Freedom Defended

The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEL Team Warrior – Robert O’Neill (Scribner)

“Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. And freedom will be defended,” – President George W. Bush.

And so it was…freedom, and by extension America, was defended, by countless brave heroes who stepped into the breach and took on that task. While most remain anonymous, some even in death; others have gone onto exemplify what it is to be hero, more often than not unwillingly be dragged into the spotlight for what they consider merely doing their job.

One such hero, was a seemingly ordinary guy from Butte, Montana who seemed to fill the bill when it came to the old saying, “great battles are only given to great warriors.” Robert “Rob” O’Neill seems to have a knack to being around when big things are about to happen. He counts among his 400 combat missions; the search and rescue mission trying track down “the lone survivor, Marcus Luttrell, the rescue mission for Maersk Alabama Captain Richard Phillips, the search for traitorous deserter Bowe Bergdahl and perhaps most famously the three shots he took to take out terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

In, The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEL Team Warrior  O’Neill recounts his story in great detail, from growing up in Butte, to entering the Navy and pursuing entry into the Navy SEALs and through the brutal BUDS qualifying program. O’Neill is a perfect example of the non-Hollywood stereotype for a Special Forces warrior; if he was part of a lineup, you likely wouldn’t pick him as the badass operator. But, countless times it was O’Neill, who like many of his SF brothers in arms, rose to the challenges that were placed in front of him.

You can’t help but get a bit of an adrenaline rush as he details the mission to the Abbottabad, Pakistan compound where bin Laden was holed up. He details the lead up, training, preparations for any and all possibilities. Then the briefings, the flight in country and onto the actual mission; it didn’t take long for the unexpected to rear up, when one of the transport helicopters, the one O’Neill was riding in, dropped to the ground.

Has he makes his way into the compound, near the back of the line that made an entry into the multi-level structure that housed the world’s most wanted man, the tale becomes absolutely pulse pounding. Up and up they climbed, scattering as they went, until O’Neill finds himself second in line. The potential for suicide vests was front and center in the minds of these well trained warriors, so when the lead man dives on top of a pair of shrieking women, O’Neill is the clear for the ultimate target. There, with his youngest wife standing in front of him is Osama bin Laden and without hesitation, The Operator dispatches evil with three quick rounds to the head.

In the aftermath, O’Neill has come to wonder, was this the best or the worst day of his life? Despite all of the weight that this carries, he should rest assured, it was his best day. With all of his experience tackling difficult challenges he will move forward and do even bigger and better things. 

A Golden Return

Golden Prey – John Sandford (Putnam)

It seems funny now given that I read quite literally tons of books, but there was a point where I didn’t read very much. My best friend suggested that I check out three writers; the legendary John D. McDonald and the Travis McGee novels, Robert B. Parker and the Spenser books and John Sandford and his Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport. I very quickly became hooked and worked my way through all of these series.

Years later Sandford remains one of my favorite authors, but I have to admit that while I really enjoy the Virgil Flowers books, I sensed a sameness to the storylines in the ongoing Prey series and began to drift away. When the latest in that series, Golden Prey appeared, I decided to take it out for a spin and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed.

Davenport has moved on from the Twin Cities and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (MBCA) to take on a gig with the U.S. Marshall’s Service. In the new role, Davenport is given a wide berth and takes on cases almost as a freelancer; taking on the cases that pique his interest and going wherever they may lead. This makes for a freewheeling style of storytelling and allows Sandford to get back into the groove.

Davenport is hot on the trail of stick up men, the Dixie Hicks and their leader Garvin Poole, a guy with a shoot first and ask questions later kind of attitude, who knocked off a drug cartel “counting house” leaving behind a trail of blood and victims. Along the way as Davenport hunts down his target, he is dogged by a pair of cartel hitters out to recover the stolen money. The pair, a shooter and a power tool enthusiast, is either one step ahead, one step behind, or right in lock step with Davenport.

“I just want to hunt” is a classic Sandford line, uttered by Davenport as he tracks down his prey and delivers solid pacing, piles of action and just the right amount of Davenport ‘tude to make this a golden return.

The History of Helter Skelter

The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer – Skip Hollandsworth (Picador)

I don’t know why, it’s certainly not based on any logical reasoning, but I had come to think that the concept of a serial murderer was a more modern, recent vintage. Logically, these twisted souls could have existed at any point in our collective histories and easily one of the most infamous serial killer’s, Jack the Ripper dates back to the late 1880s.

Could a contemporary of Jack’s or even Jack himself that became the person suspected of being America’s first serial killer and panicked the citizens of Austin, Texas in the late 1880s? That is the premise that author, journalist, editor and screenwriter Skip Hollandsworth explores in The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer.

If you think about the folks who ply their writer trade and purveyors of true crime, non-fiction writers, they tend to focus on current or recent stories that they can blow up into full blown books. Think of the likes of Truman Capote, In Cold Blood and Ann Rule The Stranger Beside Me who write about current, nefarious, characters, who offered either direct access or a mountain of recent information to utilize in the penning of their books.

Hollandsworth on the other hand had to embark on the equivalent of a dumpster dive into historical news clips and historical accounts about not only the murders, but the era in which they took place. He does a masterful job of not only telling the often gruesome tale, but also setting the scene for the dynamics of the era; with insight into the politics, the rapid expansion of the Austin area, and the state of race in the 1880s.

In an age when we are all armchair crime scene investigators, his research into the crime fighters and the techniques, they used in that era is also very illuminating. To say the capabilities were limited is a grand understatement. Hollandsworth truly stiches this story together with a master storyteller’s eye, making it a great read for both true crime and history fans.

Die Hard Sports Fans Explained

This is Your Brain on Sports: The Science of Underdogs, the Value of Rivalry, and What We Can learn from the T-Shirt Cannon- L Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers (Crown Archetype)

Quick show of hands…

1.  When you refer to your favorite sports team, do you use the pronoun “We” even if you now nor ever where a member of said team? IE: “We need a touchdown” or “We need a defensive stop here.”

    

    2. When your favorite team has a game versus a rival, you’ve been known to evoke a visceral “hatred” for the opposition? IE: “I hate the Dolphins” (or Patriots) if you are a long suffering Bills fan

    

    3.   Despite losing a (sad) record four straight Super Bowls and not making a post season appearance in this century, you remain a dedicated (or is it medicated) Bills fan and remember fondly the “good old days of Kelly, Thurman, Bruce and Andre? But hey, at least they made it to four straight!

So, what could possibly explain this seeming insanity? That is at least in part what L Jon Wertheim, executive editor of Sports Illustrated and Sam Sommers, a psychologist and sports fan attempt to explain in This is Your Brain on Sports: The Science of Underdogs, the Value of Rivalry, and What We Can learn from the T-Shirt Cannon.

Wertheim and Sommers serve up some easily relatable, nod your head things, that sports fans will find difficult to deny they “suffer” from. This is Your Brain on Sports is at turns very funny, in an admittedly sad sort of way, and also nudges up against the at times scary.

The pair hit it right on the head in the chapter about the participation trophy world that we find ourselves in. They make the right point, that it’s never a bad thing to offer praise to our kids, but it is fair to question exactly what form that praise takes. Guess what, it’s okay to lose…just ask a Bills fan.

Bernie Gunther: Ready for His Closeup

Prussian Blue (A Bernie Gunther Novel) – Philip Kerr – (Marian Wood Books/Putnam)

While I hesitate to say it, there is a certain elegance to bestselling author Philip Kerr’s prose that you don’t normally find in the spy mystery genre. The reason I hesitate is that I don’t want to make it seem limp and artsy-fartsy because it is anything but that; his use of narrative, setting and character meld seamlessly together to take the reader back into the time and place of the story.

In the case of the latest installment of what has been dubbed by some as Berlin Noir, entitled Prussian Blue, Kerr drops former detective Bernie Gunther into 1956, post World War II as he struggles to get by on the French Riviera in the employ of a hotel. Gunther palpably yearns for the a return to Germany, but given his checkered history that is not a viable choice. Gunther’s past comes knocking in the form of a deputy from the East German secret police, a former Nazi, Ernst Mielke and a former colleague Friedrich Korsch.

Mielke offers a chance at a return, if not at redemption when he lures Gunther to a decadent dinner, where the Stasi officer prods Gunther into murdering a British female agent, Anne French, (who debuted in Kerr’s The Other Side of Silence) against whom Bernie would dearly like to exact revenge. Gunther’s interactions with Korsch can’t help but dredge up his past and Kerr skillfully blends the narrative between the current and the past, in this case a wartime investigation dating back to 1939.

As he has done consistently throughout the Gunther series, Kerr is a master at weaving his fictional characters into stories involving real life historical figures like Reinhard Heydrich, Martin Borrman and even Adolf Hitler along with locals and infrastructure from the era. Kerr has the unfailing ability to wrench skillful prose out even the most pedestrian of violence and paint a picture of winter in Germany is a series of gray tones you can almost feel.

Prussian Blue offers up great pacing and a steady drumbeat of turns to propel the story forward. There is an almost cinematic aspect to the writing that make me wonder why, to the best of my knowledge, Gunther has never made it to the big screen.

Zurich to Petrograd

Lenin on the Train – Catherine Merridale (Metropolitan Books)

Mix one part historian and one part private detective, add a dash of travel writer and healthy scoop of storyteller and you’ll end up with Catherine Merridale’s new book, Lenin on the Train. It is the tale from a century ago when in the Spring of 1917 when Russian Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication caused ripples half a world away to Zurich where Vladimir Lenin was ensconced in exile.

Merridale clearly racked up some amazing leg work compiling bits and pieces of historical accounts, newspaper stories, journals and diaries, and even works of art from the period that depicted the tale, as she stitched together this story.

If you’re like me, fascinated by history, but at times find reading history books like pulling teeth, then Merridale may have hit on the right formula; mixing all of the facts she has gathered, but telling it in an entertaining style that keeps the pace moving forward.

The story reveals some of the amazing interactions between Lenin and Russia’s sworn enemy in the German government as he traversed the country to return to Petrograd in the Motherland to spearhead the nascent revolution. At times you can’t help but feel like a stowaway in the tight quarters of the sealed train car, where Lenin and his tiny band of like-minded souls hurtled along the countryside towards their destiny.

Merridale includes just enough photos and artwork to add a pinch of flavor to and illustrate the story. If you’re weary of tired historical accounts, Lenin on the Train is a perfect way to spike your interest in history.

Managing the Presidency

The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency – Chris Whipple (Crown Books)

With all of the talk about draining the swamp and changing the way Washington does business, there is a built in level of inertia, an ebb and flow to the way things get done in our nation’s capital. While the President of the United States is at turns the Commander in Chief, the Leader of the Free World and the most powerful man in the world, the work load that the person holding that job can be all consuming.

That is where the President’s chief of staff comes in. While the President can certainly dictate his priorities, it is the chief that is tasked with managing and prioritizing those priorities and to manage the personnel and schedule to keep those priorities on track. The people who have been charged with the role of chief of staff have been about as widely varied in in experience and temperament as you can find, and those folks are the subject of Chris Whipple’s new book, The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.

Whipple explores not only the basic job description of a chief of staff, but also delves into the players and personalities of those who filled the role. The amount of power these guys (and I am safe to say guys because women have not filled the chief role to this point) and the manner in which they wielded that power is explored in insider accounts and often in first person interviews Whipple conducted.

Whipple provides great insight into the interactions, the politics of the role and the players, and even how the success or failure of a Presidency can rest on the shoulders of the chiefs. Not sure why, but a gravitated to the section of Jimmy Carter, a man I believe to be among the worst Presidents in our history and I guess I can say I wasn’t surprised that a guy who at the time was cast as an ultimate outsider, bent on fixing the problems after Watergate and President Nixon, floundered because he lacked a strong chief of staff. Instead of trying to tackle the innumerable tasks/problems facing the nation one at a time, Carter tried to tackle a ridiculous agenda and got buried in the minutiae.

Manage, prioritize, worry about the politics and constituencies and keep the President focused is a tall order and The Gatekeepers us an opportunity to poke our nose under the tent and see what goes on in and around the White House.

Cleaning Up the Mess

A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System – T. R. Reid (Penguin Press)

While there have been many variations on the same theme, the actual quote traces back to 1789 when Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

It is now an annual rite of passage that United States taxpayers will gather up mounds of paper kept in files or old shoeboxes and fire up their coffee pots and their computers or sharpen pencils and dust off calculators or for those less daring head out to their accountants office or strip plaza tax service to get their taxes done. It is a frustrating, head scratching, aggravating and costly endeavor whether or not you actually end up owing Uncle Sam or the state or local tax authorities a check.

It is a task that annually finds me flexing my procrastination gene; I tend to put it off until April 15 looms large. We hear the crazy statistics about the countless man hours and billions of dollars that we throw away in the quest to getting our tax returns filed. It is the absolute definition of insanity!

It is that system that longtime Washington Post correspondent and NPR commentator T R Reid places squarely under the microscopic in his new book A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System. Reid’s premise is a simple one; there has got to be a better way!

He lays out the case that much like the trains running on time, the U.S. Congress has taken it upon themselves to tackle “reforming” the tax system on a 32 year cycle. Not sure how that span worked itself out, maybe it takes that long for folks to build a critical mass behind getting fed up with the tax code before they start working in it. If the clock remains true, our next overhaul should take place in 2018.

Reid does a nice job of enumerating the myriad of issues that we have with the tax system; the loopholes, countless ways corporations and high net worth individuals can dodge or limit their tax hit and the Medusa’s head nature of the tax code which only serves to perpetuate the need for tax lawyers, accountants and auditors. He also delivers a synopsis of how we in the U.S. stack up against other countries around the globe when it comes to taxation.

Then comes the hard part; while he does a nice job of spelling out the problem, when it comes to offer suggested solutions it becomes heavy lifting. It simply isn’t a workable solution to scrap the whole thing start over. It is the quest for that sweet spot, landing somewhere between the current epic mess and a more equitable and easy to grasp new state. Here’s hoping that Congress has a better handle on things…but I won’t be holding my breath.

The Beatles by Number

Counting Down the Beatles: Their 100 Finest Songs – Jim Beviglia (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers)

Sorry, I can’t help it; every time I see that there is a new book being offered about the Beatles my reaction is, “really, another book about the Beatles?”

Music writer and author Jim Beviglia has staked out his own corner of the music journalism world by focusing on counting down what he perceives as the laundry list of the finest songs by truly classic artists. So far Beviglia has served up books counting down the 100 finest songs from the likes of the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. He also gave us e-books of the 100 Best songs from Tom Petty, Elvis Costello and Radiohead (not sure I could even name 20 Radiohead songs let alone choose their 100 best.)

So it would seem almost inevitable that he would turn his focus towards the Beatles, easily one of the most prolific hit making outfits in the history of popular music. Since I am a huge fan of lists, I think in large part because they are guaranteed to spark a discussion, a debate or a knock down drag out argument, I love these kinds of books because of their subjective nature.

While Beviglia earned his stripes writing for American Songwriter in print and online and other music publications, while working my way through Counting Down the Beatles: Their 100 Finest Songs, I have to admit that I couldn’t quite grasp what he used a yardstick to measure what made these songs the Beatles finest.

I guess it really boils down to one man’s finest is another man’s head scratcher. With a band with such a checkered history and so many great songs to choose from when compiling a list of their finest, I’ve got to say that I started to wear a hat while reading out of fear that I’d scratch myself to the point of drawing blood. Then again…isn’t that the goal of lists and books like this?

Joel-stradamus

Without Warning: A J B Collins Novel – Joel C. Rosenberg (Tyndale House)

How many times have you heard the phrase “ripped from today’s headlines” uttered about a book, television show or movie? It is with some regularity that writers for all of these mediums have either taken a story directly from the news or have shuffled the facts into their stories.

Now ask yourself how many times have you heard the phrase “ripped from tomorrow's headlines”? Well, readers of Joel C. Rosenberg that he is the often prescient forecaster of things to come, a Joel-stradamus if you will, of the world of Islamo-terrorism. Rosenberg is back with the third installment in the J B Collins series, featuring the New York Times national security writer who all too often finds himself mixed up in terrorist activities.

Without Warning finds Collins freshly recovered from the terrorist attack detailed in Rosenberg’s First Hostage and attending the State of the Union address, delivered by a President who seems to have convinced himself that the Islamic terrorists are on the run; sounding oddly familiar for those who lived through the Obama administration.

Naturally Collins calls it right when he can’t shake the feeling of imminent danger and the U.S. Capitol is attacked during the State of the Union. Here’s hoping the Rosenberg got this one wrong, but it does leave that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you work your way through Without Warning.

With Collins character, Rosenberg has created not so much an anti-hero as an unlikely hero. Unlike so many of the heroes that dot thriller fiction, Collins relies on the brawn of his brain more that the brawn of his body. Once again Rosenberg hits all the marks with the pacing of the story; you won’t be left hanging and waiting for the next action twist with this quick read.

Stone Cold Crazy

Crazy Is My Superpower: How I Triumphed by Breaking Bones, Breaking Hearts, and Breaking the Rules – A J Mendez Brooks (Crown Archetype)

Full disclosure up front- No I am not a wrestling fan, no I don’t watch WWE, No I have never read any of the current or former wrestler biographies and quite frankly I wouldn’t know A J Mendez Brooks or her alter ego A J Lee if she bit me on the backside.

That said, I can tell you with all honesty that Mendez Brooks truly lives up to the old saw about “good things coming in small packages.” This lady is a true powerhouse and I found Crazy Is My Superpower: How I Triumphed by Breaking Bones, Breaking Hearts, and Breaking the Rules – A J Mendez Brooks to a fun, entertaining read. She offers up a heartfelt story and what I think is some well grounded guidance that I will share with my teenage daughter in the hopes that she will learn from the drive and hard work that Mendez Brooks spells out.

Wrestle nerds may be disappointed by the smaller than expected volume of WWE and wrestling related material included here. Her chapter ending entries dubbed, “Diary of an Unfit Mind” are priceless in their humor, candor and raw edge.

While I may not have been a follower of her wrestling career; after reading Crazy Is My Superpower I will admit that I will watch for what is next from Mendez Brooks.