Review: Pacific Interlude by Sloan Wilson

Third and last of Wilson's WW II novels, Lt. Syl Grant is billeted to an Army gasoline tanker that had almost been destroyed by a Japanese plane. After being refitted (more or less) she is sent to refuel assorted airfields, usually acting as a shuttle between the larger tankers and fuel barges tied to the shore connected to tanks on shore. A random spark could send her skyward and the crew is a collection of misfits. Tankers had their own special dangers: "... but the men of a tanker had to live on top of thousands of gallons of gasoline almost all the time for a year or more. The fighter pilots and the marines feared only the enemy, but the tanker men also had to fear themselves and each other … one moment of carelessness or a suicidal impulse could blow them all up. Most people would never understand that, but other sailors treated the crews of gas tankers with sympathy and respect. The poor devils who ran the gas tankers had a right to swagger a little when they went on liberty."  

Wilson again touches on racism as he did in Voyage to Somewhere although this book was written some thirty years later. Another theme is the relationship of men to each other, their wives, and the girls they meet while in port. Whether the wives at home at any understanding of the dangers faced by their husbands during the war is problematic.

I would read Ice Brothers first, then Voyage to Somewhere, and finally this book even though that's not the order in which they were written.

Review: Murder on the Orient Express

Having now seen all three major Murder on the Express movies as well as having read the book, it might be time to discuss the book. I like it better than all three, although of the three movies, the David Suchet version is clearly the best. One thing Suchet insisted on, apparently, in the last few episodes in the wonderful series was to inject a religious underpinning to Poirot’s character. This is clearly evident in the train movie with Suchet as Poirot struggles with the moral dilemma of what constitutes justice with regard to the murder of Rachett. Kenneth Branaugh’s version touches on that as well although no where near as neatly as Suchet, which, although very dark, at least held together. 

None of the religious struggle is in the book. Consisting mostly of conversation, Christie manages to deftly reveal the temperament of each character. Lacking, however, is a sense of place. There is very little description of the surroundings, nor (as railroad buffs have complained) much description of the opulent train cars of the Simplon-Orient Express. While I consider myself a member of the latter group, that didn't bother me much. 

Review: Deep Freeze by John Sandford (Virgil Flowers #10)

OK, so I've now read or listened to all 10 Virgil Flowers novels. Eric Conger is a terrific reader, btw. This one is not as good as some of the others but still a huge cut better than most novels out there in the genre, and I like them better than the Davenport series, too. Flowers is just a much more interesting character.

As I pointed out in the other Flowers book that takes place in Trippton, MN, Sandford has a bizarre concept of what constitutes a small town. The people all act like the population is barely one hundred, but the town's infrastructure is that of a small city. I have lived in all sizes and his description hits a false note each time. No matter. I still like the books.

Interesting that I don't think Flowers's nickname (that fucking Flowers) comes up at all in this one.

Review: Vespers by Ed McBain

Not one of my favorite McBain 87th Precinct stories. Too many threads, I thought. In particular the scenario with the girlfriend of Willis was unnecessary and distracting.

A priest who had recently been pushing parishioners to tithe; a former hooker who killed her pimp in Buenos Aires and is now the girlfriend of Detective Willis who is being chased by some thugs for the killing; and a local Satanist church are the initial focal points in this mishmash. Some of the scenes, especially those of the so-called Satanic church struck me as wildly improbable.

Review: Voyage to Somewhere by Sloan Wilson

Not for the non-nautical afficionado, but if you like ships and realistic sea stories, you will enjoy this book. It's based on Sloan's WW II experiences at sea.

Lt. Barton is assigned to a new small supply ship bound for the New Guinea theater in the South Pacific. They are soon hauling such innocuous cargos as pineapples to Hawaii and then candy bars to assorted islands then "burial supplies" and thousands of crosses to an island called Okinawa.

Wilson nicely conveys the tedium of the war as well as the viciousness of being in a small ship during a typhoon. 

Review: The Big Short by Michael Lewis

The moral of this story is that people will see what they are paid to see and that if they are incentivized not to see the truth, they won't. That was the situation described by Michael Lewis. It was the experts who failed us again. It was one guy with Asperger's Syndrome (which may have given him a huge advantage since the condition does help one to focus intensely) who realized that the banks, in making negatively amortized mortgages, were creating a situation to would inevitably fail. He decided to bet against it, was right, and made billions through the use of the banks own creations: the credit default swap, which is basically an insurance policy that pays off big if a bet goes south.

Goldman Sachs, virtual lone survivor of the meltdown thanks to its friends in government, persuaded AIG to insure billions of the subprime mortgages. That was to their downfall. They never did their homework. Nor did the rating agencies. Nor did the regulators.

"People who create disasters make a lot of money cleaning up the disasters because they are the only ones who know about the disasters." The current system is a very elegant form of theft. Basically, Wall Street could care less about investors and is only interested in getting the maximum number of fees. Alan Greenspan is labeled as the worst Fed chair ever, having kept money way too cheap for too long, and ignoring the whole sub-prime mortgage problem thinking, in good libertarian form, that it was none of his business.

The big question is, have what have we learned from this debacle? I suspect nothing. Especially when I hear big wigs predict future financial meltdowns within 5-10 years. Ultimately, Lewis believes that Wall Street has divorced itself from American society and may have done itself in. Soon, as people learn that brokers are encouraging investment in stocks which their own firms might be betting against, customers will learn of the conflict of interest and their world will come tumbling down. It's not a pretty picture. The hatred of Wall Street and its minions is palpable outside NY and Washington. It elected Trump who has learned nothing, instead subscribing to Wall Street's code of doing nothing unless it benefits itself, and falling for its sycophancy. Whether that will ultimately unhinge him remains to be seen.