Has the Sun Set on Renko?

The Siberian Dilemma – Martin Cruz Smith – (Simon and Schuster)

Martin Cruz Smith is one of those rare writing craftsmen, who can hone a story to a smooth edge and deliver descriptive insights into not only the setting of his stories, but into the characters he utilizes to tell the tale. Smith’s go to character is detective Arkady Renko, a crusty, hardboiled creation that gives off just a touch of Sherlock Holmes with his ability to piece together details unseen by the common person and always seems to be a step ahead.

For long time fans, Smith’s ninth installment in the Arkady Renko series, The Siberian Dilemma, may be more than a bit perplexing. While Smith can skillfully weave together a seemingly disparate storylines into a seamless final product, The Siberian Dilemma, creates a real dilemma, with its choppy story, that tends to ramble in a number of directions without ever quite hanging together as a complete tale.

The characters are, sometimes quirky and different, and at others downright confounding because you aren’t quite sure how they fit or move the story forward. There are some familiar pieces at play here; the vivid renderings of setting; you can feel the bite of the Siberian cold, the inherent, stoic Russian nature and Renko’s ability to wield sarcasm with a razors edge. But, even half way through the rather generously paginated book, I was left scratching my head and wondering where this was all going and quite frankly, what it was really all about.

Sadly, it may be the crippling effects of Smith’s battle Parkinson’s disease that is having an impact on his abilities. While I commend him for trying wage a battle with that terrible disease and simultaneously continue to write, I can’t help but wonder if it has reached the point to allow Arkady Renko to retire to the lovely Russian, Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Newsflash: No Labels is a Label

The Ultimate Guide to the 2020 Election: 101 Nonpartisan Solutions to All the Issues that Matter – Ryan Clancy and Margaret White (Diversion Books)

Let me be perfectly clear right up front; I am an unabashed, unapologetic Conservative. So, I have always been amused by people who claim some sort of special status, because they take no firm stances on any issue, because they are just so darn intelligent and thoughtful. They famously laid claim to being mavericks or moderates, but due to the higher thinking of political/media consultant Mark McKinnon, he of the annoying hipster fedoras and scarves, they now prefer the tag, No Labels.

While McKinnon co-founded the organization, Ryan Clancy and Margaret White have spent the past few years leading the growth charge for the group. Now the pair serve up the new book, The Ultimate Guide to the 2020 Election: 101 Nonpartisan Solutions to All the Issues that Matter.

For me, Clancy and White stumble right out of the box, when they attempt to make the No Labels case by citing a poll by the group More in Common; gee, am I the only one who thinks this might be a poll geared to get the exact result they were seeking when they set out? The book offers up a selection of issues that we face that the authors deem are critical like; healthcare, climate change, guns, immigration, big tech and more. I’m not sure why healthcare is on that list, I thought Obamacare had solved that one?

GUNS  

On the issue of gun control, Clancy and White once again cite flawed polling. In an era when Hilary Clinton, the clear, hands down winner of every 2016 presidential poll – does not reside in the White House should tell you all you need to know about polling. It’s impossible to have a legitimate discussion on the issue of guns when one side refuses to educate themselves on guns and describe semi-automatic rifles as “assault weapons” or “weapons of war.” The seemingly singular focus on the AR-15 rifle frame style, that has been around since the 1950s fascinates me. That’s right, the AR has been around for six decades, and yet is suddenly public enemy number one for gun grabbers. Just a small tidbit of education; AR stands for Armalite Rifle, after the company who invented it, not “automatic rifle” or “assault rifle” as some claim.

NO SOLUTIONS

The Ultimate Guide to the 2020 Election, doesn’t offer anything in the way of answers or solutions to the problems and issues that they outline in the book; which I get since they claim by their nature, they don’t really do. Where this approach fails is that as much as the like to beat their chest and proclaim themselves higher thinkers, they don’t even attempt to offer new of compromise positions on the issue. To me that makes them uniquely suited for the Swamp, the deep state bureaucrats who perpetuate only their own existence and never really solve any problems.

Not that either party really wants to solve problems or deliver workable solutions and that’s not due to any intransigence on their part, other than the problems are what they use as grist to grind down their opponents, election after election. That is in the long run what created voter frustration that lead to the election of Donald Trump and the unholy upheaval that launched in Washington.