.

See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism - Robert Baer

I started reading spy thrillers and techno-thrillers back in my late-teens, at the height of Reagan's presidency and the 1980's Cold War with the "evil empire". By the time the Wall collapsed, I had moved on, more interested in history and reality than in the grandiose themes and psuedo-threats that most spy novels take for granted. Those lurid fictions of the Cold War had one unexpected progeny, in that they did spawn in me an ongoing interest in real-world spycraft. The result is that I can seldom resist a glimpse into that secret, covert world, so when I spotted See No Evil on the bookstore shelf, I had to crack it open.

See No Evil is a biography of sorts, following the author through his 25-years of service (mainly overseas) with the CIA in India, Iraq, Lebanon and other Middle East hotspots. To an extent, See No Evil is a cautionary tale. Inspired by the events of 9-11, it is a call to action for the U.S. to resume and expand the activities of the Directorate of Operations, the spies that actually spy, on the ground and in the field. Baer is at pains to note that the DO job is mainly about spycraft - recruiting and running agents, pulling in data, passing along the vital human intelligence that satellites and intercepts cannot provide. He paints a compelling and rather searing indictment of the CIA's policies and government direction in the past 20 years of moving away from relying on human intelligence to trust instead in technology, a strategy that, post-9-11, seems astonishingly naive.

Baer's ground-eye view of the CIA is refreshing, if somewhat limited in its overview of the strategic thinking that drove the organization. Baer is a field-man, working the world's terrorism hotspots, who, among other things, managed to make the DO issue two unique memos forbidding agents from a). parachuting with Russian special ops teams and b). driving T-72 tanks without a license.

The book reveals only limited surprises, as much of what it covers are the events of the 1980's and early 90's (the Beirut bombings, the hostage crisis, Iraq) but Baer does a good job in tying the events of yesterday to the post-9-11 world. At times, having followed in the headlines many of the events that Baer was on the periphery of, one is left with a maddening sense of "if only..." and how today's events may have changed as a result. Particularly moving was Baer's trip into the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon that, at a later date, was found to have taken him within a hundred yards of where several Beirut hostages were being held.

The long and short of it is that See No Evil is a good, solid account of life as a CIA field agent (if somewhat light on the analysis) and is intended as a wake-up call for anyone that thinks you can ever figure out what's going on in the world without getting your feet on the ground.

The CIA is on the web and you can go there...by clicking here. Go on, I dare you.

I especially like their homepage for kids. Yeah, that's right. No, I'm not kidding.

For some other books on spycraft, intelligence and general sneakiness, check out:
Inside the CIA: Revealing the Secrets of the World's Most Powerful Spy Agency by Ronald Kessler
Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency by James Bamford (This one is particularly interesting is you are interested in codes, intercepts and electronic eavesdropping. If you are not, then probably give it a pass, as it is loooong.)
By Way of Deception by Victor Ostrovsky (A good look at Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, by an insider.)

Want to go to work for the CIA? You might need this.....

The Gangs of New York - Herbert Asbury

My old U.S. history book from school (which unfortunately I no longer have) skipped right over the Draft Riots of New York in a sentence or two and touched only tangentially on the horrific poverty and crime endemic to certain areas of New York, and the influx of immigrants through the city. Chiefly what I recall from those days is the smell of chalk and erasers, furtive whispers, a long line of students listlessly propping their heads up on their chins as they listened to the teacher drone on about various Supreme Court decisions, Dred-Scott, Gettysburg, and other things they collectively saw as irrelevant to their lives. It was, unfortunately, akin to watching paint dry.

How sad that history is often reduced to pedantic interpretations without the verve, color, excitement, fear, emotion and lives of the people of the era.

Obviously no one ever told Herbert Asbury that he had to be boring.

The Gangs of New York vividly recreates New York life in the Five Points, Hell's Kitchen, and Paradise Square, the kingdoms of the gangs. Peopled variously with dead-eyed, slungshot-laden gangs such as the Bowry Boys, the Plug Uglies, the Dead Rabbits, the Shirt-tails, the True-Blue Americans; piratical river gangs like the Daybreak Boys, the Hookers, and the Patsy Conroys'; Fagin-like pickpocket crews, Chinese Tongs, ward-heelers, street-sweepers, gangsters and gamblers and rife with crimping bars, brothels, rancid tenements, raucous theaters, penny gin-mills and gaming hells, the subject matter alone make The Gangs of New York a rich find.

Here's a brief taste (and frankly as vivid a character sketch as you are ever likely to find in print):

"Gallus Meg was one of the notorious characters of the Fourth Ward, a giant Englishwoman well over six feet tall, who was so called because she kept her skirt up with suspenders, or galluses. She was bouncer and general factotum of the Hole-In-The-Wall, and stalked fiercely about the dive with a pistol stuck in her belt and a huge bludgeon strapped to her wrist. She was an expert in the use of both weapons, and like the celebrated Hell-Cat Maggie of the Five Points, was an extraordinary virtuoso in the art of mayham. It was her custom, after she had felled an obstreperous customers with her club, to clutch his ear between her teeth and so drag him to the door, amid the frenzied cheers of the onlookers. If her victim protested and struggled, she bit off his ear, and having cast the fellow into the street she carefully deposited the detached member in a jar of alcohol behind the bar, in which she kept her trophies in pickle."

The book weaves the sordid history and practices of the gangs, mainly the enormous Five Points gangs in the first half of the book (often with members numbering in the thousands) that literally controlled whole sections of the city, followed by the more common criminal gangs and the early beginnings of what would, ultimately, evolve into the more recognizable classic "gangster" of the 1920's. If there is a fault in Asbury's account (which he styles an "informal history of the New York underworld") is that while the linkages between the political corruption of Tammany Hall that encouraged, protected and promoted the gangs are outlined, it is somewhat sparse and subjective, without the clear connections that linked money, property, immigrant votes, protection rackets and other vices to the political structure of the city and the nascent NYPD.

Realistically the book culminates with the Draft Riots in 1863, which saw more than 2,000 people killed during a week-long riot that ravaged New York (That's the same number of Union forces that died at Antietam (or Sharpsburg, if you are from the South), one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War). Unfortunately the Draft Riots occur at roughly the half-way point of the book, with the remaining, more anti-climatic chapters outlining the final heydays of the gangs and the slow erosion of their dominance and control as political corruption was rooted out. Though the book is somewhat archaic (first published in 1928) and the language is somewhat lurid at points, it offers a insiders look at the underbelly of the city that most histories ignore entirely.

The only other failing of note is that, for a non-New York reader unfamiliar with the city's geography, a good map would have been a priceless addition.

The Gangs of New York is, at the most basic, a rich, exciting, bloody and base tapestry, populated by some of the most appalling personages you can imagine. In other words: a damn fine read.

Asbury authored a number of other books over the years including The Gangs of Chicago, The Barbary Coast (a look at the underworld of San Francisco), and The Sucker's Progress (gambling), among others. For more about Asbury visit this site.

For another look at the Five Points, check out Tyler Anbinder's book Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum.

For a good (if heavy and lengthy) history of New York, read Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows.

You can find some background on the Gangs of New York, Herbert Asbury and the infamous Bill the Butcher here.

Take a tour of the archeological work being done on historic New York and the Five Points, or check out a good list of sites related to the history of New York, and a quick (if a little mundane) look at Hell's Kitchen today.

In Memoriam

Colonel Rick Husband
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Anderson
Commander Laurel Clark
Captain David Brown
Commander William McCool
Dr. Kalpana Chawla
Ilan Ramon

"I remember, for my part, another of those hours in which a pilot finds suddenly that he has slipped beyond the confines of this world. All that night the radio messages sent from the ports in the Sahara concerning our position had been inaccurate, and my radio operator, Neri, and I had been drawn off our course....

We had no means of angular orientation, were already deafened, and were bit by bit growing blind. The moon like a pallid ember began to go out in the banks of fog. Overhead the sky was filling with clouds, and we flew thenceforth between cloud and fog in a world voided of all substance and all light. The ports that signalled us had given up trying to tell us where we were. 'No bearings, no bearings," was all their message, for our voice reached them from everywhere and nowhere. With sinking hearts Neri and I leaned out, he on his side and I on mine, to see if anything, anything at all, was distinguishable in this void. Already our tired eyes were seeing things - errant signs, delusive flashes, phantoms.

And suddenly, when already we were in despair, low on the horizon a brilliant point was unveiled on our port bow. A wave of joy went through me. Neri leaned forward, and I could hear him singing. It could not but be the beacon of an airport, for after dark the whole Sahara goes black and forms a great dead expanse. That light twinkled for a space - and then went out! We had been steering for a star which was visible for a few minutes only, just before setting on the horizon between the layer of fog and the clouds.

Then the other stars took up the game, and with a sort of dogged hope we set our course for each of them in turn. Each time the light lingered a while, we performed the same crucial experiment. Neri would send his message to the airport at Ciseneros: 'Beacon in view. Put out your light and flash three times.' And Ciseneros would put out its beacon and flash three times while the hard light at which we gazed would not, incorruptible star, so much as wink. And despite our dwindling fuel we continued to nibble at the golden bait which each time seemed more surely the true light of a beacon and was each time a promise of a landing and of life - and we had each time to change our star.

And with that we knew ourselves to be lost in interplanetary space among a thousand inaccessible planets, we who sought only the one veritable planet, our own, that planet on which alone we should find our familiar countryside, the houses of our friends, our treasures."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars

The Ten Thousand: A Novel of Ancient Greece - Michael Curtis Ford

Between 401 BC and 399 BC, a Greek army (consisting of the wayward cast-offs of the Peloponnesian War) marched its way into the heart of the Persian Empire (current day Iraq, ironically enough), supporting a contender for the Persian throne. When their employer had an unfortunate (and fatal) encounter with a Persian sword and the army's supply train was ravaged by the Persian cavalry, the Greeks found themselves stranded and alone in the midst of the Persian Empire, surrounded by enemies, cut off from the sea.

This then is the famed tale of the Ten Thousand, The Anabasis, by Xenophon, an Athenian exile of noble blood, who helped lead the beseiged Greek army in an epic march across Persian and Armenia to the Black Sea and the safety of the Greek colonies.

I doubt anyone can read The Anabasis and not wonder at the Greeks horrific and epic struggle to reach safety, or not feel a tingle down their spine when they cross that last spine of mountains and wearily raise their eyes to the spy the far blue of the sea...it is a tale indeed.

The Ten Thousand goes to great (and mostly worthy) efforts to retell the same tale as Xenophon, as told by his slave (later freedman) Theo. The characters are well-drawn, particularly the war-ravaged and acid-tongued Spartan general leading the Greek mercenary army but I found my interest flagging shortly after the long journey out of Persia began.

Despite efforts by the author to dress it up with a side-story romance between Theo and a beautiful Persian concubine, the journey of The Ten Thousand becomes much like the journey of the Greeks - long, difficult, somewhat tedious, and intermittantly exciting. The first half of the book, leading up to the events of the Ten Thousand's March were (I thought anyway) far more interesting as it gave you a glimpse into the life in Athens, Spartan politics and the chaos that followed the long Peloponnesian War. It is not bad, but it is not great.

I suppose if you haven't read The Anabasis previously, The Ten Thousand may be a more fresh and exciting story - but for my money, read Xenophon himself instead. There is less hand-holding and it is, as with many classical stories, written in a style that is sometimes stiff and archaric to modern readers, but...it is permeated with the beliefs and thoughts of its writer and participants, and so you get a direct sense of how the Greeks fought, thought and died, how they debated and made decisions, guided by both reason and omens from the gods.

A better book set in ancient Greece is Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, telling a vivid (and bloody) account of the Battle of Thermoplye and the 300 Spartans. I highly recommend this book - and I will review it sometime in the future.

If you are interested, you can grab the complete text of Xenophon 's Anabasis from Project Gutenberg. You can even download it onto your PDA...There's something rather kicky about reading a text written more than 2,000 years ago on a 21st century device, even if you do prefer paper.

For more on ancient Greece, visit the Perseus Project from Tufts University.

Oh, and lastly, in case you were unaware, Julius Caesar is blogging (I know, I know, he's Roman, but what the hey...).

The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime - Miles Harvey

Maps have always had a tangible fascination for me. They evoke all the excitement and verve of travel, exploration, discovery, of finding your way in a confusing and sometimes hostile world. Maps are, at their essence, stories, each and everyone. Sometimes the stories are one's of your own devising. Plan a trip sometime, then after you travel, look back at your maps and retrace the contours of your voyage. The map is subtlely different, after you have travelled the road - and it is never the same for all the parties on that road.

The Island of Lost Maps is an investigation into cartographic crime, tracing the crimes of Gilbert Bland, a man termed "the Al Capone" of map-theft. The book retraces his path of thievery through some of North America's most eminent rare book library collections and the long, difficult battle to bring him to justice for what many law-enforcement professionals mistakenly viewed as a minor crime (albeit one that netted Bland hundred's of thousands of dollars. You can bet if he was robbing banks it would have been taken more seriously). The Island of Lost Maps is also a glorious exploration of the history of maps, of map-making, discovery and, in modern times, the collectibles industry, driven equally by map affeciandos and investors seeking riches.

Don't expect a rip-roaring "true crime" story here, Miles Harvey's book is a slower, more paced process, drawing you into the world of maps and the get-rich-quick schemes of Gilbert Bland, a maddeningly elusive character who suits his name beautifully. Chock full of fascinating asides and subtopics (many probably worthy of a book on their own), the Island of Lost Maps is intent on weaving a picture, a narrative map of its own, to tell this tale, and for the most part, it is well-told, although if you can look at a map and not wonder if "here be dragons", then it may not be for you...

Interested in old maps? Check out this site and this site for a look at what the collectors covet...

Map-making can be tough. Here's the diary of a map-making team...in Antarctica.

Got a GPS? Try out the newest orienteering sport - Geocaching! Take a map though....

Tales from the Thousand and One Nights - Translated by N.J. Dawood

Know O Prince, that once upon a time, there was a collection of such tales as could freeze the blood with trepidition, or stoke the raging fires of the imagination anew with tales of wickedness, debauchery, wonder and faith; tales of fantastic creatures, of magic and mystery, of the squalid and the high. Where O Prince, you ask may they be found?

Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (also known as Tales of the Arabian Nights) are a collection of Arabic, Persian and Indian folktales and legendary stories, dating from as far back as 850 AD. Rich with humor (often low-brow), allegory, social satire, fantasy, magic, sex and the vageries of daily life, the stories were originally translated and publicized in the West by Sir Richard Burton.

Tales from the Thousand and One Nights includes a mixture of selected stories (there are many, both short and long) including the classic adventure tales of Sindbad the Sailor (which almost certainly includes some of the Odyssey tales that made their way across the Middle East and into the Sindbad canon), Aladdin and Haroun al-Rashid. The stories are excellent fun, richly woven with characters (both memorable and cliched) from all walks of life. The tales are often nested and interwoven with one story incorporating another, followed by another within it's further recesses, making the reading experience one that feels not unlike a slow, sinking immersion into a new world.

Stories in this volume include (among others): The Tale of the Hunchback, the Barber's Tale, the Porter and the Three Girls of Baghdad, and The Tale of Judar and His Brothers. My personal favorite story (and one of the shorter tales): The Historic Fart.

The only suggestion I can offer for an improvement would be that footnotes and annotations might have added more to the reading experience as some of the satire and subtlty are very probably dependent on a greater understanding of the social context of the story. Learn a little more about the background of the Thousand and One Tales here and a site dedicated to the history of the Thousand and One Nights here.

For those interested, British explorer Tim Severin rebuilt a traditional medieval sailng ship (sewn together with rope - no nails), taking it to China in an epic recreation of the famous Arabic sea traders on whom the Sindbad legends and tales were based. Read about it in Severin's book The Sindbad Voyage ( I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Severin at a lecture a few years ago and consequently have a signed copy!).

Sir Richard Burton, the original translator and popularizer of the tales is an interesting bloke all on his own. Burton was a noted explorer (endlessly thrashing about searching for the source of the Nile River), linguist, scholar and devil-may-care adventurer. Burton also translated the Kama Sutra, complete with the naughty parts intact (surprising for a Victorian). Read about him in Edward Rice's definative account Captain Sir Richard Burton: A Biography. You can also find his original translation of the Nights online

The Ghosts of Tsavo - Philip Caputo

They were called The Ghost and The Darkness, two adult male African lions, that haunted the scrub brush of the Tsavo River at the turn of the century.

In 1898, they killed more than 135 Indian and African railway workers, laboring to throw a bridge across the Tsavo River, before Lt. Col. John Patterson, in an epic and harrowing nine-month struggle, hunted the lions down and killed them.

Today the lion's are stuffed and displayed in the Field Museum in Chicago, but the question of what spawned their behavior, what drove them to become that most feared of all animals ( to us anyway) - a maneater, remains unanswered and mainly unexamined by science.

In the Ghosts of Tsavo, Phil Caputo, author of A Rumor of War, Horn of Africa, and numerous other books, examines the Tsavo lions, looking at two separate lines of scientific research that are now attempting to explain supposed behavioral and physical differences (Tsavo lions are maneless - sometimes, very aggressive, and may be a subspecies of lion that was thought to have died out 8,000 years ago) between Tsavo lions and other African lions. Journeying into the field with the scientests, Caputo offers a welcome insight into the scientific methodology in studying these animals, and brings a raw, visceral sense of the dread, fear, strength and admiration that the lions can generate.

Tsavo, in case you are interested, means "place of slaughter".

At times Caputo's writing is, by turns, chillingly effective at making the reader aware of the power of the lion and why so many of us fear the dark beyond the fire, mixed with the more clinical approach of scientific study. There is an undercurrent of Caputo's awareness of his own mortality ribboning through the story that makes the lions appear less of an animal, and more of a archetype of death, staring at you with yellowed, predatory eyes.

The book is generally engrossing but at times the abrupt shift in tone is disconcerting and uneven. As with most scientific studies, there is no real conclusive point to the lion study, or for that matter to the book. It is a good tale of a journey, but a final arrival at a destination would have also been nice.

For more about the Tsavo lions, read Col. Patterson's Maneater's of Tsavo for the definative account (and a rippin' great adventure story to boot (if a trifle Victorian in tone)). You can also download it (and many other public domain texts) free from Project Gutenberg.

There are also two Hollywood interpretations of the story, one of which, The Ghost and The Darkness, starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas, is now on DVD. Interestingly enough, they had to import the lions used in the filming from Canada, and, with the filmakers usual lack of attention to detail, they used two fully-maned males, rather then the sparsely maned Tsavo cats....

For those of you that can't afford a flight to Africa, get a taste of the wilderness at Africam.

Halloween - Jerry Seinfeld

As the father of a four-and-a-half year old, my literary experiences have now been expanded into the kids section of the local mega-superzilla bookstore. I must confess that my son and I rarely purchase books from the store, instead opting to find a small collection of titles, grab a comfortable couch and read a few in quick succession, before grabbing some hot chocolate and chocolate chunk cookies at the coffee shop.

It was on one such expedition, that I spotted the latest Seinfeld opus - not a autobiography of his rise to fame, not a collection of scripts, lame jokes or his views on life or marriage, but an out-and-out kids book. Jerry Seinfeld's Halloween is definately not a literary prizewinner (the story is alright, but somewhat like listening to Jerry's traditional monologues), but it is a fun read with your child.

Short, witty and mostly enjoyable, with superlative and funny illustrations by James Bennett, it reminisces about the Halloween's of yesteryear, looking back at the various types of candy that you most want to receive, and the inevitable superman costume for young Jerry to wear. The book does a great job of illustrating Jerry as a kid (see here and you get the idea), but was less than stellar at keeping my son's attention. Devoid of any knowledge of Seinfeld, blissfully free of knowing the trivialities of Vandelay Industries, Festivus ("a Festivus for the rest-of-us') or Kramerica, my son preferred the much cheaper Scooby-Doo Mysteries.

More for adults who can chuckle at the in-jokes then for kids, Seinfeld's Halloween is good, but maybe sitting in the wrong section of the store. Is there a vanity press section in the mega-superzilla bookstore?

Gallows Thief - Bernard Cornwell

Don't click the ready bag or you'll be doing the Newgate Morris at the Kings Head Inn, so fake away off, culley.

Bernard Cornwell is, I must confess, one of my all-time favorite authors of historical fiction. It is such a rare find, an author who writes well, creates exceptional atmosphere and characters and actually gets his history right....Author of the Sharpe series (a terrific long-running series set in the Napoleonic era), Cornwell has, in the last few years, branched out into other periods, bring the same quality and detail to such subjects as the Hundred Years War (Harlequin ( published in the U.S as The Archer's Tale), Vagabond, Heretic (coming out late in 2003)) and the legend of Arthur (The Winter King, The Enemy of God, Excaliber). Reviews for each of the above will be posted at a later date (I'm not done Vagabond yet...give me a few more days).

Gallows Thief is a Regency-era mystery, set in London in 1817, with a London rich in detail, style and the inescapable harsh reality of daily life providing the backdrop. Captain Rider Sandman, ex-soldier, veteran of Waterloo, a gentleman now in penury, takes on the role of Investigator for the Home Secretary, looking into the conviction of a London portrait painter, guilty of murdering the Countess of Avebury and sentanced to hang ("to dance on Newgate's stage") in seven days. Moving from the secret clubs of London's seedier nobility, from the bustle of the "flash" taverns to the flat green of the cricket field, Gallow Thief is remarkably good at evoking the feel and lives of the period, coupled with some interesting characters from all walks of life. It also offers a memorable lesson in Thieve's Cant or the underworld slang of the era.

The only off-note (and it is a fairly minor quibble), was that the mystery itself was good but not that unique or exceptional...but this book isn't really about the mystery, it is more of a glorious walk through the period, the lives of the characters, the atmosphere and the cold reality of the hangman's noose and its impact on pre-Victorian society.

Just to expand your personal vocabulary, here's a taste of the "flash" language:

Stealing a purse - filed the bit; boned the cole; clicked the ready bag
Prison - a sheep walk; the quod
Newgate Prison - King's Head Inn
Turnkeys - Gaggers
Hanging - Scaffold hornpipe; Newgate Morris; scragged; twisted; crapped; nubbed; Jack Ketched; dancing on Newgate's stage or rope gargling
Pistol - Stick
Sword - Tail
Stage - Deck
Good man - Flash scamp
Victim - Mum scull
Money - Rhino
Brothel - Academy
Prostitute - Frow
Flash - underworld; criminal; daring
To be criminal - On the cross
To be honest - On the square
Gallows Thief - Crap prig

For more slang from the era, check out this site.

To learn about the Regency period (1812-1830) check out the Eras of Elegance website.

For a complete list of Cornwell's books, check out his own site.