Stiletto (published in 1960) - A book by Harold Robbins, silencing the witnesses against the mob

Harold Robins is one of the prolific writers of the 21st century. Born Harold Rubin, his parents were Russian and Polish immigrants. After dabbling in sugar futures he took up a job in Universal Pictures which propelled his interest towards writing. Thus came out “Never love a Stranger” which courted a controversy for its graphic sexual content. Soon Robbins would become a prolific writer churning out innumerable best sellers. He had this knack of mixing up a thriller with sex and historical anecdotes to create a taut mystery. The world's favorite author, Harold Robins would publish over 20 books which have been translated into 32 languages and estimatedly selling over 750 million copies. Many of his books were made into successful movies, the very first being “A stone For Danny Fisher” which was adapted as “King Creole” starring Elvis Presley. The stories were also made in to mini series and were part of documentaries. Robbins also lived a jet setting life style with cars, wine and women at his disposal. His decadent life style along with those of the high and mighty of Hollywood was often mirrored in his books. Robbins was one of the authors honored with a star on the Hollywood walk of frame. This prolific writer died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 81 in Palm Springs, California.
Stiletto has the usual ingredients of a Harold Robbins pot boiler, a mafia hit man, a special agent, voluptuous blondes who are deemed intelligent by the author but having the IQ of a dodo and graphic sexual encounters. This book also boasts of graphic violence and descriptions of the thrill of killing. Cesare Cardinali is a young aristocrat who is a pervert, disturbed sociopath. But for Harold Robbins he is a young aristocrat with a penchant for killing.



He kills using a stiletto which is a knife not something which the ladies crave for. Cesare, being Italian is tall dark, muscular and handsome with incredible love making prowess that the ladies flock to him asking for more.
Cesare is a race driver and a hit man who enjoys a kill. He is given the job to silence four witnesses by the mafia bosses which he does with aplomb. The scrunch of the stiletto on his victims body gives him a high. But soon his party is over as the mafia gets cold legs about his trustability. Soon they want him dead and also pursuing him is George Baker, a nice guy special agent who had given his prime years marching up the witnesses. The cat and mouse encounters with lot of sexual encounters and bone chilling violence covers the rest of the book.
Stiletto is vintage Harold Robbins. From the man who invented sex, stiletto is full of erotic content and this might be the reason for its popularity. The book has nothing original to offer, no new twists, no great insights as it is a typical hit man on the run from the mafia story. But for Harold Robbins fans this might be entertaining as the typical racy potboiler. So it gives you the expected and since it never promises to be a literary masterpiece, I think there is no scope for complaints.

Evening news by Arthur Hailey (published in 1990) - journalists face the truth and go after terrorists

Arthur Hailey, a best selling author was born in Lutton, Bedford-shire, England. He emigrated to Canada after actively serving in the Royal Air force as a pilot in the World War II. He started his literary career with Flight Into Danger and later came up with amazing titles like Hotel, Wheels, Final Diagnosis etc. He moved to the Bahamas with his writer wife Sheila, and continued to churn out best sellers. He died in November, 2004.
Evening news is about the television industry which deals with the phenomenon of getting the news to the people before a competitor does. It tells us how news is packaged to get the maximum eyeballs from the viewers thus boosting the TRP's.
Crawford Sloane is the TV news anchor man who is the face of CBA TV. He has worked himself up from being a reporter covering the Vietnam war to being an anchor. Happily married to the beautiful Jessica, and blessed with a son Sloane's life has no twists and he delivers the news about plane crashes, murder and entertainment with out any sympathy. He has strong views on terrorism and is against swapping of hostages in-case of a terrorist related kidnapping.



Soon all the good things change in Sloane's life when his wife, son and his father-in-law is kidnapped by Sendero Luminaso or Shining Path - a Maoist terrorist group operating in the jungles of Peru. They kidnap them by placing them in coffins and take them to the jungles of Peru. Soon the FBI and CIA are involved and are clueless. The ransom demanded by this organization is that CBA air programmes extolling the virtues of this organization. So Sloane puts up a crack team of news reporters which include his old friend turned rival Harry Patridge. Harry loves Sloane's wife and is hell bent on saving her and this team marches in to the jungle to save the family.
The Shining path terrorist organization is part of the Medellin drug cartel and is a ruthless outfit. The reporters are armed with only a map and faces lot of challenges. Spurred by the love of Jessica Harry goes on the hunt even when the parent organization of CBA undermines his effort. The terrorist on the other hand kill Angus, Sloane's father in law and gruesomely cut off his sons fingers and send it to him. Harry rushes and ultimately saves the family. But he is killed in a violent manner and the terrorist organization is defeated. But they in their defeat are not killed but are forced to mull over their losses.
Sloane, Jessica and their son fly back to the States wondering about their love and Harry Patridge' s sacrifice. But many parts of this book does try the reasoning of the reader. The number one being the treatment of ace reporters being more capable than FBI detectives. They march in to the jungle with a map and do not suffer much. Apart from these discrepancies Hailey brings in to the novel a vivid account of the workings of a television news station.

The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum

Robert Ludlum wrote a lot about conspiracies of power and attempting to take control, a subject that was very popular in the 60's and 70's with all the talk of the rise of the arms-industrial complex and associated industries; the good part is that he was able to weave a good storyline that kept a person compelled to read the book. Ludlum's books had many things in common, they had a fast paced action, they always had many top level people involved, including surprises where some of the people were not expected to be a part of the conspiracy, but they were.
The Materese Circle involves 2 brutal and skilled enemies, Vasili Taleniekov from the Soviet Union, and Brandon Alan Scofield from the US State Dept Consular Relations. These 2 are killers who have killed people loved by either one of them, and hate each other in a visceral way. And they are the 2 main suspects from either side when valuable people on tne US (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Soviet (a very renowned scientist) side are assassinated in a brutal way. Suspicion immediately falls onto the other, and is only neautralized when the leaders of either countries calls the other.



Both of these are killers are now getting slightly old, maybe not of so much use to their country's intelligence community, but still have the talent. However, little do they know about the way that their life is going to be turned. They are soon going to be getting information about a massive conspiracy, called the Materese Circle, spun by an old Corsican rich man and coming to full active life now. The conspiracy has its own troops, its own assassins and its own leaders, and they will stop at nothing to remove the ones they want to remove from their path. The Materese leaders are the ones who are orchestrating the international terrorism community (one must remember this was before the time of the Al-Qaeda), and is now moving towards getting control of both Moscow and Washington DC, and it is very difficult to stop them.
Taleniekov learns of these facts from an old friend who is dying after a visit from a killer of the Matarese Circle, and finds it hard to believe all this conspiracy, and when told to work with Scofield, refuses; but soon things are moving to get them together. Both these skilled killers are, under instructions from Matarese Men, sentenced to death by their respective Governments, no capture, no interrogation, just execution. Eventually, these 2 old enemies, get together (in an incredible episode of violence where they manage to kill the assassins sent to kill them). They travel to the Island of Corsica to learn more, and learn a fair deal more about the origins of the group called the Matarese. They are pursued relentlessly by the Matarese, who don't hesitate to kill friends and loved ones of these 2.
At the same time, these 2 are getting closer to the source, and eventually manage to reach their target, and in a final burst of violence, manage to eliminate the Matarese council, even as the Soviet is lost in this final carnage. Read the book for its fast paced flow, for the story that could seem realistic in a different time and that is very gripping.

Mario Puzo: The Godfather

I guess more people would have seen the Godfather movies rather than read the book; but let me start by saying that this is a great book. The book is a fairly gripping book, establishing both the history of why the godfather became the godfather (Vito Corleone), and also the birth of the next Godfather, Michael Corleone. It does meander a bit in between when trying to explain various things, but overall is a very taut book.
The book takes the Corleone family, one of the 5 mafia crime families and the tensions between them. The book explains the motives and the development of characters for some of the main characters of the book, Vito Corleone, Sonny Corleone, Michael Corleone, Connie, Kay (Michael's wife), Tom Hagen, and a few others, but whose characters are not so well developed.
The book also explains numerous mafia activities to people who may not be well-enough acquainted with some of these terms, terms such as button man, hitting the matresses, omerta, La cosa nostra, etc.
The story explains how a poor Italian immigrant, a man of quiet nature, but internally a very powerful individual, slowly starts to be seen as a man of power, a man of stature and one who can influence things. He can get his people justice, deferment from the army, rough justice against anyone who has harmed them and so on. While reading this book, it would not seem strange at all that all these activities are illegal :-), they just seem natural. Slowly, he starts to build an empire consisting of political connections, book-keeping, races, and many other vices including the illegal running of alcohol. However, even such people have their own scruples, such as being against prostitution and drugs.
And this is what brings him down and decides the rest of the book. Vito refuses help to another family seeking to expand in the drugs field, and provokes an assassination attempt in which he is injured, and which brings his violent son Sonny into the field as the interim leader (his other son Michael is outside the family business, being a decorated soldier). Hence, in a quirk of fate, Michael gets involved, kills 2 people and escapes the country. In the ensuing gang warfare, Sonny is killed and Vito Corleone, The Godfather, gets up from his sick bed in an attempt to ensure the safe return of his son Michael back.
Vito makes a deal in which he accepts Sonny's death and foreswears all vengeance (although he is perceived as weak due to this lack of revenge) in order to get Michael back. The aim of course is long-term, to get Michael to take the revenge after setting him up as the Godfather. The latter part of the book is about this effort; how Michael gains the power of the family, how he turns from being a loyal American to the head of a major criminal family, and how he eventually carries out the revenge (by killing a number of the opposition families leaders, and also killing his own brother-in-law for the role he had in getting Sonny killed).
It is only at the end where the author puts a touch about that these people are bad people, when you see that the women of the family are praying for their souls. The book also depicts women and the African-American community in a bad light, thus depicting the inherent racism of the Italian (and maybe others) community as of that time.