Pun Salad

Amazon (once again) helpfully informs me that I bought this over five years ago, on May 14, 2008. I need to start reading faster, I think.

But before I get into the book itself, let me share with you a brilliant idea.

I'm a big fan of the FX series Justified. It was originally based on an Elmore Leonard short story, and it follows US Marshal Raylan Givens as he is assigned back into the area in which he grew up, Appalachian Eastern Kentucky. He is surrounded by a fascinating bunch of family, co-workers, criminals, and assorted lowlifes. It's powered by some of the cleverest TV writing ever.

Well, let me tell you: they could do the same thing with James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux. Might be even better. Dave's a little more haunted by his past than is Raylan. But, other than that, there's the same rich stew of colorful characters, outrageous crimes, and a decent guy just trying to navigate the demands of justice, friendship, family, and his inner demons.

There have been two Robicheaux movies, both kind of duds. But an episodic TV series that plays out a novel-length plot over an entire season would work much better than trying to fit the same thing into 100 minutes.

Just sayin'. To potential producers of this goldmine: I don't need any compensation; just send me free DVD sets of the series as they come out.

Anyway: the events of this book are centered around 2005's Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects on New Orleans. Dave is heartbroken by the toll on the area and its citizenry, outraged by governmental ineptitude and malfeasance. (Burke's prose mostly implicates Dubya's administration of course, and lets local authorities mostly skate. But this isn't a political tome.)

But in the midst of all that horror, the bad guys came out to play, with the usual tragic results. A junkie priest has gone missing while trying to rescue parishoners that mistakenly took refuge in a church about to be engulfed by floodwaters. An insurance agent is trying gamely to hold his family together, although his daughter is recovering poorly from the trauma of a savage crime. A "roving band of youths" coincidentally pick a house to loot that turns out to be chock full of cash and diamonds, but their escape is complicated by sniper fire from unknown persons. Soon a trademark Burke villain, a funny-looking creep is prowling around, menacing all concerned; worse, he takes a shine to Dave's grown daughter Alafair.

In short, it's another engrossing read from James Lee Burke.

I'm working my way through older Dick Francis novels (while also trying to keep up with his Designated Successor, son Felix). I thought I'd read them all at least once, but I was surprised to find that I seemed to have missed this 1993 one.

Or maybe I forgot. But I think I would have remembered. Right?

I got a "Used - Very Good" copy of the paperback from an Amazon seller. It had stickers that told of its travels to Pun Salad Manor: a remainder table at some Barnes & Noble; a stop at a Goodwill store. And finally, a UPS ride from Plainfield, Indiana to here. I feel it should be retired to a good home.

The hero here is Lee Morris, a builder/architect specializing in the restoration of ruins into attractive and liveable abodes. He's a family man, with six sturdy sons and a wife from whom he's growing increasingly distant. He needs to hustle to make ends meet, and it doesn't help that he's decided to keep his latest project as a place to live instead of selling it. But he's the usual Francis hero: professionally ultra-competent, personally a mensch, but still recognizably human.

Into this situation is dropped the violent turmoil of the Stratton family; Lee's mother was previously married to one of its least appealing members, and Lee feels both obligated and reluctant to respond to a situation caused by the recent death of the family head, Lord Stratton. At issue is the fate of Stratton Park racecourse: some Strattons want to sell, some want to renovate, some want to maintain the status quo. And it just so happens that Lee controls some of the voting shares in the track.

Lee winds up taking the five oldest sons for what he hopes will be a quick resolution, after which he can forget about the Strattons altogether. He turns out to be wrong, wrong, wrong: his efforts put (mostly) him and (occasionally) his kids in peril. Since this is a Dick Francis book, Lee handles the situation with courage, stoicism, perception, and intelligence.

Kevin D. Williamson has become one of my favorite writers on matters political and economic over the past few years. His new book was a must-buy.

The long title has an even longer subtitle: How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier, and More Secure . It's kind of odd that Mr. Williamson doesn't really do a lot to develop the thesis promised in the title. What he does do (and very well) is compare goods and services produced via market mechanisms to those produced by politics.

For example: in the 1987 movie Wall Street, one of the status symbols owned by Michael Douglas's sleazy Gordon Gekko character was a Motorola DynaTAC cell phone, costing about $10K up front, $1K a month, weighed nearly two pounds, all for 30 minutes of talk time. And, Williamson points out, "you couldn't play Angry Birds on it." Today, … well, you know what happened to cell phones.

In contrast, we have goods and services produced or controlled largely, if not completely, by politics: examples include the public school system; entitlement programs typified by Social Security; health care; the legal system; the Department of Homeland Security. Quality is poor. They aren't subject to market pressures, so they are stultified and static. And the only reason we put up with them is their support via government's monopoly on coercive power.

For the "end is near" argument, Williamson puts forth the numbers that anyone who's been paying attention will know about: government at all levels has promised far more than it can deliver; unfunded liabilities will soon outstrip whatever government is likely to collect in taxes. At that point, Williamson notes, it will be "faced with a choice of which howling mob it wants to face: recipients of Social Security and Medicare benefits, or the world bond market."

Williamson's conclusion: "Don't bet on grandma."

The meat of the book involves demonstrating that less coercive methods for providing things "traditionally" produced by government would be both feasible and superior. If you've read Reason magazine for a few dozen years, like I have, there won't be a lot new or surprising here. But Williamson is a fine writer, and you'll find those familiar themes explained well.

So it's possible and desirable that the market take over some traditionally state-provided goods and services, Williamson's title seems to hint that such an outcome is likely. Nay: a virtual certainty. But (as near as I can tell) he doesn't make that bit of argument at all. I think I would have noticed if he had, but maybe I missed it. So while Williamson might be "long-term" optimistic about the prospects for liberty and prosperity, I wasn't convinced. This is, after all, a country that elected B. Obama twice.

Williamson's arguments and examples are very libertarian; unfortunately, he rarely uses that word, and when he does, it's dismissive. A puzzling decision, perhaps to avoid being pigeonholed into a movement that the mainstream has written off as kooky. But don't be fooled: this is the real deal.

One of my other favorite writers, Jonah Goldberg, reviews the book here.

A new Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker was the source of much joyous celebration at Pun Salad Manor. But Mr. Parker died, and his estate and publisher decided to continue the series with author Ace Atkins. The first of these efforts, Lullaby, was good enough to get me to invest in a Kindle version of the second one, Wonderland. And guess what? Wonderland is even better. My take was that Lullaby was 90% faithful to the Spenser universe; Wonderland is up around 98-99%. Ace has hooked me for the duration.

Henry Cimoli has been a minor character in the novels for decades: he's the owner of the gym where Spenser originally trained as a boxer, and where he and Hawk continue their fitness regimens. But now, Henry has a problem: a shadowy organization wants to buy the condominium complex where he lives. And they've been sending thuggish types out to mildly threaten the holdouts.

This is right up Spenser's alley: he's been out-toughing hired thugs forever. He and new apprentice Zebulon Sixkill make short work of that, and Spenser tries to work out who's pulling the strings. He nails that down pretty quickly too, and things seem to be working toward a speedy conclusion, … Waitaminnit, we're only like 35% done with the book? What can happen next?

Well, a body happens. Actually, a head, minus the rest of the body. I was surprised at the victim's identity. I did not see that coming.

Here's an example of the kind of thing I liked. Spenser is discussing a meeting with an ex-Harvard prof Rose with Mass State cop Healy:

People have been telling Spenser that he's not as funny as he thinks for, well, decades. I've been accused of the same. It's nice to see it in print again.

A short and punchy Harry Bosch mystery from Michael Connelly. It was originally published as a 16-part serial in the New York Times Magazine, but was expanded for the book version. It's fast-moving, taking place (roughly) over the course of a day, and there's a domestic terrorism angle; dink a few things, and it would make a marvelous season of 24.

Harry's called out from home at midnight to a crime scene at the "Overlook", a scenic spot in the Hollywood hills. A Porsche is parked with its hood up; the owner, Dr. Stanley Kent, is on the ground nearby with a couple of .22 slugs in his brain.

What makes it possibly more than an everyday homicide: Dr. Kent's specialty is handling radioactive material at various L.A. hospitals; if that material should happen to get into the Wrong Hands, it could be part of a dirty bomb that would kill a lot of people and render a significant portion of the sunny Southland uninhabitable for centuries. So the FBI gets involved almost immediately, in the person of Harry's onetime lover, Rachel Walling. And, sure enough, it's discovered that a large amount of cesium-137 has gone missing.

Harry is, as always, obsessed above all with bringing the killer or killers to justice. Everyone else, however, is concentrating on finding the cesium. Harry needs to spend nearly as much time fighting to keep his hand in the case as he does investigating the crime.

I can recommend you buy this book using the link at right (no, your right), because the author, James Lileks, is a good guy, a fine writer, and amply deserves whatever slice of the low, low $2.99-for-Kindle price Amazon cuts him.

But I can't, unfortunately, recommend that you actually read it. Sorry. He's a fine writer now. Back in the 80s, when the book was written, not so much. (And there are other problems, see below.)

It starts out promising: protagonist Jonathan Simpson is a society reporter for a dinky local newspaper in Valhalla, Minnesota, the Lacs Standard. He is visited by Trygve, the servant employed by his rich Aunt Marvel from Minneapolis. Or, rather, his late Aunt Marvel, who has perished from—literally—falling up the stairs. (Involving getting her foot caught in the stair lift while simultaneously punching the "up" button.)

Funny! Unfortunately, that's pretty close to the beginning of the book, and it's downhill from there. Simpson inherits his Aunt's mansion, and (not quite coincidentally) submits a column to the Lacs Standard slandering a good part of the community of Valhalla. So it's off to Minneapolis, where he runs into a dark conspiracy run by the Alimentary Information League, a radical group demanding an end to processed foods; their tactics involve mass poisoning. He also runs into a bunch of women, most of whom he manages to sleep with. I couldn't care enough about them to keep them straight. The tone gets uneven, the hero gets whiny and irritating, and the whole thing just drags on way too long.

The other problem is that the Kindlizing of the print edition did not go well. There are typos galore, and the paragraphs are consistently messed up so badly that it's often difficult to tell who's saying what. Even for $2.99, it's tough to tolerate.

Another occasional foray into reading Serious Literature; The Adventures of Augie March is on most Official Lists of the Greatest Novels Ever. It was a slog, though; I finally waded through it on my third checkout from the fine library at the University Near Here. The checkout period is 4 weeks, so it was "only" about 20 pages/day. But they are very dense pages.

Here's an example, the first paragraph of chapter XI:

No, it's not Finnegans Wake. But it's not Lee Child either.

My guess is that the initial reference is inspired by one of these Monet paintings, probably the one housed at the Art Institute of Chicago, but I wouldn't even have gotten that if not for a dim recollection of paging through an art book years ago. But that's only the start of unwinding the paragraph. One could spend maybe an hour puzzling out the allusions and sussing out references. I didn't have time, and probably not the depth of knowledge required either, so I probably missed a lot.

Unlike the edition of Lolita I read last year, the library's copy of Augie was unannotated, and this is a book that could use annotations. But I muddled through, got the "good parts", and enjoyed it.

It starts out in early 20th century Chicago, with Augie's already-dysfunctional family: absent father, a simple-minded mother, a tyrannical scheming grandmother, two brothers, one "born an idiot". Augie has to scramble to make a living, and this causes him to interact with no end of colorful folks, some of whom rope him into "adventures" of varying legality. One of the more successful enterprises has him shoplifting expensive books and selling them to university academics. But another scheme, hatched by the clearly reality-challenged Thea, involves an odyssey down to Mexico with a young bald eagle, which Thea hopes to train to catch giant iguanas; Augie goes along because he's hopelessly infatuated with Thea. It winds up in post-WWII Europe, with Augie still doing borderline-shady stuff, with a wife hoping to break into film.

I don't disagree that it's a great novel. But I'm ready to read more fluffy stuff again.

I read 1491 by Charles C. Mann back in 2011 and found it interesting enough to follow up with 1493. (As always: thanks to the library of the University Near Here for getting it.) Mann's topic is broad: how Columbus's journey upset the entire world's apple cart, with many of the apples still rolling around today.

It's a daunting subject, and one could (and some do) spend one's entire life in its study. But (fortunately) Mann is not a professional historian, he's a journalist, and this book (like 1491) concentrates on good stories and provocative ideas.

Those stories have a strong scientific component. Mann writes engagingly and comfortably in the realms of climate, ecology, biology, epidemiology, and other disciplines. It's a story of invasive species and ecological chaos, brought about mostly by human beings' lust for power and money. (Not that there's anything wrong with the latter.) Rubber, silk, silver, tobacco, potatoes, etc.; all started swirling around the globe with mostly unexpected consequences.

As did disease. It's well known what smallpox, introduced by Europeans into the Americas did to the folks already living here. Mann also documents the massive toll that malaria and yellow fever took on the incoming Europeans. (He raises the interesting point that slavery established itself in the South most firmly because Africans were more resistant to tropical disease than the other primary source of workers, indentured servants.)

Mann is a diligent researcher, visiting many of the historical sites he writes about, describing his encounters and observations. It's not all interesting, but a lot of it is. Recommended for even the person not all that interested in history.

I've been reading Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder mystery novels for — well, quite awhile. Mr. Block has slowed down some: the previous Scudder book (All the Flowers Are Dying) came out in 2005, and the one before that (Hope to Die) was published in 2001.

Mr. Block is 74, and has earned the right to write as slowly as he wants. But I also took my time in reading this one (originally published in 2011).

Mr. Block is a gifted storyteller and a impeccable prose stylist. (He's also written a lot of how-to-write stuff.) And Matt Scudder is a compelling protagonist: he started off as an alcoholic ex-cop, wracked by guilt over his accidental shooting of an innocent bystander. To make ends meet, he became an unlicensed private investigator, for which he had enough of a knack to make a living at. Eventually, he joined AA, and even got semi-respectable. This book is mostly a flashback to a few decades back, about a year into Matt's sobriety. He runs into Jack, an childhood acquaintance at an AA meeting, one who came up on the wrong side of the law. Now struggling through AA's 12 steps, he's "making amends". But (unfortunately) something about the step gets Jack gruesomely killed.

Jack's AA sponsor has a list of folks that Jack made for Step 8: "all persons we had harmed". But he doesn't want to give the list to the cops: they might hassle a bunch of innocents needlessly. Scudder is hired to check them out.

Does he eventually solve the murder? Well, sure; he's Scudder. But along the way is a lot of fun, as he meets a bunch of colorful folks and needs to deal with some of his own problems, even the recurring demon of booze.

Next up: A Long Line of Dead Men, a collection of shorter Scudder fiction.

I've been a fan of my fellow Granite Stater, P.J. O'Rourke, since the 1970s, when he wrote insanely funny stuff for the old National Lampoon. Now he's older, cut down on the drugs, ramped up on the cigars and whiskey, and got libertarian/conservative. Hey, just like me. Except for the drugs, cigars, and whiskey.

The title of this book is a takeoff on his 1988 book, Holidays in Hell, where he recounted visits to various world hotspots. Things are calmer now, and nobody is shooting at him, at least not on purpose. P.J. checks out a Lindblad cruise to the Galapagos; the WW2 Memorial and other touristy attractions in Washington D.C.; Kabul; mainland China; Kyrgyzstan on horseback; (unfortunately) the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Lebanon NH; and many other places.

P.J.'s very observant, very cynical, very opinionated, and very funny. Every page has a chuckle or unexpected insight. He's rarely in awe, so when he is (on the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, or in the Three Gorges area in China), one pays attention.

It would be fun to tag along with him as a buddy. Unfortunately, he has a million friends, and if I were a hundred times more interesting, I'd still be "the boring one". Hey, P.J., I promise: I'll just sit out of the way in any convenient corner quietly and chuckle. Next time you go to Kyrgyzstan…