Nerve (published in 1964) - Jockeys and horses, a book by Dick Francis

Richard Stanley Francis or Dick Francis was born in Pembrokshire, Wales, England on October 20th 1920. His father was a renowned jockey and Francis was catapulted in to the world of Horses, Jockeys and racing. He droppd out of school to train as a Jockey and was fighter pilot in the Royal Air-force during World War II. After the war Francis became a celebrity Champion Jockey winning over 350 races. He was the lead Jockey for the Queen Mother. But he had to drop out of Horse racing after a serious fall an d became a racing correspondent for Sunday Express. Dick Francis churned out numerous best sellers and most of his books deal with the mysteries in the realm of Horse racing and Jockeys. He wrote more than 40 international best sellers and is the recipient of numerous awards. Being a three time recipient of Mystery writer of America's Edgar Award he was made the Grand master of MWA. He is also the recipient of Britain's Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award for fiction in 1979 and the Cartier Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award. He also has the Gumshoe award to his credit. He was accorded in CBE in 2000. Dick Francis died in his Caribbean home on February 10, 2010 bringing down the curtains to an illustrious life.
Rob Finn is the black sheep of the family of talented musicians. Not only he cannot sing he cannot get the love of the woman he wants. Finn is head over heels in love with Joanna who finds his attentions unwarranted due to the fact that they are first cousins. Finn learns to ride at the outback and is hired as a trainey jockey when he reaches England.



He rides the tempestuous horses and his fearlessness helps him to overcome the most beastly ones. Slowly his fame spreads and he is catapulted in to the big league of horse racing. After basking in the glory of great wins he finds sinister going ons around him. Vicious rumors are spread about fellow jockeys and soon suicides and murders happen. Canards are spread about Finn who suddenly find his rides sluggish and his winning streak severely down in the dumps. Word goes around that he has lost his “Nerve”.
As Finn tries to find the answers about himself, he looks into the death of his colleagues and finds similar patterns and rumors surrounding their ends. As he investigates he is kidnapped and is tortured and given up as dead. But the resilient Finn manages to escape and gets the police and tries to piece the puzzle. Now the motivation is to find revenge for his torture and Finn goes against a powerful adversary whose motive is to destroy jockeys who do conform. This tale is the ultimate revenge drama of a determined but unassuming man against the power corridors in the racing land. The ending is superb and you feel for Rob Finn as he struggles to find his place in the competitive world of horse racing and love. He wins the former, but alas I feel cheated as Joanna who rescues him does not return his love.
Again a great racing story from Dick Francis in his typical crisp English. Readers can feel the yesteryears Britain through his writings, especially the English Gentleman's stiff upper-lip. Rob Finn is the typical hero who plods through torture, injury and bad luck to find a smile. Again a great mystery solved with out the high tech devices, just by pursuit and brains. A great book to take home.

River of Death (published in 1981) - Authored by Alistair Maclean - moving away from the cold and wet areas to the tropical jungle

Alistair MacLean is a Scottish writer who specialized in writing thrillers and crime stories. He was third son of a Scottish minister and joined the Royal Navy during the world war two. He was a senior torpedo operator at the height of his career. He was in the thick of the war theater during the world war and saw action on many fronts especially the arctic north. After retiring he started penning his novels based on the war he saw and many of them became best sellers. Maclean never looked back as a writer until his death in 1987.
River of Death is a thriller by Alistair Maclean which happens around the Amazonian jungle. Maclean has always placed his settings within the confines of the most inhospitable environments. Here the protagonists have to battle the jungle with insects, piranhas, crocodiles and hostile cannibal tribes. He says something for the preservation of the old civilizations and the environment itself.
The story opens with the fag end of world war two, where at the docks of Wihelmshaven, the SS soldiers are loading crates of gold and precious stones in the submarine. General Von Monteuffel and Colonel Spatz head overseeing the loading of the crates. Spatz leave to check on the operations along the border with the Russians and the general promises to wait for him. Spatz returns with Russians and allies hot on his heels and is betrayed by Von Monteuffel who leaves him stranded at the dock.



As the flash back settles in, the story moves in a different direction. John Hamilton, is the archaeologist who has discovered a lost city deep in the Amazonian Jungle. As soon as he has made the discovery public, Smith a German millionaire who has a mysterious shady connection makes him a proposal of funding the expedition to the lost city. Hamilton agrees and along with his trusted lieutenants, Ramon and Navarro, he sets off to the Jungle with Smith and his henchmen, Hiller and Tracy. In the group, Smith's secretary Maria is also present.
As soon as they set in to the Jungle they get easily lost. They fight huge crocodiles and insects. Maria who seems to have developed a soft corner for Hamilton is saved from the anaconda who has almost devoured her. Ramon and Navarro seem the happy go lucky people who crack jokes and are never afraid of anything. The whole group run for their lives from the cannibalistic tribes.
They soon reach the destination and the action hots up. They discover a German settlement which is headed by General Von Monteuffel. Smith is revealed to be Spatz who was seeking them to avenge his betrayal. Maria turns out to be the secret agent from the Mossad. As the action hots up many are killed and Von Monteuffel is captured. Hamilton reveals to him that his actions were also to avenge the killing of his wife by the general. Soon huge treasure and the murderers are captured and brought before the world.
Maclean has given an innovative setting for a thriller but fails to keep the reader riveted in his seat. The Action sequences are too predictable and many work in favor of the hero. So there is no adrenaline rush or a special affection for the characters. But the tale is short and one can finish it in two hours. So if you are in a mood for some flippant reading, take it up.

Seawitch (published in 1977) - Author - Alistair Maclean - action related to a massive oil platform

Alistair MacLean is a Scottish writer who specialized in writing thrillers and crime stories. He was third son of a Scottish minister and joined the Royal Navy during the world war two. He was a senior torpedo operator at the height of his career. He was in the thick of the war theater during the world war and saw action on many fronts especially the arctic north. After retiring he started penning his novels based on the war he saw and many of them became best sellers. Maclean never looked back as a writer until his death in 1987.
Seawitch is the story of a rich ruthless oil magnate who can pull all stops to make profit. Lord Worth is a very rich businessman whose main interests are in oil. This tycoon builds the largest oil rig off the waters of Houston and has invented some special type of equipments to enable his company to drill maximum quantity of oil at his will and fancies.
So the other oil tycoons get the jitters as the price of oil starts to slide. So what do they do? Well the easy way out, hire a killer to stop Lord Worth in his path. The competitors are an inhuman bunch as they don't care how the mission is accomplished and are ready to pay the highest price to stop Worth.



The hired killer, John Cronkite has a major ax to grind against Lord Worth as he has been the root cause of many of his miseries. So Cronkite talks to the Russian, Cuban and another communist renegades top source for the weapons to destroy Seawitch. But Lord Worth gets the whiff of his plans as one of the conspirators is a spy. He hires detectives to defend Seawitch at any cost.
In the mean time, Lord Worth's two daughters are kidnapped from his villa and are held prisoner on the Seawitch. To make matters worth the Russian and some Cuban submarines are making their way to destroy the oil platform. Lord Worth approaches the Ministry of Defense to scare the submarines and succeeds. But Cronkite has managed to steal some nuclear weapons and reached the Seawitch.
Does Lord Worth succumb to pressure? No way, he has got aces up his sleeve in detectives Mitchell and Roomer who are in love with his two daughters, Marina and Melinda. These are ex-policemen who are the typical cynical, rough and tough MacLean heroes. They are brutally honest and totally in love and will go to any lengths to rescue their damsels in distress. So the match is set and the fight is to begin.
Lord Worth who reaches the rig is also imprisoned and Cronkite and his men booby traps the entire oil platform. Mitchell and roomer arrive with a doctor as a scientist. They try to take over when Cronkite's back is turned and Roomer gets hurt. He leaves to get more relief as Mitchell mans the platform. But Cronkite will not go so easily. He takes over Seawitch again and this time places the nuclear weapons. Soon high adrenaline shooting game commences where Mitchell kills four of Cronkite's men. Lord Worth, his daughters and the good men leave stealthily and watches the oil rig explode with Cronkite and his men on board.
Seawitch was written during the fag end of MacLean's writing career and you can feel him loosing touch. I feel you can buy it as a one time read and forget it.

Fear is the key (published in 1961) - by Alistair Maclean - a gripping tale of a man driven by revenge

Alistair MacLean is a Scottish writer who specialized in writing thrillers and crime stories. He was third son of a Scottish minister and joined the Royal Navy during the world war two. He was a senior torpedo operator at the height of his career. He was in the thick of the war theater during the world war and saw action on many fronts especially the arctic north. After retiring he started penning his novels based on the war he saw and many of them became best sellers. Maclean never looked back as a writer until his death in 1987.
If you read Fear is the Key, be sure to find enough free time because this is one book you cannot afford to put down. This is an intense revenge saga by a wronged man. Talbot, the owner of "Trans Carib Air Charter Co" listens helplessly on the radio, the death wails of his wife, son and his best friend. His plane en-route to Florida is shot down by American Military plane. All he can do is to wait to serve revenge to the perpetrator.
Then the novel cuts to the present with Talbot, standing trial in the court and being sentenced. It seems that in his grief he has turned to a life to crime. But at the moment of sentencing, Talbot escapes, taking a beautiful heiress hostage. The hostage, Mary is the daughter of oil tycoon, General Ruthven. After an intense car race and drama, Talbot manages to escape with the hostage. Soon a reward is announced for his capture and he has many unsavory elements hot on his trail.



A thug, Jablonsky capture Talbot and rescues Mary. Instead of handing Talbot to the police he is released to General Ruthven. Ruthven, who is a millionaire many times over, has a shady past and underhand dealings. Most of his money is ill-gotten and he gives two choices to Talbot, help him recover something precious or die.
Talbot agrees to salvage the precious cargo for Ruthven and Jablonsky is also recruited. Soon the picture becomes clear that the precious cargo involves gold and diamonds with ten million locked in the fuselage of a DC-3 plane which has crashed at the bottom of an oil rig. This is the same plane in which Talbot's wife and son was traveling. This loss of Talbot's is so great that all the gold and the diamonds in the world cannot replace it.
Talbot, like all MacLean leading men is a skilled diver, knowledgeable about the oil rig exploration, an out standing diver and an engineer. He is also a skilled martial arts practitioner and completely a macho man. So Talbot gets his revenge in this intense story of greed, murder and money with out any doubt.
This tale sounds very familiar to many revenge drama's of a wronged man on and off screen, but only Alistair MacLean can pull out an intense thriller through his fast paced narrations. The words whiz past telling us about the car chases, under water explorations, gun battle and murders. Maybe you won't meet a MacLean Hero in real life, so its all the more reason to read about him in this book. And get this book, it's an incredible thriller.

The Odessa File - Frederick Forsyth (1972)

After the Second World War, there was a quest to hunt for the Nazis to bring them to justice, and yet, a number of them were never caught. Some of them escaped to various countries in South America, others were co-opted by both the Western and Communist countries and some of them tried to stay underground in Germany itself. There has always been the belief that there was an organization called ODESSA (Wikipedia link) that sought to provide an environment in which former SS (the most feared and devoted Nazi) members would be supported and provided escape routes, and such an organization would seem logical as the war was ending, and former SS members knew that they would be persecuted by both the Soviet and Western forces. No less a Nazi hunter than Simon Wiesenthal believed that such an organization existed and accounted for how SS members managed to escape the manhunt.



Frederick Forsyth normally researches his novels in great detail, and you can see the results in this novel itself. The novel details the way in which ODESSA works, and how a reporter manages to get involved with the network. The story is set in 1963, and deals with Peter Miller, a freelance crime reporter who reaches the apartment of a suicide victim - the suicide is that of Salomon Tauber, a Jewish Holocaust-survivor from the Riga concentration camp, which was commanded by Eduard Roschmann, also known as "The Butcher of Riga" (wikipedia). He soon obtains a diary, which records that Tauber had witnessed Roschmann shooting a German Army captain.
After finding that there is not much resolve to convict ex-Nazis, he is approached by former concentration camp survivors and soon, he is determined to get into the ODESSA. After some training, he manages to get inside after meeting a lawyer who works for ODESSA. He slowly starts getting information on the entire system, but a chance mistake means that he is revealed, and now there is a hitman after him. It is now a quest to get away from the hitman while trying to get Roschmann. Will he succeed ?

A tale of 2 cities by Charles Dickens

One of the most brutal revolutions in Europe in recent times has been the French Revolution; it had many phases and can be taken to mean the period between 1789 and 1799, when the army finally took over in the form of its leader, Napoleon Bonaparte. In the interim period, there were many struggles, many twists and turns. A new instrument of murder, the guillotine, was the main execution tool. People condemned to death for anti-revolution fervor, for their thoughts, and because getting them condemned to death removed them from the scene, all would be brought to the public squares where they would be executed with the guillotine.
'A tale of 2 cities' was published in 1859, and is set during the time period of the French Revolution. It shows the sheer terror of those times, where you could be condemned to death for even sympathizing with the fate of an earlier executed 'enemy' of the revolution, where a person could be condemned based on the written statement of a person (even if the person wants to take the statement back). The terror of the French Revolution evolved during a complex stage in which the excesses of the nobility and the church had crushed the poorer part of the population (Wikipedia), and this was almost pay-back time.



The book led to a very remembered opening statement, starting with these incredible words, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness". The book covers the conflicting story of many people, including arrogant aristocrats who were condemned, humble and good aristocrats who were also condemned, people taking revenge using the medium of the revolution, and how the revolution eventually also condemns those who were its proponents earlier. The book has been used as the base for a number of movies over the years, and was itself based on the book 'The French Revolution: A History' by Thomas Carlyle.
The novel covers the story of the following main characters:
- Dr Alexandre Manette: A prisoner in the Bastille for 18 years, and the father of the lady who is one of the main characters
- Lucie Manette: Young lady loved by both Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, and also the daughter of Dr. Manette
- Charles Darnay: A young, and good-natured French nobel. He never liked the cruelty of his family towards the peasantry and abandons the family name (Evrémonde), and fled to England after assuming his mother's maiden name
- Sydney Carton: A complex, but depressed English barrister. Loves Lucie, and promises her that he will do whatever he can for her and her family. Eventually does so in the end with a supreme act of self-sacrifice.
- Monsieur Ernest Defarge: Took care of Dr. Manette, also a closet revolutionary
- Madame Therese Defarge: A dark-natured closet revolutionary and wife of Ernest. She is also bent of taking revenge for the extermination of her family at the hands of Darnay's uncle

Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer

For those of you who have not read this novel, but the name sounds somewhat familiar, worry not. You are indeed correct, with the name being similar to the biblical 'Cain and Abel'. The novel was released in 1980, with was an international bestseller. It remains on the popular list, being among the more famous, if not the most famous, book of Jeffrey Archer. It has been made into a 1985 television mini-series as well. The book is essentially a life story of 2 men, born into 2 entirely different societies and circumstances, but sharing the same date of birth, April 18, 1906. This book is the story of William Lowell Kane, and Wladek Koskiewicz (later to be called Abel Rosnovski), and truth be told, is a great book.



These are 2 men with an entirely different start in life, with one thing in common; both are extremely confident and self-starters. They have built up whatever they currently own in life, and are willing to take a fight all the way to the end.
Kane is born in a rich family, but loses his wealth and inheritance after a series of misfortunes. His father dies in the Titanic disaster, and his mother marries a man who does nothing but squander his wealth and waste it away. Eventually, after his mother dies in a miscarriage, Kane throws his step-father out.
Abel, on the other hand, lives a life of poverty. He is born in a forest, and only gains some hope of a better life due to his intelligence; the local Baron recognizes his intelligence and seeking to get a good companion for his son, adopts Abel. However, soon after, with the First World War breaking out, the Russian Army kills the Baron and his son, rapes Abel's sister, and takes Abel to Siberia (However, Abel also discovers that the Baron was actually his father, since both of them have only one nipple each). Abel manages to escape from Siberia, and after almost getting his hand amputated in Turkey for stealing, he manages to reach the US.
And this is where the battle between the 2 starts to germinate. After Abel starts to rise by dint of ability, his benefactor suffers because Kane's bank refuses to lend funds during the depression, and actually commits suicide. Blaming Kane for this, Abel has two ambitions, how to become a successful and rich man, and how to defeat Kane. He has one option, if he can get enough shares of Kane's bank, he can get Kane kicked off the board (he does not know that Kane was the one who had actually helped him in the past and Kane cannot tell him also).
This rivalry takes a strange turn when the children of both of them meet, fall in love, and marry over the massive objections of both of them. What happens next ? Do these 2 bitter enemies forgive their children and each other, and reconcile with their grandchild ? Read the whole novel, it is a great work of fiction.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie (Wikipedia) was one of the most prolific writers in the detective genre and created two most unlikely characters in the form of detectives. Till then, the character of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes defined the character of the detective - a man who is exceedingly smart and knows it, but is not very vain, and who can be urged to great action when he needs to, also a man of great physical strength (even if his frame does not suggest it). Both the characters created by Agatha Christie were very different, with Miss Marple being a frail old lady, but with a terrific mind and ability to think through things (most of which occur in her village) even when she is engrossed in daily routine manners, and then the other character who is the central character of this novel, the egg shaped Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
A vain man, who knows that he is very smart, and is not above telling other people about this. He is obsessed with things being proper, making sure that his mustache is well maintained and becomes uncomfortable when he finds out that people do not know about him. At the same time, he is very capable, like Sherlock Holmes, of putting facts together, and of being able to find the discrepancies that help him crack the crime. Hercule Poirot was introduced by Agatha Christie in 1920 in 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles' and appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories.



The story has a twist in the end, when Hercule Poirot actually presents 2 different options as to who did the murder, and presents it in such a way that the decision will eventually go only one way. The novel is set on the Orient Express, near Belgrade. Poirot is returning from a case in Syria, and gets a berth on the Orient Express with difficult, due to the help of his friend Monsieur Bouc, a director of the company which operates the Express. He meets a number of people on the train (and is very surprised at the fact that it is full, something very unlikely at this time of the year). He also meets a man who exudes violence, Mr. Ratchett, who asks him to act as his defender from people out to get him and Poirot refuses.
On the second night, he hears a noise in the night from the neighboring compartment, occupied by Mr. Ratchett. After some time, the conductor is called by Mrs. Hubbard who is terrified that somebody is in her coach. There is some further commotion, but then he sleeps. When he gets back, he is notified that the train will not move further since it is stuck in a snowdrift, and also learns that Mr. Ratchett has been murdered during the night, struck multiple times with a knife; and Poirot is the one called on for help.
After some investigation, Poirot discovers that Mr. Ratchett was actually a leader of a criminal gang and his real name was Cassetti. He was the chief leader of the plot to abduct the rich heiress Daisy Armstrong, and she was then murdered inspite of the ransom having been paid by her parents. Both her parents died subsequently, her mother in grief which induced an early childbirth and she died, her father shooting himself. It also caused suspicion in other house members such as the maid who was suspected and who killed herself because of this suspicion.
Poirot finds that the clues and events of the night are set in such a manner that every person has an alibi, sometimes from unexpected resources; and eventually starts to think in a holistic sense, trying out a theory that the other members of the investigating party (the official and the doctor) are unable to think through. Finally, through some conjecture (and this was the weak link in the book - everything seemed to settle through easily), he is able to deduce the actual facts and the names of the murderer(s). He then presents this theory, as well as an alternative theory to the other members of the team, and asks them to pick the one that they prefer. What choice do they make of the theory to present to the Yugoslav police when they will reach there ?

"My Name Is Red" By Orhan Pamuk

Reading novels from Nobel Literature winners is not my cup of tea. So, when a friend suggested "My Name Is Red" to me, I was apprehensive to start. After all, it is written by Orhan Pamuk, Turkish writer and winner of Nobel Prize in Literature 2006 for his novel titled "Snow". My Name Is Red was written much earlier (in 2001) but still it would be an effort to read it - so as I thought. And, I was indeed correct. It is not effortless reading but it is surely worthwhile.



In general, Orhan Pamuk has been vocal about freedom of expression issues. In year 2005, he was forced to flee from his country due to the hate campaigns against him after he made a statement regarding the mass killings of Armenians and Kurds in Antolia. There were criminal charges brought against him for these remarks but they were subsequently dropped. I have earlier read some part of his Nobel lecture and his thoughts touched me a lot. An excerpt from his Nobel lecture is as follows (translation by Maureen Freely) :-
What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kind ... Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational, overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world–and I can identify with them easily–succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West–a world with which I can identify with the same ease–nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid.

My Name Is Red is a kind of murder mystery set in 1591, when the murder of Elegant Effendi, a painter in the Ottoman Empire, threatens to expose a blasphemy that has infected Ottoman court painters. It is rumored that a secret book commissioned by the sultan is dedicated to European artistic styles, which favours figurative arts (prohibited in Islam). Four miniaturists, under the guidance of a rival to the sultan, have been painting it secretly. Consumed by guilt, Elegant confesses one evening, inciting someone to murder him. The clue to which miniaturist murdered him hinges upon the nostrils of a horse: In a drawing found on the dead man's body, these nostrils displayed a distinct style. This story of the sultan's secret book and the murder is told in the first person from the point of view of various narrators, not all of them human. So we hear from the corpse, the lovers and the murderer, a gold coin, the color red, and many more. The characters talk with the reader directly, and nearly each chapter has its own narrator starting with the murdered painter himself in the first chapter.

Wonderfully written book.

Tom Clancy: Without Remorse

Without Remorse is an attempt by the author to explain the emergence of his other main character (the main character is Jack Ryan, but there is also a CIA operational executive called John Clark), the man who carried out a number of field operations including execution and even spying (with mention in many books such Clear and Present Danger, Sum of all Fears, Debt of Honor, Executive Orders, Rainbow Six, Bear and the Dragon). The movie is set in 1971, in the middle of the Vietnam War.
Most people know of the Vietnam War as a major disaster where the US lost 54,000 soldiers and where it had to beat a humiliating retreat, but the Vietnam War was also the one where the US military developed its special operations forces to a major extent, including the SEAL teams, trained in extraction, working behind enemy lines, underwater jobs, and enemy executions. The novel tells the story of one extraction, as well as the story of a former SEAL whose girl-fried was killed by drug dealers in a macabre way, and his revenge using all his abilities. Without Remorse refers to this fightback and the cold blooded way in which this former special operations man targets drug dealers without any pity.
In the Vietnam War, many Americans Prisoners of War were kept in bad Prisoner of War camps, ill-treated and many times not reported to the Red Cross. They were interrogated and treated very badly. It was a mission for the Special Operations team to try and extract them, but this was also a political mission, needing permissions from the political leadership, with the risk of such operations being revealed. In fact, a previous such operation had been a failure, and given that there were also peace talks ongoing, the State department did not want to agree to such operations due to the fear of the peace talks collapsing.
The hero of this book, John Kelly was a former SEAL and a hero who had taken part in many operations in Vietnam, being a part of the SOG (Special Operations Group). He is now retired, and is in pain, having lost his wife in a road accident. At this point, he meets up with Pam, who has escaped from the torture of a brutal drug dealers network where she was one of the couriers as well as the comfort women for the drug dealers. However, as she is getting cured, in an exaggerated sense of bravado, Kelly exposes her to danger and she is taken from him (while he is shot to a near death state). She is soon killed by them in a particularly brutal way.
As Kelly recovers, he learns, and and that is when he vows to use his specialities to hunt down her killers (in a pretty well written part, the nurse and his future wife, Sandy, sees death in his face, a controlled and determined death). He starts his mission of recovery while the police case does not go anywhere. He is also approached by the military for another rescue mission in Vietnam because of his knowledge of the location. For this mission training, he is given a CIA moniker, John Clark, and starts training with the military.
He also starts dealing with the drug dealers, first finding the dealer who started Pam onto the life of prostitution, killing him, and then starting to kill more of them after interrogating them to find out about the main drug dealers, no mercy involved. In fact, were it not for the fact that Clancy was writing about death and murder, those are very well-written and detailed sections. He also rescues a girl and hands her to Sandy Toole (the nurse who helped him), thus making it clear to Sandy that in fact John is doing the drug dealer killing that is making the newspapers. When this girl is also killed after being rescued, he suspects that the police is also infiltrated and is more convinced that the drug dealers need to be killed. There is a very detailed section on the interrogation of one of the capture drug dealers using a standard compression and decompression chamber.
He rescues more girls, and in a stand off, kills the drug dealers behind the killings of Pam. By now the police have identified who could be behind this, although they have no evidence against him. In his rescue mission, he fails somewhat because the rescue mission has been leaked, but he kills the brutal Camp Commander and captures a Soviet air officer who was interrogating the prisoners. This is used to transfer the prisoners to a safe location so that they would not be killed.
In the end, Kelly gives up his identify and becomes a full fledged CIA person by faking a boating accident as he is being pursued by the police and the Coast Guard.

Tom Clancy: Patriot Games

This novel was written in 1987, after The Hunt for Red October became a major success. It is supposed to be set before that book, and in here is described the series of events that would turn Jack Ryan into a major character, and get him to enter the CIA. The book is pretty tautly written, and I have read it a number of times.
This time when I was reading it, there are so many passages in this book that are relevant now. The description of terrorism, human rights, how society should fight terrorism without becoming a ruthless instrument itself, all these are very eloquently mentioned in this book. It was worth reading just to get a feel of all this discussions, and the book talks about Irish Republican terrorists, who are not known for mass murders. In the current context, we deal with terrorists who are inspired by the more violent teachings of Islam and do not shirk from mass murder, on a scale not seen before from terrorism.
In addition, there are passages about how to counter international terrorism, with an event where there is cooperation between French, British and American intelligence to hunt down terrorism, and how such international cooperation is necessary. There is also a mention of a French military tribunal secretly convicting some anti-French terrorists whose capture was also a secret, and even though this sounds illegal, it seems necessary. When the French had tried to do an open trial, the terrorists had subverted the trial through illegal means, and hence the tribunal. Sounds somewhat similar with the current plans to have a military tribunal to convict the Al-Qaeda detainees. And this is where we have a clash - the concept of rule of law and justice is deeply ingrained, but it is also realistic that the terrorists do not respect any of these. As the movie 'The Siege' so eloquently put it, you need information to stop a bombing, there is a guy who knows it but is not going to disclose, and as per current law, you cannot force him to do this. I am sure that no one would want to be a decision maker in such a case, what do you do ?
This book is about Jack Ryan, a historian and former marine, also involved with CIA in a small way. He is in London for research, when he sees an attack by terrorists. He jumps in, kills one, wounds another and the third escapes. Jack also gets injured. Turns out he saved the Prince, Princess of Wales and their baby from a kidnapping plot by the ULA (Ulster Liberation Army), an offshoot of the IRA. After some time, the wounded terrorist escapes while being transported.
After being much feted, he returns to the US and back to his regular job; somewhat uneasy about the terrorists coming to the US to get back to him. However, logic says that foreign terrorists have never attacked the US inside the country (thanks to the FBI as well) and their funding will be impacted if they do so.
Well, they do, and Jack's wife and daughter are severely injured, but recover. This pushes Jack over to the CIA for getting back at the terrorists the way he can, and soon makes a name for himself. In another major section of the book, the Prince and Princess want to visit Jack at his home when they are in the US. The terrorists, aided by a local terrorist group, manage to attack the heavily guarded home and kill off most of the defenders and temporarily capture all the inhabitants. However, they manage to get free and are chased by the terrorists over water, eventually reaching a naval base where the terrorists are all captured.
This is a very gripping book, and the section about Jack's unease with regard to society and its interaction with the terrorists is very gripping indeed.

Leon Uris: Exodus

This is a very dated book, in the sense it was released in 1958, and was not Leon's first book. That book was Battle Cry, about the US marines in the Pacific theatre of WW2. Exodus was published in 1958 and was a tremendous best-seller, being translated into 50 languages. I read this book, and soon after read the book 'O Jerusalem' by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, together giving me a very vivid picture of the struggles and tribulations involved in the creation of the state of Israel.
Exodus is the name of a ship used in trying to get a bunch of Jewish refugees to British controlled Palestine, over the quota allowed and with the British refusing to allow the refugees enter. At the end of the second World War, the Jewish population of middle and Eastern Europe had been decimated in the holocaust, and the true horrors of the Final Solution policy of the Nazis had been revealed.
In the early part of the 20th century, Jewish scholars and leaders had started seeing the land of Palestine as their god given destiny, and started movements to this land from the Jewish communities all over Europe and America. By the 30's and 40's, this movement had taken root, and more and more Jews were settling and buying land from the Arabs living there. A number of militant Jewish organizations formed, such as the Hagannah, Irgun, Stern, all with the purpose of getting the Jews to being treated as people with strength, and to aid in the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East.
Exodus is the story of a few principal characters such as Ari Ben Canaan (modeled on Moshe Dayan; who served in the British army during WW2, and after that devising means to get Jews to Palestine by breaking the British quota), Kitty Fremont (an American nurse, she has been recently widowed; she develops an attachment to a German refugee, Karen Clement and eventually to Ari), Bruce Sutherland (a British army officer with a Jewish mother who witnesses the horrors of the concentration camps at the end of the war and eventually becomes an advisor to Ari), Karen Clement (who was a refugee having lost most of her family in the concentration camps, and who eventually is killed right at the end of the book by Arabic invaders), and Dov Landau (another refugee who lost his family to the Nazis, he has become an expert forger (using that to prevent death in the concentration camps; he falls in love with Karen and has a thirst for revenge).

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.

Jeffrey Archer: Not a Penny more, not a Penny less

This was the first Jeffrey Archer that I read, and this was the first one written by him way back in 1974. It was a slow starter, but slowly picked up by word of mouth, and eventually became a big hit. The book was a bit raw, since it was his first book, but was still extremely enjoyable. The book was not terribly thick either, and was thus a good read.
So what was the book all about? It was essentially about the revenge thought up by a cold, calculating mind, that of a Harvard graduate now teaching at Oxford against a swindler. The story starts with the swindle though up by a man who has made his money by high-level cheating; in this case, Harvey Metcalfe, sells a story about an oil stock just about to hit it big. He manages to swindle 4 people out of a considerable portion of their money; Stephen Bradley, a Harvard mathematics graduate now teaching at Oxford; Robin, a physician at Harley Street; Jean-Pierre Lamans, an art dealer; and James Brigsley, a presumably vacant young English lord.
So when Stephen Bradley finds that he is now holding dud oil stock, he wants to get his money back, not exactly revenge, he just wants to get his money back, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. He contacts the other 3 people swindled, and while initially they are unwilling to admit that they lost money, they eventually do so. He forms his own small army to get their money back. Part of the plan is that all the robbed will make their own plans to get the money back, and all of them will play their parts in each plan. The rest of the book is about how each of them make their own plans based on their own areas of knowledge, and start making a fool of Metcalfe. The amusing part is also about how they treat James Brigley as the only person who is presumably not smart enough to make his own plans; but eventually in a twist, due to romancing Metcalfe's daughter, he manages to get money back.
The last twist in the story is contained in the final 2 pages, so it is possible like I did so, where the last 2 pages were stuck together, and it is only when I read a different copy that I realized the final twist.