The Ethical Assassin by David Liss (2006)
I have generally liked David Liss's writings. I first read The Coffee Trader, when it was first published in 2003, and was absolutely hooked on Liss's historical fiction. The Coffee Trader described the rise of the modern commodities market in 17th Century Amsterdam. With The Ethical Assassin, however, Liss has moved to another genre. If I had read this book first, I would never have touched another book by Liss.
The Ethical Assassin tried to be both a crime novel and a treatise on animal rights. The story takes place in southern Florida in the mid-1980s. Young Lemuel Altick has taken a job as a door-to-door encyclopedia saiesman to earn tuition money for college. His assigned sales territory is a poor trailer park that is adjacent to a malodorous pig farm. Lemuel is about to close on a sale, in fact the check has been written, when his customer and her apparent husband are shot to death.
The hitman or "ethical assassin" informs Lemuel that his name is Melford Kean. He tells Lemuel that he will help him elude the police, but then begins to leave evidence that could frame Lemuel. More bodies begin to pile up and Lemuel finds himself linked to Kean's actions.
Kean is also concerned about the animal research that is being conducted at the research lab just beyond the pig farm. Kean begins talking about his vegan beliefs to Lemuel, which includes ethical treatment of animals. He believes strongly about animal rights, but has no apparent moral compunctions about murdering a human or two.
The author is a vegan, thus the subject matter on animal lives is close to his heart. I am not sure, however, that the direction of this novel is the proper forum for espousing his views. I hope David Liss goes back to writing historical fiction in which he informs the reader of the development of the economic institutions we are familiar with today.
Read: December 28, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Books Set in Europe: Germany
Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada (1947; English Translation 2009)
If you read only one book this year, that book should be Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada. It was originally published in Germany in 1947, but was recently translated and published in English. Every Man Dies Alone is the best book I have read in a long, long time.
The novel was based on a true story of a couple who quietly, but tragically tried to object to Hitler’s regime. The setting is Berlin in early 1941. Otto and Anna Quangel were a quiet middle-aged couple who lived a solitary live. Anna was a housewife and Otto was a furniture factory foreman. Their son and only child was sent off to fight. When the Quangels learn that their son, also named Otto, was killed, they decide to devise a campaign to protest the war, even though they know if they are caught, it will cost them their lives.
The Quangels lived in an apartment building, but they keep to themselves. Other residents of their building include an elderly Jewish woman, a judge who is sympathetic to the Jews, and a low-class Nazi family. The judge does what he can to protect the elderly Jewish woman, although she finds her confinement in his apartment too restrictive. The Nazi family continually enters her apartment to steal her meager belongings. The descriptions of the Quangels neighbors helps to set the scene of the Berlin environment during this period of the war.
Until the death of his son, Otto was non-political. He was not a member of the Nazi Party, which limited his job opportunities, however, he was satisfied being foreman at the factory. As the war deteriorated for the Germans, the factory switched from making furniture to coffins.
After his son’s death, Otto got the idea of writing postcards with containing anti-Nazi sentiments and leaving them around town. When Anna learns of his plan, she initially protests, but then decides to join him in his quiet protest. Each week, Otto and Anna begin dropping their postcards throughout the city. In their quiet way, Otto and Anna are fighting back. Their first card simply read: Mother! The Führer has murdered my son. Mother! The Führer will murder your sons too, he will not stop till he has brought sorrow to every home in the world!
Unknown to Otto and Anna, however, when the postcards are found, they are immediately reported to the Gestapo. Finders of the postcards realize that holding such inflammatory statements places them at risk.
Inspector Escherich is charged with finding the writer of the postcards. In his methodical way he traces where the postcards are located and develops a profile of the writer. Escherich knows that if he fails to find the postcard writer, his own life is in peril, as his boss is a violent Nazi officer who enjoys harming and humiliating.
The real-life Otto and Anna Quangle were Otto and his wife Elsie Hampel. After Elise’s brother was killed in the war, she and her husband began their own postcard campaign. They continued dropping their postcards for two years before they were caught and sentenced to death. Like Otto and Anna, the bulk of their cards were immediately turned over to the Gestapo.
The author, Hans Fallada is an interesting individual in his own right. He apparently wrote Every Man Dies Alone in 24 days after being given a copy of the Hampel’s Gestapo files. Hans Fallada was the pen name for Rudolf Ditzen, a psychologically damaged German writer. As a young man, Fallada and a friend had entered into a suicide pact, whereby each was to fight a duel. The friend was killed, but Fallada was merely injured. The case was quite sensational, hence, when he began to write, he was encouraged to write under a pseudonym.
Every Man Dies Alone is a great testimony to the righteous Germans who protested Hitler’s Germany. The English translation captures the mode of Berlin during this tragic period of German history.
Read: December 24, 2010
If you read only one book this year, that book should be Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada. It was originally published in Germany in 1947, but was recently translated and published in English. Every Man Dies Alone is the best book I have read in a long, long time.
The novel was based on a true story of a couple who quietly, but tragically tried to object to Hitler’s regime. The setting is Berlin in early 1941. Otto and Anna Quangel were a quiet middle-aged couple who lived a solitary live. Anna was a housewife and Otto was a furniture factory foreman. Their son and only child was sent off to fight. When the Quangels learn that their son, also named Otto, was killed, they decide to devise a campaign to protest the war, even though they know if they are caught, it will cost them their lives.
The Quangels lived in an apartment building, but they keep to themselves. Other residents of their building include an elderly Jewish woman, a judge who is sympathetic to the Jews, and a low-class Nazi family. The judge does what he can to protect the elderly Jewish woman, although she finds her confinement in his apartment too restrictive. The Nazi family continually enters her apartment to steal her meager belongings. The descriptions of the Quangels neighbors helps to set the scene of the Berlin environment during this period of the war.
Until the death of his son, Otto was non-political. He was not a member of the Nazi Party, which limited his job opportunities, however, he was satisfied being foreman at the factory. As the war deteriorated for the Germans, the factory switched from making furniture to coffins.
After his son’s death, Otto got the idea of writing postcards with containing anti-Nazi sentiments and leaving them around town. When Anna learns of his plan, she initially protests, but then decides to join him in his quiet protest. Each week, Otto and Anna begin dropping their postcards throughout the city. In their quiet way, Otto and Anna are fighting back. Their first card simply read: Mother! The Führer has murdered my son. Mother! The Führer will murder your sons too, he will not stop till he has brought sorrow to every home in the world!
Unknown to Otto and Anna, however, when the postcards are found, they are immediately reported to the Gestapo. Finders of the postcards realize that holding such inflammatory statements places them at risk.
Inspector Escherich is charged with finding the writer of the postcards. In his methodical way he traces where the postcards are located and develops a profile of the writer. Escherich knows that if he fails to find the postcard writer, his own life is in peril, as his boss is a violent Nazi officer who enjoys harming and humiliating.
The real-life Otto and Anna Quangle were Otto and his wife Elsie Hampel. After Elise’s brother was killed in the war, she and her husband began their own postcard campaign. They continued dropping their postcards for two years before they were caught and sentenced to death. Like Otto and Anna, the bulk of their cards were immediately turned over to the Gestapo.
The author, Hans Fallada is an interesting individual in his own right. He apparently wrote Every Man Dies Alone in 24 days after being given a copy of the Hampel’s Gestapo files. Hans Fallada was the pen name for Rudolf Ditzen, a psychologically damaged German writer. As a young man, Fallada and a friend had entered into a suicide pact, whereby each was to fight a duel. The friend was killed, but Fallada was merely injured. The case was quite sensational, hence, when he began to write, he was encouraged to write under a pseudonym.
Every Man Dies Alone is a great testimony to the righteous Germans who protested Hitler’s Germany. The English translation captures the mode of Berlin during this tragic period of German history.
Read: December 24, 2010
Books Set In the United States: Louisiana
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc, by Loraine Depres (2001)
I read this book in August 2010, but somehow its review didn't make it to the list on time.
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc reinforces southern stereotypes. The story begins in the mid-1950s in the fictitious town of Gentry, Louisiana. Sissy LeBlanc is a bored housewife and mother of three children. Her husband, whom she married straight out of high school, is emotionally and sexually distant. The family is struggling to survive.
Suddenly one summer’s day, Sissy’s high school boyfriend, Parker Davidson, appears back in town. For the past 14 years, Davidson has been traveling about the world. He apparently made a fortune only to have it taken from him by a dishonest business partner. He returns to Gentry with no money and takes a job as a lineman for the company. Soon Sissy and Parker are an item again. Although her husband, PeeWee is a cockhold, her young children are aware of the budding relationship between their mother and the handsome stranger, who is gratuitously Jewish, so that the townsfolks can call him anti-Semitic names. (Some of which were new terms to me.)
Sissy lives in the shadow of her older brother’s death who died in 1941, at a time when Sissy was a young teenager and very vulnerable. Her brother’s death was followed by her mother’s illness and subsequence death. The emotional upheaval lead Sissy into the arms of Bourrée LeBlanc, the evil and cruel man who would become her father-in-law. Although Sissy is initially infatuated with Bourrée, after he uses her, he tosses her away. Then one night, he rapes her. She when she becomes pregnant and turns to Bourrée, he brings her a woman for a back-alley abortion. Realizing that this could kill her, she runs away and convinces PeeWee, Bourrée’s son to marry her. He believes that he is the father of Sissy’s oldest son.
Meanwhile, the powerful white men in town are secretly carrying on with their black mistresses. The illegitimate daughter of Sissy’s uncle and his black mistress is a young woman who looks just like Sissy. When Parker Davidson can’t have Sissy, he sleeps with the next best thing ~ Sissy’s black cousin.
Things finally come to a head when PeeWee realizes that his wife has not been faithful. Oh yes, and since this is a southern town, there is the obligatory gun. Someone is going to be killed.
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc is the first in a trilogy by Loraine Despres. I think I’ll skip the other two books in the series.
Read: August 21, 2010
I read this book in August 2010, but somehow its review didn't make it to the list on time.
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc reinforces southern stereotypes. The story begins in the mid-1950s in the fictitious town of Gentry, Louisiana. Sissy LeBlanc is a bored housewife and mother of three children. Her husband, whom she married straight out of high school, is emotionally and sexually distant. The family is struggling to survive.
Suddenly one summer’s day, Sissy’s high school boyfriend, Parker Davidson, appears back in town. For the past 14 years, Davidson has been traveling about the world. He apparently made a fortune only to have it taken from him by a dishonest business partner. He returns to Gentry with no money and takes a job as a lineman for the company. Soon Sissy and Parker are an item again. Although her husband, PeeWee is a cockhold, her young children are aware of the budding relationship between their mother and the handsome stranger, who is gratuitously Jewish, so that the townsfolks can call him anti-Semitic names. (Some of which were new terms to me.)
Sissy lives in the shadow of her older brother’s death who died in 1941, at a time when Sissy was a young teenager and very vulnerable. Her brother’s death was followed by her mother’s illness and subsequence death. The emotional upheaval lead Sissy into the arms of Bourrée LeBlanc, the evil and cruel man who would become her father-in-law. Although Sissy is initially infatuated with Bourrée, after he uses her, he tosses her away. Then one night, he rapes her. She when she becomes pregnant and turns to Bourrée, he brings her a woman for a back-alley abortion. Realizing that this could kill her, she runs away and convinces PeeWee, Bourrée’s son to marry her. He believes that he is the father of Sissy’s oldest son.
Meanwhile, the powerful white men in town are secretly carrying on with their black mistresses. The illegitimate daughter of Sissy’s uncle and his black mistress is a young woman who looks just like Sissy. When Parker Davidson can’t have Sissy, he sleeps with the next best thing ~ Sissy’s black cousin.
Things finally come to a head when PeeWee realizes that his wife has not been faithful. Oh yes, and since this is a southern town, there is the obligatory gun. Someone is going to be killed.
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc is the first in a trilogy by Loraine Despres. I think I’ll skip the other two books in the series.
Read: August 21, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Books Set in England: Victorian London
A Dangerous Fortune, by Ken Follett (1993)
A Dangerous Fortune was the first book that I read on an e-reader. I don’t believe, however, the medium used to read this book influenced my feeling of the book. I was disappointed in this Follett novel. I found it too much of a formula book ~ the villain with no conscious, who takes what he wants without regard for others, the wealthy family with its poor relatives, and the humiliation of those with less.
The novel begins at a wealthy private English academy by the mysterious drowning of Peter Middleton in a quarry near the school. Edward Pilaster and Mickey Miranda, a South American, who are two years older than Peter know more about his death than they let on. The death sets the backdrop of the rest of the novel.
The Pilasters are a wealthy banking dynasty. Hugh’s father was the black sheep of the family, who went off on his own. When his business went bankrupt, he killed himself, leaving his family as the poor relations of the Pilaster family. Hugh, however, is a talented banker in his own right. He goes to work for the family business, but is given no favors for being a family member. Edward, however, is a different story. He has no head for business, but is ultimately made a senior partner.
Edward’s mother, Augusta, is very social conscious and schemes have her husband become a Lord. She is sexually attracted to Mickey Miranda, although she doesn’t act on her impulses. Mickey has led her to believe that Edward is responsible for Peter’s drowning, although the official story is that Edward tried to save Peter.
Follett spent a considerable focus on the romantic relationships of the major characters. There is the obligatory anti-Semitism with a rival banker who is Jewish. Augusta schemes to see that he is denied a place in parliament due to his religious background. In addition, Follett spends a considerable amount of time spent on sexual relationships between the major characters and the women of the brothel. The major characters are in loveless marriages so frequent the brothels. Edward, it seems is a closet homosexual, who is only able to have relations when Mickey is present.
A Dangerous Fortune does not hold a candle to Follett’s sagas, Pillars of the Earth, or The World Without End.
Read: December 7, 2010
A Dangerous Fortune was the first book that I read on an e-reader. I don’t believe, however, the medium used to read this book influenced my feeling of the book. I was disappointed in this Follett novel. I found it too much of a formula book ~ the villain with no conscious, who takes what he wants without regard for others, the wealthy family with its poor relatives, and the humiliation of those with less.
The novel begins at a wealthy private English academy by the mysterious drowning of Peter Middleton in a quarry near the school. Edward Pilaster and Mickey Miranda, a South American, who are two years older than Peter know more about his death than they let on. The death sets the backdrop of the rest of the novel.
The Pilasters are a wealthy banking dynasty. Hugh’s father was the black sheep of the family, who went off on his own. When his business went bankrupt, he killed himself, leaving his family as the poor relations of the Pilaster family. Hugh, however, is a talented banker in his own right. He goes to work for the family business, but is given no favors for being a family member. Edward, however, is a different story. He has no head for business, but is ultimately made a senior partner.
Edward’s mother, Augusta, is very social conscious and schemes have her husband become a Lord. She is sexually attracted to Mickey Miranda, although she doesn’t act on her impulses. Mickey has led her to believe that Edward is responsible for Peter’s drowning, although the official story is that Edward tried to save Peter.
Follett spent a considerable focus on the romantic relationships of the major characters. There is the obligatory anti-Semitism with a rival banker who is Jewish. Augusta schemes to see that he is denied a place in parliament due to his religious background. In addition, Follett spends a considerable amount of time spent on sexual relationships between the major characters and the women of the brothel. The major characters are in loveless marriages so frequent the brothels. Edward, it seems is a closet homosexual, who is only able to have relations when Mickey is present.
A Dangerous Fortune does not hold a candle to Follett’s sagas, Pillars of the Earth, or The World Without End.
Read: December 7, 2010
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