Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

After being so thoroughly intrigued and impressed with Goldacre’s Bad Pharma, I went back to the library to get his first book, Bad Science. But alas, the library did not have it requiring an interlibrary loan.

While Goldacre’s barbs are directed solely at the pharma industry in Bad Pharma, his targets in Bad Science include the media (a most noble andn worthy target for most any expose) and statisticians (those hit a little too close to home), his sharpest arrows are lasered on homeopathic claims and nutritionists whom he considers to border of quackery. Notice he discusses ‘nutritionists’ and not ‘registered dieticians.’ He really blasts some fad nutritionists (not in general, he really has a bone to pick with one UK woman in particular) whose many false claims (about their training, research history, science knowledge, interpretation of the literature) are almost laughable if there weren't so many of the public who buy into their nonsense.

His most enlightening, and longest, section is about the MMR and autism scare of the last 10-ish years that just won’t seem to go away. In some detail, Goldacre discusses how the scare started (using now-dismissed data), was perpetuated by an agenda-driven media (hmmm, can you spell “global warming”?), the seeming inability of the media to admit after the fact that they were fooled and mislead and finally the mishandling of retorts by a medical establishment was most adept at tripping over its own tongue.

Despite being a legendary cheapskate and getting my books almost exclusively from the library, my highest recommendation for a book is if I then go out and buy it.  I just did get Naked Statistics and will now order both Goldacre books. If you want to test drive Goldacre, see his Ted Talks online. I'm wondering if my primary society, the American College of Sports Medicine, would consider him for a keynote? Maybe I'll drop the hint to a guy I know on the program committee.

East Coast Don

Damascus Count Down by Joel Rosenberg

The 12th Imam has consolidated his power, convincing most all the Islamic countries to not only pledge their support to the Iman, but also to put their military under his command and control in preparation for war against the Zionists. 

But Israel has taken the proverbial bull by the horns. They have initiated a first strike against Iran and have wiped out Iran's nuclear capabilities and their nuclear arsenal . . . all but two that are missing. From earlier books, a CIA operative (of Iranian descent) has worked his way into the inner circle, sort of. His cover is with a German telecom company that provides encrypted sat phones to the governing council. Of course, now the CIA can listen in on the most secret of phone calls. It's this operative that has been tasked by his bosses to find the two nukes and destroy them (I half expected 'if any of your IMF team are caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.'). 

I've read most of Rosenberg's products and his early work is entirely engaging and believable. He managed to be 6mo to a year or two ahead of events that actually occurred. But in his last 3ish books, he has been incorporating Christian beliefs and practices in ever increasing frequency. For many, this could be both inspiring and joyful while for others it can be tedious. For me, I get my inspiration from my church, not from my political thrillers. The plot was entirely plausible and should have been a winner. Early on, Rosenberg was in my power rotation because of plots like this. Sadly, the amount of religiosity has resulted in my first author to drop from that lofty presence. I didn't even get 100 pages read before I closed the book, removed my bookmark, and returned it to the library.

East Coast Don

The Ophelia Cut by John Lescroart

In The Ophelia Cut, John Lescroart returns to his successful formula featuring San Francisco defense attorney Dismas Hardy, Hardy's brother-in-law Moses McGuire, and his best friend homicide lieutenant Abe Glisky.  These three and Hardy's law partner, Gino Rourke participated in a murder (in a previous book) they rationalize as justified.  Now six years later they have kept this agonizing secret that if revealed could destroy their lives.  McGuire is particularly haunted by their crime.  As a recovering alcoholic, he has sworn off drinking in fear that when drunk he may divulge too much.

McGuire has a beautiful 23-year-old daughter who has poor taste in men. Brittany prefers the mysterious stranger to the stable long lasting relationship.  Consequently she dates and rejects many potential partners. Her most recent conquest, Rick Jessup proves to be a misogynist and has a history of violence toward women.  He is chief of staff to an ambitious yet devious city supervisor, Liam Goodman.  Goodman's leading campaign contributor is an organized crime boss who has a growing distaste for the egotistical Jessup.  So Jessup has enemies in both his personal and professional lives.  When Brittany dumps him, Jessup takes offense an sets her up for date rape.  One day later Jessup is found dead in his apartment.

Moses McGuire, Brittany's father becomes the prime suspect and is quickly arrested. Quickly because the chief of police learns person of interest Moses McGuire is a personal acquaintance of her homicide chief, Abe Glisky and of the district attorney, Wes Farrell.  The police chief circumvents normal procedure and manipulates the system for an expedited arrest.

Dismas Hardy of course becomes McGuire's defense attorney and the trial begins. Brittany is called as a prosecution witness to demonstrate her rape as motive for her father's alleged crime.  She cuts her hair extremely short for the court appearance down playing her image as the beautiful bombshell heart-breaker (thus the book's title.)  As the overwhelming evidence against McGuire is introduced, Hardy focuses on planting reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.  His investigator Wyatt Hunt finds Jessup has made several enemies capable of murder but introducing such evidence into the courtroom gets complicated by legal procedure and disappearing witnesses.  Hardy, who has a reputation of pulling a rabbit out of the hat at the last minute to win acquittal for his clients, becomes stymied with his friend's life at stake.

Lescroart does a brilliant job in keeping it fresh and intriguing in his 14th novel with this same cast of characters. Flawed and human as they are, they face morally complex situations that continually intertwine and circle back to one another. Meanwhile whether you agree with each character's action or not, you somehow empathize and find yourself their advocate...quite an accomplishment for the author I'd say.

The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen

My reading about Russia continues, from ancient history to current day stuff, so that’s what led me to this book about Putin. This is one eye-opening nonfiction book. I read two newspapers almost every day, and I’ve done that for many years. However, I was only vaguely aware that Putin was a despot, a tsar-like figure, and a man who fraudulently held onto power in Russia. But I really had no idea of the extent of his being a Stalin-like figure. As the title of the book suggests, his rise to power came from nowhere. When he took Boris Yeltsin’s place at the head of government, Russians had as little knowledge about Putin as we Americans had of Sarah Palin. His vicious disregard for the rights of others and his willingness to steal whatever he wanted became apparent within days of his ascent, and it has only gotten worse. The western press was distracted by 9/11 while Putin solidified his power based and completely destroyed the budding democracy movement in the country. Gessen skillfully writes about the details of how Putin did it and the people that he damaged, drove into exile, and killed along the way. Gessen estimates that in his power and money grab, Putin has amassed a person fortune of more than $40 billion. If you have an interest in current day Russia, then this book is a must read for you.

The Intercept by Dick Wolf

If anyone can tell a tale, it should be the creative force behind the Law & Order franchise. Especially with NYC as the backdrop.

Jeremy Fisk works the Joint Terrorism Task Force in NY – intel. He’s part of a team sent to Ramstein AFB in Germany to be the first to pick through the souvenirs of the Bin Laden take down. Nothing of note until one of the NSA geeks finds a coded message hidden in a touristy image of sunflowers.  OBL has grown weary of blowing up planes, buildings, and killing people. His caliphate is best served by destroying symbols.

Back in NYC, Fisk is trying to reason out what symbols would be targets for al Qaeda. He and his detective girlfriend are trying to assemble a puzzle for which they have no picture, getting nowhere fast.

An SAS flight from Stockholm is on descent into Kennedy airport. A Muslim man rises and rushes the cockpit door, screaming Islamic chants and holding a bomb detonator. When he can’t get through the door, he grabs a flight attendant and holds a knife to her throat. Suddenly, 5 passengers pounce of the would-be bomber and subdue him.

The plane lands safely and the 5 passengers and the flight attendant are instant heroes. For the next few days leading up to the July 4^th celebration and the opening of the new World Trade Center, ‘The Six” are headline news making all the right stops on TV and live events, all courtesy of the Mayor’s PR machine.

The captured Muslim sings like The Four Tenors, but he really doesn’t know much. And his detonator went to nothing - not even a dud. Fisk is sure this idiot was a throw down – a plant to distract authorities from the real villains and convinces his bosses at the JTTF to start perhaps the most comprehensive, yet quiet, manhunt in NYC’s history.  There is too much going on that weekend, too many high profile events and targets (including Obama and Bush) to not use every resource at hand.

Like I said, Wolf should be able to bring it when it comes to a police procedural/political thriller and he does. Some reviewers I read said it reads like a novelization of a script, including Wolf’s own son. Wolf sends the reader down multiple blind alleys, each with their own sleeper cell, none of whom have clue what awaits other than paradise. But I have to agree with some reviewers who say that the Fisk character needs to be developed more. Great plot, highly plausible and believable.

This book was way too easy to get caught up in and kept me awake far later than I should’ve been on multiple nights. OK, the ending was a bit less than triumphant, given the massive, breakneck buildup, but I’m not going to complain. Wolf’s TV producing career may have begun with Miami Vice, but this is his first novel making him a rookie, so I’ll cut him a break and wait to see how Fisk fares in the next installment.

East Coast Don

The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter

Things aren’t always what they seem . . . even 50 years later.

Our boy Bob Lee Swagger is living the ‘retired’ life in the backwoods of Idaho. Occasionally he ventures to the local greasy spoon for a hot breakfast. For nigh on a month, this woman has been coming to the diner in the hopes of meeting up with the reclusive and infamous sniper. After some initial jousting, he agrees to hear her tale.

Her husband, a Baltimore reporter and occasional author, was run down while walking on a city street. No question he was targeted, but the local cops are stumped. She heard about Swagger from the friend of a friend of a friend and decided to go to Idaho and wait him out.

Her husband was working on a new angle to the Kennedy assassination and was close to having enough information to take a proposal to a publisher. The key piece of evidence was the uncovering of an overcoat stuffed amongst some ratty old carpeting on some makeshift shelves all behind the non-functioning HVAC machinery on the roof of the Dal-Tex bldg, which stands smack dab next to the Texas School Book Depository.

That in and of itself wasn’t enough to wet Swagger’s whistle. It was a stain across the back of the coat – what resembled a bicycle tire – that’s what raised Bob Lee’s eyebrows. So much so that he sets off for Dallas.

While in Dallas, he meets up with this Kennedy nerd who runs the Assassination Museum, a guy with an encyclopedic memory about Nov 22, 1963 and anything connected. Together they work out a theory of the shooter. Make that ‘shooters’.

From what Bob Lee had read about Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO for the true conspiracy nuts), young LHO had neither the smarts, the guile, nor the necessary skill to be successful. There had to be another shooter who was far more reliable and he had to be positioned in roughly a parallel angle to what LHO had in the Depository. LHO was a patsy from the get-go, nothing more. Anybody he hit would be icing on the cake. Enter the Dal-Tex bldg. next door.

So now Bob Lee is peeling back the onion in Dallas, Baltimore, rural Virginia, North Carolina, Connecticut and elsewhere as he puts his theory together, but not before fending off the murder-by-car driver with extreme prejudice. Timing has always been an issue. LHO didn't get the book job until sometime in Sept-Oct and the motorcade route wasn't announced until about Nov 20. How could someone have convinced LHO to take the shots, get the rifle into the bldg, arrange for a 2nd (and far better) shooter in the bldg next door and actually get away with it all in that time frame? Being so unbelievable, most assumed (TWC included - The Warren Commission) that LHO had to have acted alone.

Apparently Hunter had started this story quite some time ago, even before his Bob Lee character had come to life. The skeptic in me thinks that the timing of this book and the upcoming 50^th anniversary of 11/22/63 is more than a coincidence. While I love the Bob Lee character and will find it hard to not enjoy any book with him in the lead, this one started to wear on me from two fronts. First, about 2/3 of the way through, Hunter brings Swagger’s opponent’s backstory in as a mea culpa manuscript in preparation. This book-within-a-book presentation wore me down to the point where I was skipping large segments. Second, also in that last third of the book, Hunter reveals characters brought back from the dead (figuratively speaking) previously encountered in Point of Impact (the source material for the movie ‘Shooter’ – guess Hollywood took some creative license with these two characters in the movie). I kind of got lost in this ‘closing the circle’ gimmick. But the righteous ending for the Swagger’s nemesis and his hired thugs was a worthy finale, something only Bob Lee, even at 66yo, could muster.

East Coast Don

The Thieves of Legend by Richard Doetsch

Another from the good folks as Simon/Schuster.

Michael and KC live the idyllic life outside to NYC. Of course, their former lives as high end thieves helps. With friends Father Simon and Jon Busch (retired cop/now bartender), Michael and KC try to keep on the right side of law. Michael and KC agree neither will accept a job without discussing it with the other.

Like that’ll last. Michael is sent to Italy to steal a ceremonial box from the safe of an industrialist. When he arrives, he finds the family all beheaded and the patriarch is next in line. He returns home empty handed. And KC is so pissed she walks, headed back to her native UK.

Simon alerts Michael to a potential security contract for their company, but Michael doesn’t get a good feel and backs out. When leaving the Manhattan building, a purse snatcher robs a women right in front of him, so Michael gives chase, cuz that’s who he is. He catches the perp only to see the woman catch up, calmly pull a gun, and kills the guy right there on the street. Obviously, Michael gets hauled in to the local precinct for questioning.

KC packs her bag and heads to JFK. While waiting for her flight, she and this other woman start up a conversation. When offered the chance for a company jet flight to London, KC reluctantly takes it. Problem is, this stranger is the woman who gunned the guy down right in front of Michael.

All this sets in motion a rapid chase for an ancient Chinese map and the aforementioned ceremonial box. One is held in the depths of The Forbidden City in Beijing and the other is in a vault five stories underground in the most hi-tech security set-up ever, which is under a massive casino in Macau, China. And Michael must rob said casino or KC dies. And KC must penetrate The Forbidden City or Michael will die.

Twins separated at about 12 years of age are at each other’s throats. One twin was taken from LA by his Chinese mother and grows up to be the head of one of the Chinese Triads. The other, being raised by his Army father, becomes an obsessed Colonel. Both seek the map to this ancient island where untold riches await, but more importantly they seek the only antidote for a deadly virus.

The gist of the story has some merit, but personally, I’m not drawn to stories where the main characters have matinee idol good looks, speak 5 languages fluently, are experts in a half dozen martial arts, can run like the wind, hold their breath underwater like a pearl diver, can outsmart multiple levels of security at The Forbidden City and an impenetrable casino. Me? I like my characters a bit more flawed; Harry Bosch, Inspector Rebus, Bob Lee Swagger, et al. And there seemed to be far too many fortunate escapes and close calls. For me this was just OK. Too many fortunate conveniences happening to all-too beautiful people.

(while uploading this, I noticed that one of my partners in this venture, West Coast Don, had posted a review of this on Nov 11, 2012 that you may want to read. We arrived at the same 'conclusion.')

East Coast Don