Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva – Book

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In Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva, when a Russian journalist dies in the arms of Gabriel Allon, an Israeli operative, at the Basilica in Rome, Gabriel’s highest level friends in the Vatican are not thrilled. Gabriel had a meeting with this, now dead, reporter who had something to tell him. Gabriel is not thrilled either. He was on his honeymoon in Umbria and he does not want any part of this. But it’s a mystery that involves injustice, assassination, and perhaps more; clarion calls that Allon can never fail to answer. Gabriel immediately knows his honeymoon is over.

Ops inside Russia, especially in Moscow, are rarely undertaken by any nation’s spy agency, let alone the Israelis. Moscow plays by its own rules. What is supposed to be a quick in and out excursion, under a false identity, to talk with Olga Sukhova, another journalist, goes badly awry when Gabriel decides to outstay his team. Moscow rules say, “Assume every room is bugged and every telephone monitored. Assume every person you encounter is under opposition control. And don’t look back. You are never completely alone.” And yet he defies his boss and friend Ari Shamron and stays. Guess how that turns out.

In these days when we talk about Russia every day, the information the author gives us about Russia is very familiar to us. Olga tells Gabriel, “To understand Russia today, you must understand the trauma of the nineties. Everything we had, everything we had been told, was swept away. We went from superpower to basket case overnight. Our people lost their life savings, not just once but over and over again. Russians are paternalistic people. They believe in the Orthodox Church, the State, the Tsar. They associate democracy with chaos. Our president… uses words like ‘managed democracy’ and ‘State capitalism’ but they’re just euphemisms for something more sinister, fascism.”

Gabriel’s Russian op does not stay in Russia. He learns that the man our reporters were so worried about is a very wealthy Russian oligarch who is very well guarded. Olga tells Gabriel exactly why this particular oligarch is so dangerous and exactly how he has stepped over a “red line” to pursue a business deal that must be stopped.

In Moscow Rules you can read about the plan Gabriel comes up with to flush him out. Since we know that Gabriel’s plans do not go smoothly, find out how he messes up this time. Find out if his new wife is still speaking to him after he never gets back to the honeymoon. It’s a very satisfying Gabriel Allon book. It has all the characteristic parts of the pattern readers expect when they throw in their lot with the Israeli Secret Service and their painterly operative, who manages, despite the powerful people he chases down, to get some of the worst players off the world stage. I think you will find that it also resonates with the situation we find ourselves in today, vis a vis Russia. Serendipity.

The Messenger by Daniel Silva – Book

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I seem to have summer fever. Instead of reading nonfiction with serious content, I have wandered back to lighter fare. Since I am of the firm conviction that even fiction that entertains is not necessarily cheerful and may even encompass some social commentary, my idea of a frivolous summer book may not be the same as yours. I often click on lists of summer reading suggestions that other people love to post online and their choices almost never conform with mine.

I had previously read two books by Daniel Silva in the Gabriel Allon series. I decided to try to finish up that series this summer. What I discovered is that there are 17 books in this series so far. Silva has written one a year since 2000, only missing 2001 and 2012. It was my idea to read them in order but I am finding that that is difficult if I want to use the library, so out-of-order it is. I will include a list of all 17 books at the end of this post, however. The Messenger was first on my summer agenda. A few words about Gabriel Allon. Mr. Allon may be a stone killer when necessary but he never kills without good reason. He is a good guy, a rescuer, a green-eyed weapon trained by the Israeli Secret Service at King Saul Boulevard and he is at the peak of his talents. He might have been a world class painter if he had not been recruited by his mentor Shamron. Instead he is a first class restorer of famous paintings when he is not following up on intel about some criminal who intends to wreak havoc on whatever part of the world that the miscreant perceives as an enemy.

The villain in The Messenger is a terrorist behind the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and a man who has managed to stay hidden in plain sight by changing his appearance (which has rarely been glimpsed and almost never photographed) and by being under the protection of the very rich Zizi al-Bakari, who funds terrorists but has never been caught at it. Gabriel hates terrorists and, even when he promises his wife he will not get involved he cannot help himself. Gabriel has a whole team of operatives who we also get to know, although not in any great detail. In this particular book we meet Sarah, an American girl who lost her fiancé on 9/11. Sarah has a degree in art and she is no trained operative but she agrees to take part in this plan to catch Zizi and the terrorist he hides. Gabriel’s team is not on board with using Sarah in this dangerous op.

Gabriel’s plans are often quite audacious because the people he is after are so good at evading capture. His plans often center around what he knows best, famous works of art. And Gabriel’s plans almost never go smoothly. They go awry in often spectacular fashion and people get hurt and they die. Gabriel takes a beating in every one of these adventures in keeping the world safe from really bad guys that I have read so far. Sometimes he is not even completely recovered from the last op before it is time for a new one, but he is no bruiser. He is a thin guy approaching middle age who strikes people he meets as very sincere and serious, and who relies on guns more often than his fists. He’s likable but it’s hard to pin down why. When each plan goes off the rails and Gabriel is roughed-up or nearly killed once again I get angry at him for being unable to plan and execute a perfect op. However it is good to see someone who is human in scale beat some of the super bad actors that Gabriel pursues and he always wins in the end, although he never gets much credit. Governments are happy with his results but not with the chaos and mayhem that precedes the rough justice. Gabriel is not a rule follower and that is why he is always in trouble.

2000 The Kill Artist

2002 The English Assassin

2003 The Confessor

2004 A Death in Venice

2005 Prince of Fire

2006 The Messenger

2007 The Secret Servant

2008 Moscow Rules

2009 The Defector

2010 The Rembrandt Affair

2011 The Fallen Angel

2013 The English Girl

2014 The Heist

2015 The English Spy

2016 The Black Widow

2017 House of Spies

2018 The Other Woman

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson – Book

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In Adam Johnson’s book The Orphan Master’s Son, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2013, you immerse yourself in the North Korea of Kim Jong-Il. You will often want to leave but, as awful as the story is, it is fascinating as well. Adam Johnson did not grow up in North Korea or have any special knowledge of North Korea. He had a grant, and he used his time to read all the best books on the matter. He reads his essay about this to us at the end of the Audible version of this book. He tells us that while this research gave plenty of detail about Korean principles of economics, farming, militarism, and governing, there was little in these references about the people of North Korea. So the book is fiction. The people are characters Johnson has created. How close to the realities of life in North Korea this novel comes I cannot say, but there are defectors from North Korea and yet there have been no denouncements of the general truthfulness of this book. It seems that readers can put some faith in the descriptions of the fear we suspect lies at the heart of this strange, secretive nation.

We meet Pak Jun Do, reared in Long Tomorrows with the orphans, but not actually an orphan. He is the son of the Orphan Master and a beautiful singer who is taken away to the capital to serve the Dear Leader. Jun Do seems to have a lucky life for a while, avoiding assignment to hard labor, or being sent to a prison camp. He is taught English. He listens on a radio aboard a fishing boat, the Junma, he is chosen, as a hero of the people (a lie) to go to Texas with a group of North Koreans, perhaps because he speaks English. He goes to Japan (to kidnap Japanese people to bring to North Korea). He travels to South Korea to kidnap an opera singer for the Dear Leader. Why doesn’t he ever defect, we wonder. There is more. He has been tattooed with the image of the lovely Sun Moon, Kim Jong-Il’s favorite actress. She was stolen from the Dear Leader by the ferocious martial arts champion Commander Ga.

Jun Do loses his lucky life (or gets really lucky) when he ends up killing Commander Ga and when Kim Jong-Il makes him the new Commander Ga, replacement husband to Sun Moon. His Captain on the Junmaonce said to him, “It’s not because no one ever taught you about a family and sacrifice and doing whatever it takes to protect your own.” He reminds Jun Do that the Captain and crew are his family. When he is assigned a real family we will see what sacrifices he is willing to make.

For some unknown reason we find that Jun Do as Commander Ga is also in a prison interrogation unit and we hear this part of his story in flashbacks and flashforwards. How did he get there? What happened to his luck? Did love make the difference?

Every day in Pyongyang and throughout N. Korea loudspeakers give encouragement and tell pretty lies to Koreans. The speaker also tells each day a new installment in the best story of the year. This year they are telling the love story of Commander Ga and Sun Moon – not the real one – the Dear Leader approved one.

“Citizens, we bring good news! In your kitchens, in your offices, on your factory floors – wherever you hear this broadcast, turn up the volume! The first success we have to report is that our Grass into Meat Campaign is a complete triumph. Still, more soil needs to be hauled to the rooftops, so all housing-block managers are instructed to schedule extra motivation meetings. …Finally, the first installment of this year’s Best North Korea Story begins today. Close your eyes and picture for a moment our national actress Sun Moon. Banish from your minds the foolish stories and gossip that have lately swirled our city about her. Picture her the way she will live forever in our national consciousness.” (pg. 218) On Audible these announcements are read in a voice that is perfect for the role.

We meet Jun Do’s/Commander Ga’s interrogator. He is a creature more typical of North Korea, determined to do his assigned job of producing “biographies”/confessions from his subjects to file in the “library” and hooking subjects up to the autopilot (now that lobotomies are out of style) for electric shock treatments. He is opposed by the old-school pubyok (pu-bi-oks) who are more thuggish and who learned to perform lobotomies with #20 nails. They laugh at the idea of biographies and make our unnamed interrogator’s life complicated. Cans of peaches play a big role in the dark side of Johnson’s story.

The Orphan Master’s Son is a detailed and layered story of a place run by a truly pathological (bipolar) autocrat, where life has no stability, no predictability, and no sweetness (except for one lucky Orphan Master’s son). It would be poignant but we are not allowed to dwell on that. It would be horrific, but we are not allowed to dwell on that either. It was strange to read this novel at a moment in time when the newest Dear Leader is trying to rejoin the community of nations. It’s a novel, but it speaks to everything we suspect about the “Hermit Kingdom.” Perhaps it will be disappearing forever. We can only hope.

May 2018 Book List

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I did not include all the interesting lists from editors, publisher’s and readers for Summer Reading suggestions but you might want to Google them. Some people like to choose a long and meaty selection that will occupy them for most of the summer, some people like lighter fare, such as romances or stories that happen near beaches, some want thrillers or detective stories. We are so rich in writers and good books that it should not be difficult to find something engrossing to read while you soak up sun (or lounge in dappled shade).

Amazon

Literature and Fiction

A Shout in the Ruins by Kevin Powers

Alternative Remedies for Loss by Joanna Cantor

Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin

My Ex-Life: A Novel by Stephen McCauley

Tomb of the Unknown Racist by Blanche McCrary Boyd

The Mars Room: A Novel by Rachel Kusher

Warlight: A Novel by Michael Ondaatje

The Cactus by Sarah Haywood

Tin Man by Sarah Winman

Mr. Flood’s Last Resort by Jess Kidd

Love and Ruin by Paula McClain

Mysteries and Thriller

The Mars Room: A Novel by Rachel Kushner

Star of the North by D B John

It Ends with Her by Brianna Labuskes

The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll

Wicked River: A Novel by Jenny Milchman

How it Happened by Michael Koryta

The Dark Angel (Ruth Galloway Mysteries) by Elly Griffiths

Cult X by Fuminori Nakamura, Kalau Almony

Our Kind of Cruelty by Araminta Hall

The Outsider by Stephen King

A Million Drops by Victor de Ánbol, Lisa Dillman

Biographies and Memoirs

Paul Simon: The Life by Robert Hilburn

From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia by Michael McFaul

The Electric Woman: A Memoir of Death-Defying Acts by Tessa Fontaine

Robin by Dave Itzkoff

Figures in a Landscape: People and Places by Paul Theroux

Spring by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Tip of the Iceberg: My 3,000-Mile Journey Around Wild Alaska, The Last Great American Frontier by Mark Adams

The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life by Richard Russo

Kickflip Boys: A Memoir of Freedom, Rebellion, and the Chaos of Fatherhood by Neal Thompson

The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West by John Branch

Nonfiction

Talking to my Daughter About the Economy or, How Capitalism Works – and How it Fails by Yanis Varoufakis

Bull Shit Jobs: A Theory by David Graebar

Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America by James Fellows, Deborah Fellows

Men in Blazers Present Encyclopedia Blazertannica: A Suboptimal Guide to Soccer, America’s Sport of the Future since 1972 by Roger Bennett, Michael Davies

Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt PhD

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia by Mark Galeotti

The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester

Sex Money Murder: A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal by Jonathan Green

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock by Steven Hyden

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence by Michael Pollan

Kickflip Boys by Neal Thompson

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson

Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariner’s, One Megastorm and the Sinking of El Faro by Rachel Slade

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Only Human (The Themis Files) by Sylvain Neuvel

The Plastic Magician (A Paper Magician Novel) by Charlie N. Holmberg

Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young

Furyborn (The Empiricum Trilogy) by Claire Legrand

Medusa Uploaded (The Medusa Cycle) by Emily Devenport

In the Region of the Summer Stars (Eirlandia) by Stephen R. Lawhead

Dark Queen (Jane Yellowstone) by Faith Hunter

Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

The Poppy War: A Novel by R F Kuang

King of the Ashes: Book One of the Firemane Saga by Raymond E Feist

Time Was by Ian McDonald

NY Times Book Review

Apr. 8

Fiction

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

Gun Love by Jennifer Clement

Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen

Tangerine by Christine Mangan

Nonfiction

Russian Roulette by Michael Isikoff and David Corn

Educated by Tara Westover

Blue Dreams by Lauren Slater

Never Remember by Masha Gessen and Misha Friedman

Alt-Right by Mike Wendling

No Turning Back by Rania Abouzeid

I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O’Farrell

The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone

The Making of a Dream by Laura Wides-Muñoz

Watch One with the Gipper: An Aide Recalls Movie Nights with the Reagans by Mark Weinberg

Apr. 13

Fiction

Overstory by Richard Powers

The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman

Stray City by Chelsey Johnson

American Histories by John Edgar Wideman

The Sandman by Lars Kepler

The Ghost Notebooks by Ben Donick

Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern

Crime Fiction

The Cutting Edge by Jeffrey Deaver

Twenty-One Days by Anne Perry

Black and White Ball by Loren D. Estleman

Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr

Nonfiction

A Higher Loyalty by James Comey

Thinking Without a Banister by Hannah Arendt (essays)

The Marshall Plan by Benn Steil

The Art of Screen Time by Anya Kamenetz

Be the Parent, Please by Naomi Schaefer Riley

To Change the Church by Ross Douthat

A Dangerous Woman by Susan Ronald

Apr. 20

Fiction

Macbeth by Jo Nesbo

The Bible of Dirty Jokes by Eileen Pollack

The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser

Happiness by Aminatta Forna

Paris Metro by Wendall Steavenson

Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles

Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror by Daniel Mallory Ortberg

The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

The Queens of Innishear by Tessa Gratton

Nonfiction

Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich

On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddes

Picasso and the Painting that Shocked the World by Miles J Unger

The Recovering: Intoxication and its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison

Look Alive Out There (essays) by Sloane Crosley

Maker of Patterns by Freeman Dyson

Apr. 27

Fiction

Going for a Beer by Robert Coover

The Only Story by Julian Barnes

If We Had Known by Elise Juska

How to Be Safe by Tom McAllister

Census by Jesse Ball

Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff by Sean Penn

Nonfiction

God Save Texas by Lawrence Wright

State of Resistance by Manuel Pastor

The Promise and the Dream by David Margolick

Make Trouble (Memoir) by Cecile Roberts

The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos by Christian Davenport

Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race by Tim Fernholz

Sharp: The Women Who Make an Art of Having an Opinion by Michelle Dean

Wrestling with the Devil by Ngugiwa Thiong’o

The Beekeeper by Dunya Mikhail

Publisher’s Weekly

Apr. 6

Dictionary Stories by Jez Burrows (F)

Sharp: The Women Who Make an Art of Having an Opinion by Michelle Dean (NF)

The Cutting Edge: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel by Jeffrey Deaver (F)

The Dark Clouds Shining (last in a quartet) by David Downing

The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World’s Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena (NF)

Circe by Madeline Miller (F)

Blackfish City by Sam J Miller (F)

A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee (F)

Demi-gods by Eliza Robertson (F)

Apr. 13

Beyond the Map: Unruly Enclaves, Ghostly Places, Emerging Lands and Our Search for New Utopias by Alastair Bonnett

The Little Art(Memoir) by Kate Briggs

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee (NF)

The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl (F)

The Human Instinct: How we Evolvedto Have Reason,Consciousness, and Free Will by Kenneth Miller (NF)

Postcards from Auschwitz by Daniel P Reynolds (NF)

Foxby Dubravka Ugresic trans. From the Croatian by Elias-Bursac and David Williams (F)

Apr. 20

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by Steve Brusatte (NF)

Companions by Christina Hesselholdt, trans from the Danish, by Paul Russell Garnett (NF)

The Pope Who Would Be King: The Exile of Pius IX and the Emergence of Modern Europe by David I Kertzer (NF)

Beneath the Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found by Gilbert King (NF)

Theory of the Bastards by Audrey Schulman (F)

Property by Lionel Shriver (F)

You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld (F)

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History of the Century by Kirk W Johnson (F)

The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamarlya and Elizabeth Weil (F)

The Art of Reading (Essays) by Damon Young (NF)

Apr. 30

The Optimistic Decade by Heather Abel (F)

Slave Old Man by Patrick Chamoiseau, trans from the French and Creoleby Linda Coverdale (F)

Sorority by Genevieve Sly Crane (F)

The Electric Women: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts by Tessa Fontaine

Alter Ego: A Jonathan Stride Novel by Brian Freeman (F)

Motherhood by Sheila Heti (F)

Tradition by Brendan Kiely (F-YA)

Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience(Memoir) by Allison Pataki

Exit Strategy by Charlton Pettus (F)

Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna by Edith Sheffer (NF)

Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro by Rachel Slade (NF)

Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto by Alan Stern and David Grinspoon (NF)