Killers of the Flower Moon, The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

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by David Grann, 2007, Vintage Books, A Dividion of Random House LLC, New York

This book chronicles the murders of members of the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma in the early part of the 20th century and the efforts of the newly founded FBI to solve the crimes.  The Osage were given land in the 1800’s that was considered worthless but oil was discovered and they became extremely rich.  They then became prey to unscrupulous white persons who rigged the system to get their money and property.  Many were murdered or died under suspicious circumstances.  The local and state authorities and courts were complicit in denying justice until an honest FBI agent, Tom White, pursued the cases.

I was not aware of the atrocities committed against these Indians.  It’s shocking to know how justice can be circumvented by powerful individuals in a community.  The author also describes additional possible murders that were never discovered or prosecuted.

The book was well researched and fairly well written, but due to the subject matter I can’t say that I enjoyed reading it.

2 1/2 stars

The Husband’s Secret

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by Liane Moriarty, 2013, Audiobook narrated by Caroline Lee, Penguin Audio

This book is about three women who live in Australia and how they are affected by the murder of a young girl many years ago.

The book is well-written and is believable, although the outcome is fairly predictable.  The epilogue, however, provides some interesting alternative outcomes that are not expected and enhances the total package considerably.

The author does a good job capturing each of the characters. Although I enjoyed listening, it seemed to drag a bit in places. I guess it was necessary to describe each of the characters but some of it was overdone. 2 1/2 stars

One Hell of a Gamble, The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

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by Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, 1997, W.W. Norton & Company, New York

This book is a detailes account of the events that led up to and took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The research that went into the writing of the book is well done and the writing is very good.  The only downside is that reading the book requires a lot of concentration on the details to get the full meaning of the book.

The authors’ conclusions were that Kennedy took the right course of action, despite his advisors advocating a more aggressive and belligerent stance.  I was struck, however, with how Khrushchev reacted in a time of crisis.  He clearly had made a colossal mistake in deciding to put nuclear missiles in Cuba, but his reasoned actions to remove them suggest that he was a smart individual who understood the implications of his actions.  It was also interesting that he seemed to have had a much better time dealing with Kennedy, his adversary, than Castro, his ally.

Thank goodness we made it through this one without a nuclear holocaust.  Hopefully, a hothead leader on either side won’t lead us down that path again, although, after reading this book, I am certain that if our current president had been in office in 1962, we would have suffered nothing short of a nuclear holocaust. 4 stars

Educated: a Memoir

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by Tara Westover, Kindle version, 2018, Random House LLC

This book is a harrowing memoir about a young girl growing up in a dysfunctional family in Idaho with an abusive father and brother. She was discouraged from attending school and told she had to remain at home. Despite her family situation she broke away and went on to get degrees from Cambridge and Harvard.

The book is well written and compelling. She does mention areas where her version may be clouded due to memory lapses which may cast some doubt on actual events as she describes them, but the book overall is believable.

The one question that goes unanswered is how someone with such limited resources and support can go on to achieve so much academic success when our schools, in many cases, can’t always succeed with much more resources. 4 stars

I Am Pilgrim

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by Terry Hayes, Atria/Emily Bestler Books, Kindle version, Simon and Shuster Digital Sales, Inc.

This book is a thriller but it is long.  The author provides quite a bit of detailed background about every move the main character and his nemesis makes.  Most of the background is necessary but it does at to the length of the book.

One aspect of the book that I was especially pleased about was that much of the action took place in Bodrum, Turkey, a place we had visited just a few years ago.  While we weren’t there long, it was one of the prettiest spots that I have ever seen with its Crusader castle in the harbor and the green and blue shades of water.  The author describes it in one of the passages and it took me right back to the place.

Back to the novel.  I was a bit mystified about the connection between a murder that took place in New York City a few months after 911 and the eventual pursuit of an Islamist terrorist.  The main character is called in to take a look at the murder scene and he surmises that it is a woman. Later in the book, his pursuit of the terrorist takes him to Bodrum Turkey, but he uses his investigation of another murder that took place in Bodrum as his cover for being there. While he is attempting to locate the terrorist, he finds out that the murder in Bodrum was committed by the same person who committed the murder in New York.  I realize that an author of fiction can use some license to create coincidences that would otherwise be unrealistic, but this one is unbelievable to me.  Maybe if his character hadn’t been present at the first murder, it may have been more realistic, but I am having trouble buying into this scenario.  I would have given the book a much higher rating if it had been a little more believable and perhaps not quite so long.3 1/2 stars

The Underground Railroad: A Novel

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by Colson Whitehead, 2016, Kindle Version, Published by Anchor, sold by Random House, LLC

This book is about a young slave girl who escapes from a plantation in Georgia via the “underground railway.”  The book, although it is clearly fiction, implies that a railroad really existed underground and was dug by hand by escaped slaves and other interested individuals. This book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, but I guess I missed the point as I couldn’t get the concept that the underground railroad as it is depicted didn’t really exist.  The underground railroad was, in actuality, a series of routes and safe houses used to enable the fugitives to make their way north to freedom.

Because of the fiction associated with the “real” underground railroad, I had a harder time buying the rest of the story.  I believe an historical novel should teach us something about the times and actual historical events.  The book definitely tried to do this by describing in detail the conditions of captivity under a cruel master.  Unfortunately, the larger fiction of the “railroad” casts a shadow of doubt on anything else in the book.

I have given the book a higher rating than I would  otherwise due to the higher purpose it is attempting to convey. three stars

The Enemy

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by Lee Child, 2004, Audiobook narrated by Dick Hill, Billiance Audio

I liked this book as it depicted the main character, Jack Reacher, as a deep, multi-layered individual.  He is involved, not only with a conspiracy on the part of some highly placed army tank officers, but also with the illness and subsequent death of his mother from cancer.  Rather than depict Reacher as an individual who can surmount any conceivable situation, this book definitely gives him a lot of depth.

The narration was also very good.3 1/2 stars

Mudbound

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by Hillary Jordan, 2009, Algonquin Books

This is a story of a white family in the Mississippi Delta area and their lives as they move onto some property they purchased shortly after WWII.  It centers on race relations with their black sharecropper families, the presence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the return of a two veterans from the war (one black and the other white).

The story is told from the viewpoints of the various characters.  Their narratives and well done and believable.  The only criticism I have of this book is the ending.  Rather than build to a climax or conclusion, the novel just seems to evaporate.  I felt unfulfilled as a result.3 1/2 stars

An Irish Country Village

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by Patrick Taylor, Audiobook narrated by John Keating, 2008, Macmillan Audio

This is the second of a series by Patrick Taylor focusing on the life of two doctors in a small town in Northern Ireland.  One of the doctors is an old-time doctor who is trusted and loved by the community.  The other doctor is a recent graduate who is practicing for the first time and has to earn the love and trust enjoyed by the older doctor.

The characters in these books are enjoyable and the situations are fun.  I think that listening to these stories on an audiobook lends itself to a lot more enjoyment than reading them would.

The stories suffer somewhat from the some of the themes recurring over and over, but the overall experience is enjoyable. 3 1/2 stars

Life After Life

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by Kate Atkinson, Audiobook narrated by Fennela Woolgar, 2013, Hachette Audio

This book is based on an interesting idea: What if a person died but came back to life to live another life based on different choices made?  It’s as if a person has nine lives like a cat but, instead of resuming after dying as if nothing had happened, this person rewinds to a point when an alternative choice was made.  These different choices could be made either by the individual or others that have had impacts on the life that would eventually would be lived.

While the idea is interesting, the execution in this book is not good.  Because some of the lives were similar, there was a great deal of redundancy.  It seems as if the main character died multiple times in the bombing of London under similar circumstances.  Because the book jumped back each time and essentially started over, it was a bit confusing to follow.  Also, there was a lot of detail and dialogue in each of the stories that was not essential and really boring.  It got to the point where I found myself saying “Not Again!” each time she died and the book rewound.

Bottom line, this book had an interesting theme that was beaten to death (multiple times).1 1/2 stars