Review: Chinawoman's Chance by James Musgrave

Synopsis: Clara Shortridge Foltz faces a patriarchal nemesis in 1884 San Francisco. When a white prostitute is murdered and flayed down to a skeleton, Clara is hired by the Six Companies of Chinatown to defend the sixteen males who are swept-up by the Chinatown Squad. This ragtag and corrupt group of sheriffs works for the mayor, Washington Bartlett. The mayor uses the nation’s anti-Chinese sentiment in his quest to win the race for Governor of California.

Foltz, the first woman admitted to the California Bar, must learn fast to become a detective in order to prove that her client, journalist George Kwong, is not the killer but was set-up by the mayor to take the fall. Along with Ah Toy, her trusted translator and best friend, she is instructed by the head of detectives, Captain Isaiah Lees. Lees becomes enamored with Clara, who is having personal problems with sexual commitment, due to her first marriage with Jeremiah Foltz. He was a Union vet who deserted Clara and their five children for a younger woman.

Captain Lees has personal problems of his own, as he has devoted all his time fighting the corrupt politicians and the Chinatown Squad for twenty years, and has not even made time for female relations. Theirs is a very special kind of romance.

Clara brings a national spotlight to bear on her case, as thousands of women flock to the City by the Bay to support her effort to win against these patriarchal forces. The Chinese are also oppressed, and Clara and Ah Toy become embroiled in a deadly came of cat-and-mouse to trap the real killer and save George Kwong.

~ ~ ~

I received a copy of this as an ARC from the publisher (six years ago and just got around to reading it now). The cover and synopsis, however, are for the first book in the series - the DRC content is for the second, "The Spiritualist Murders".

Unfortunately, this is just not really my style of narrative, plotting or characters. I did not finish this - but did give it a fair go but just found my interest waning in the extreme; possibly had I read the actual first book this may have been a different read for me. In this instance, 19th Century San Francisco and the spiritualist movement are just not my thing.

This may be of interest to other readers, however, please do read the books in order as I believe there is some background setting that is relevant and will assist in the enjoyment of the series.  The third in the series is titled "The Stockton Insane Asylum Murder" for those interested in pursuing this further.

Review: The Enigma of Room 622 by Joel Dicker

Synopsis: "One night in December, a corpse is found in Room 622 of the Hotel Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. A police investigation begins without definite end, and public interest wanes with the passage of time.Years later, the writer Joel Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary ingenue, arrives at that same hotel to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his longtime publisher, and begin his next novel. Little does Joel know that his expertise in the art of the thriller will come in handy when he finds himself investigating the crime. He'll need a Watson, of course: in this case, that would be Scarlett, the beautiful guest and aspiring novelist from the next room, who joins in the search while he tries to solve another puzzle: the plot of his next book.

Meanwhile, in the wake of his father's passing, Macaire Ebezner is set to take over as president of the largest private bank in Switzerland. The succession captivates the news media, and the future looks bright, until it doesn't. The bank's board, including a certain Lev Levovitch-Geneva's very own Jay Gatsby-have other plans, and Macaire's race to the top soon becomes a race against time... A matryoshka doll of a mystery built with the precision of a Swiss watch. Joel Dicker presents a diabolically addictive thriller where a love triangle, a power struggle, shocking betrayals and dangerous envy play out against the backdrop of a not so quiet Switzerland, where the truth twists and turns into something no reader will see coming. A European phenomenon, Dicker's latest page-turner is his most personal novel yet"

~~~

Seriously lost in translation.

Half the time I did not know if I was coming or going - were we in the past, present or future - at times we went back a few years, other times over a decade. There was not real point in time by which to securely anchor the story.

The character of Scarlet just grated on me to the point where I could quite easily have murdered her myself. Sure our author - himself the main character - needed some foil by which to begin his investigation, but this women's constant badgering of Dicker to investigate seemed redundant, especially when the mystery of Room 622 was already on Dicker's radar.  His Watson in this instance was superfluous.

The storyline, whilst promising, was highly convoluted, disjointed and at times I struggled to follow it at all. The narrative alternated between first and third person, Dicker's "story" and the mystery including a rather tiresome and confusing back story.  I felt the whole thing was some hodge-podge charade that at nearly 600 pages, was about 400 pages too long. The whole story within a story was done without any finesse or consideration for the reader.

Sorry to say not a fan of this one.

Review: The Dangerous Kingdom of Love by Neil Blackmore

Synopsis: The kingdom of love is a frightening place. A dangerous place. What kind of fool wants to live there? How have I, Francis Bacon, well-known as the cleverest man in England, been caught in this trap? For years I survived the brutal games of the English court, driven by the whims of the idiot King James I - and finally, I was winning. Forget what my friends Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare say about love. I had that which men truly crave above all else: power.

But now, at the moment of my greatest success, a deadly alliance of my enemies has begun closing in on me. Led by the King's beautiful and poisonous lover Carr, this new alliance threatens to turn our foolish King against me, so that I may rot in the Tower.

I refuse to go down without a fight. I have concocted a brilliant new plan: I will find my own beguiling young man and supplant Carr in the King's bed, and take power for myself. All I need to do is find him, my beautiful and mysterious creature, my perfect chess move.

In the dangerous kingdom of love, those who understand desire win. And I intend to win, at all costs.

"I am the cleverest man in England, and its biggest moron"

Sir Francis Bacon - philosopher and statesman, attorney general, lawyer, lord chancellor, literary patron and humanist. A man who has been celebrated as the father of empiricism and the father of the scientific method; and one who was known - in his own time - as a "pederast" and "ganimed" .  

Our novel opens at the court King James VI & I - the year 1613.  Bacon is our narrator. He is at times, crude, rude, self centered, avaricious, always focusing on how he can further advance himself in the eyes of the king and attain wealth and position. He constantly muses that he is surrounding by enemies, and should they (not him) attain the upper hand, then he would be "... the midwife at the birth of my own execution .."

And Bacon's enemies themselves have the potential power over his advancement - there is Edward Coke - barrister, judge & politician - his long-time nemesis; Robert Carr - the King's current favourite; and the Howard family, headed by Thomas, 1st Earl of Suffolk, a rather well connected peer whose family were not averse to a bit of scheming and plotting and self-aggrandisement.

In order for Bacon to succeed, he must remove the obstacles in his path - first and foremost is the favourite Robert Carr. However, it is not that simple - more of a case of one step forward, two steps back, as Bacon's enemies seem to be just that little bit ahead of him.

Then the grand plan - replace the current favourite with a creature of his own making and whose loyalty will be to Bacon. Again - nothing is as straight forward - the search finally turns up one George Villiers, whereupon Bacon enters that "dangerous kingdom of love". Finally installing his favourite, Bacon finds that his triumph is shortlived. However, "Bacon lives to plot another day".

As our narrator, Bacon speaks directly to the the reader in language that is far from courtly; it is full of wit and satire, self-deprecating humor, crude observations and commentary, gossip and inuendo. It is a bawdy, sexually explicit tale that some will find refreshingly comical with a dash of Pythonesque tongue-in-cheek whilst others may find themselves tut-tutting and being personally offended whilst yet reading ever onward.

The author has taken some liberties with history when crafting this tale - Bacon's wife is conveniently forgotten whilethe court resembles something more akin to the set of a Carry On film (and strangely, I kept picturing King James as "Fat Bastard" from Austin Powers franchise).  Finally, like many other readers, I felt that the ending was a little rushed - but then again, the aim of the tale was documenting Bacon's role as royal pimp not documenting Bacon's life as a whole.

This is a fascinating period in history, full of salacious scandal, and inhouse politicking, so well worth a little side trip of exploration.

Further reading:

- King James' Favourites

- Sir Francis Bacon

Review: The Second Life of Inspector Canessa by Roberto Perrone

Synopsis: Family secrets, terrorist plots and the return of a legendary cop: a ferociously paced noir thriller from one of Italy’s top crime writers, and the second book in Pushkin Press’s collaboration with Walter Presents.

Annibale Canessa didn’t want to go back to his old life. When everything went wrong in 1984, he traded his brutal, exciting career in the Carabinieri for paradise in San Fruttuoso. He started swimming in the bay at dawn and helping his elderly aunt run a small restaurant. His life was calm.

But some shattering news pulls him back in - his estranged brother has been found dead; lying beside him, the body of an ex-terrorist, a man Canessa himself caught. Back in Milan, Canessa must pursue old connections and unsolved crimes, which draw him ever deeper into the underworld he thought he’d left behind…

Loved it!

I am really getting into crime /detective /  thriller / noir fiction set outside of the standard locations of the UK and USA.  And this one by Perrone is no exception to the great books I have been reading.

The synopsis covers it all: retired cop returns to avenge the killing of his estranged brother and work out the link with acts of terrorism from thirty years previous, and hence the back and forth with the timeline.

We are introduced to a number of characters early on, and it is only as we slowly progress, does their relevance to the narrative become apparent (I kept a list to keep track!).  Many of these are not nice folks - and that is the aim of the author, I think, to provide varying shades of good and bad (and some downright evil), with which to demonstrate the blurred lines and vagaries of what is right and what is just.  Even Canessa himself reminds me of "Dirty Harry" - a no-nonsense, ultimately good guy, who believes that if you shake the tree hard enough, the rotten fruit will eventually fall.

As I mentioned, I loved it. For me, it had all the required elements: crime, mystery, history, passion, power, corruption, secrets, revenge, intriguing characters, action, resolution.

Review: Sons of Rome by Gordon Doherty & Simon Turney

Synopsis: Four Emperors. Two Friends. One Destiny.

As twilight descends on the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire is but a shadow of its former self. Decades of usurping emperors, splinter kingdoms and savage wars have left the people beleaguered, the armies weary and the future uncertain. And into this chaos Emperor Diocletian steps, reforming the succession to allow for not one emperor to rule the world, but four.

Meanwhile, two boys share a chance meeting in the great city of Treverorum as Diocletian's dream is announced to the imperial court. Throughout the years that follow, they share heartbreak and glory as that dream sours and the empire endures an era of tyranny and dread. Their lives are inextricably linked, their destinies ever-converging as they rise through Rome's savage stations, to the zenith of empire. For Constantine and Maxentius, the purple robes beckon... 

Wow. What a challenge - two authors - two characters - one book. Did they pull it off - sure did.

This is the story of Emperor Constantine and his rival Emperor Maxentius, Set in the 3rd and 4th Centuries AD, we follow our two main characters as they embark on their rise to power within the cesspit - "... the discoloured underbelly of the Empire with all its sickening ungliness ..." - that was Rome and the Roman Empire at the height of the religious persecutions.

The Roman Empire at this time was one of chaos and anarchy. Civil wars, petty rivalries, invasions from enemies both within and without, and disease were rending the empire so perilously that the Emperor Diocletian tried to bring order by distributing power to a four-ruler tetrarchy that would govern the four quarters of the empire. Simply put, the Tetrarchic Emperors (Diocletian, b, Galerius, and Constantius), were more or less sovereign in their own lands, and they travelled with their own imperial courts, administrators, secretaries, and armies. They were joined by blood and marriage and these relationships implied a line of succession. Galerius and Constantius would become Augusti after the departure of Diocletian and Maximian. Maximian's son Maxentius and Constantius's son Constantine would then become Caesars. In preparation for their future roles, Constantine and Maxentius were taken to Diocletian's court in Nicomedia. (source: Wikipedia). Could this model work - not for very long as each man's personal ambitions came to the fore.

It was also during the reign of Diocletian that the persecutions of Christians became more rampant and decidedly brutal with the result being death, torture, imprisonment, or dislocation for many Christians. This was and is an extremely complex subject with varying degrees of enforcement and tolerance - whereas Galerius and Diocletian were avid persecutors, Constantius (father of Constantine) was unenthusiastic. 

Each author provides the first person narrative for their character, as the stories run smoothly, contemporaneous, enhancing and contributing to the narrative of the other. 

Doherty takes on the character of the colossus - Constantine (below left). A man known to all as the Emperor who sanctioned the legitimised the religion of Christianity and made it the dominant religion of the Western (Roman) Empire. There is a plethora of information on Constantine - suffice to say that the youth of Constantine is presented in a very plausable, well crafted manner.

  

Turney tackles Maxentius (above right), an emperor about whom very little is known, and as such, had the more difficult tasks of constructing a narrative for this elusive monarch. Unlike the more militaristic Constantine, Maxentius is more the politician. He comes across as the more sympathetic of the two - the underdog - that one in instinctively drawn to him more - even more so if one is a student of this particular period. 

This could quite easily have been a fail but in this instance, it isn't. This is very well researched by authors who have an obvious passion (obsession?) for the period and their characters, and this story flows seamlessly.   It is the first in a series, for though whilst we begin at the end - the Battle of Milvian Bridge - we are far from it this outing as the tale continues with Masters of Rome.

For the purist, the last dozen pages are taken up with notes and Latin terms.

Review: The Nuclear Spies by Vince Houghton

Synopsis:  Why did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project's intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi 's plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong?

If you are looking for a work on the more well known "nuclear" spies like Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs or Harry Gold, then you will be a little disappointed for they are not really here.

This tome deals with "scientific intelligence" or more importantly, America's need to know where their rivals stood in the race for atomic weaponry. The main time frame is the 1930s and 1940s, and the period in which the US entered WWII to find the Germans working with nuclear fission and making all sorts of discoveries that would eventually lead to what we know as the Manhattan Project.

So, whilst the US undertook a merry chase across Europe for the fleeing German scientists in their pursuit for atomic knowledge and to put a stop to Hitler detonating an atomic bomb, they gravely underestimated the Soviets own capabilities in doing exactly the same.

Here we find out just why that came about - and one word could quite nicely cover this - assumptions. 

" ... for the first time in history a nation's scientific resources ... became a key consideration in assessing a potential national security threat ..."

The US dealt in assumption, speculation and prediction (or guesswork) rather than cold hard facts; and this assumption of the Soviets would continue for over a decade before the US abandoned its naive belief in stereotypes and brought the search for scientific intelligence under one cohesive banner.

For in this fledgling period of time, the USA's scientific research was being carried out in the academic sector, privately funded.  During World War II, it finally fell under the purview of Lieutenant General Leslie Groves and Houghton covers off Groves' input in painstaking detail.  However, analysis of scientific information was still being conducted on an ad hoc basis, with no single agency as a centralised depository - and even the analysis of the information was speculative at best and determined by stereotyping, and information to the contrary was considered disinformation.

The US believed that the race to stop Hilter from detonating an atomic bomb was a priority based upon their belief that - at the time - German scientists were pre-eminent in the field of science - no-one else could compare with their facilities, discoveries, personnel.  In the face of advancing armies, these scientists scattered, and the US focused their efforts on capturing both them and their research - the OSS was sent out in 1943 - to France, Germany, Italy - the Alsos Missions.  It was only when the US realised that German efforts to build an atomic bomb had actually stalled that the shift moved towards preventing the Soviets from getting this information - and the scientists! 

Post WWII, there was a decline in collection and collation of scientific intelligence as the researchers and scientists, being poorly treated by the US government, drifted back to academia, and hostility grew between the scientific community and US government.  In the years immediately after the war, ".. effective atomic intelligence was prevented by the inability to create a unified, coherent policy ..." and the US found itself relying on the experiences of others to predict the Soviet's completions of their atomic weaponry and were thus literally caught with their pants down!  Even after the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb, the US refused to believe it as they considered the Soviets to be a backward nation - an alarming attitude that would prevail over the next decade.

Very well researched with lots of history on the fledgling US intelligence network and the atomic weapons program.

Review: AllmenSeries by Martin Suter

Allmen, an elegant bon vivant and fine spirit, has come into financial difficulties over the years. Five magical Art Nouveau bowls put him and his factotum Carlos on a business idea: a company for the recovery of beautiful things. The birth of an unusual investigator duo and the launch of a wonderful crime series.

Allmen and the Dragonflies 

International heist mystery that is slow to start and a little confusing with regards to timeline.  The present and the past are blurred into one for the first two parts of the story before the story kicked off when we arrive back in the present.  The addition of noticeable paragraphs to signify the end of a story sequence would have worked well.

Johann Friedrich van Allmen is the antihero, who finances his lifestyle through thefts and insurance frauds, using theft as a means also to pay off his creditors.  After a night on the town with a mysterious and ethereal woman results in an opportunity too good to pass up - the theft of a Galle bowl featuring a dragonfly.  Allmen becomes perplexed when the hue and cry is not raised, and so decides to relieve the owner of even more of the collection.   With the introduction of an school chum, Terry Werensbusch, Allmen decides that there is more than meets the eye and has his manservant, Carlos, dig a little deeper.   Its is only when Allmen seems to come out on top do things actually come crashing down and all that he has helped himself to is taken away.  

The mysterious manservant Carlos is a refreshing character; and  the setting of Switzerland makes a nice change of scenery.  A decent enough storyline sets the tone for the series, and Allmen and Carlos decide that there is money to be made (and lots of it), in the recovery of lost items.

Like all good crime fiction, this story is based upon real events. In October 27, 2004 in Gingins, Switzerland, glass artworks by Emile Galle were stolen from the Neumann Foundation. A reward 400,000 Swiss Franc was offered.

Allmen and the Pink Diamond 
Set two years after "dragonflies", Allmen and Carlos are now running "Allmen International Inquiries" - a business that recovers various things for reward.

Allmen is hired to find a missing "pink diamond" and thus begins an unusual game of cat and mouse with various interested parties on the trail of a missing Russian IT expert. One wonders what a mysterious Russian has to do with a missing pink diamond, and just who else is on the trail and familiar faces keep re-appearing. 

Always, just when things seem to be over they actually pick up again; and just when Allmen seems to be on the up and up, things come crashing down around him.

This second outing is a much more stream-lined story (editing & layout issues from book one attended to), and the development of the main characters - Allmen and Carlos - is nicely fleshed out.  Carlos is by far the most interesting character with still an air of mystery surrounding him.

Another enjoyable read - looking forward to the next three in this series:

• Allmen and the Dahlias
• Allmen and the Disappearance of Maria (using google translate here)
• Allmen and the Erotic (again using google translate here)

Review: The Falcon Confession by John V. Norris

What he saw shocked him to the core. Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex, the Subregulus of England, the commander of the royal army, and the man who rescued Aidan from certain death, shook like a Devil-possessed child. His chest raised and lowered in disjointed breathes and his blue eyes searched everywhere and nowhere at once.

If you are reading or have read this book it is due to the fact you have an interest in the history leading up to and including the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Events here are taking place in the years before - Harold is not yet King but a powerful earl, the Normans are still on the other side of the Channel, plotting and planning.

So simply, the story of the invasion is told in alternating narrative: Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother to Duke William, and who comes across as truly odious; Aidan, a novice at Bosham (co-incidently the principal residence of Harold); Edith Swanneck, Harold's hand-fast wife and mother of a number of his offspring; and lastly, that of Harold himself, a man tormented, whose narrative is in the form of recollection or confession, as is dictated to Aidan in the presence of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester.

And it is this shocking confession that is at the heart of the story - the Falcon Confession - what secret is slowly being revealed by Harold and what ruin will it bring. It is for Aidan and Edith to protect and at costs, not allow it to fall into the clutches of Bishop Odo..

The various alternating narratives given an overall picture of what was happening in both Normandy and England at the times from both the Norman and Anglo-Saxon perspectives. One character that was notable due to his absence was King Edward the Confessor - a man surely at the heart of the succession crisis that lead to the Conquest.

It is a complex and fascinating period of history, and this fictional tome will add another dimension.

Papal Protection and the Crusader: Flanders, Champagne, and the Kingdom of France. 1095-1222 by Danielle Park

Synopsis:

On taking the cross, crusaders received a diverse set of privileges designed to appeal to both spiritual and more temporal concerns. Among these was the papal protection granted to them and extended over their families and possessions at home.

This book is the first full length investigation of this protection. It begins by examining the privilege from its inception in around 1095, and its development and consolidation through to 1222. It then moves on to illustrate how this privilege operated in practice through the appointments of regency governments and close communication with both the papacy and local ecclesiastical officials, centring on the rich crusading evidence from Flanders, Champagne and the Kingdom of France. While the protection privilege has been seen as unwieldy and over ambitious, close analysis of particular cases and individuals reveals that not only were regents well aware of their privileged status, but that the papacy could directly intervene when its protection was contravened. 

Review by Brian Ditcham for De Re Militari:

On the whole, though, Park argues that the crusade regents did an effective job in upholding the rights of the absentee rulers and that this was recognised when the boss returned- for instance very few of their deeds required re-authentification. The job was eased by what look like conscious attempts to clear the books of outstanding issues before the would-be crusader departed. Park also hints that the constraints of crusade regencies may have been a stimulus for developments in bureaucratic governance.

She has undoubtedly identified an important part of what one might define as the backstage mechanics underlying heroic or ghastly deeds in the Holy Land. Hopefully she may in future widen her focus to consider the fate of those unable to call on the services of Ivanhoe to protect their rights.

Analyzing book reading behavior on Goodreads to predict Amazon Bestsellers

From TechXplore:

Researchers at Northwestern University, Microsoft Research India, and the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur have recently developed a model to predict whether a book will become a bestseller on Amazon within 15 days of its publication. Their model, outlined in a study pre-published on arXiv, works by analyzing reading behavior on the online platform Goodreads.

"We have been working on analyzing the popularity dynamics of various social media entities, such as hashtags in Twitter, topics in Quora etc." Animesh Mukherjee, one of the researchers who carried out the study told TechXplore. "We felt that a similar approach could be taken to analyze the popularity of books and we found Goodreads to be ideal for this investigation."

A book's popularity depends on a multitude of factors and can be measured using several parameters. In their study, the researchers focused on how book reading characteristics influence its popularity. They performed a cross-platform analysis of Goodreads entities and tried to link these with the volume of sales for books on Amazon.

Their model achieved a very promising average accuracy of 88.72 percent in predicting books that would become Amazon bestsellers a few weeks after their publication. Their method, which was based on features derived from user posts and genre-related properties, attained an improvement of 16.4 percent compared to baseline methods that only use traditional popularity factors, such as book ratings or reviews.

Ranjeeta Dutta reviews Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji by Manu S. Pillai

From The Hindu:

A history of the Deccan introduces us to a cosmopolitan world with fluid identities, cross-cultural interactions and political strategies

As a teacher of history, one is often confronted with students asking why the curriculum based on rigorous research has always remained confined to the precincts of university classrooms. Manu Pillai’s Rebel Sultans provides the much-needed bridge between the isolated world of academia and wider public audience. The book tells us a story of the fascinating world of Deccan, full of splendour, exciting political intrigues, glorious rulers, magnificent cities and fabulous treasures.

read more here @ The Hindu

Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Review by Dan Jones for The Sunday Times:

Minutes before his head was struck off with an axe, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s disgraced former minister, made a speech. “I have been a great traveller in this world,” he said, “and being but of a base degree, was called to high estate and [since] the time I came thereunto, I have offended my prince.” He asked God for mercy, made some disingenuous remarks about the king’s grace, then went calmly to his death. Accounts vary as to the efficiency of the headsman, but as Diarmaid MacCulloch writes with the dry wit that characterises this triumphant and definitive biography, “even botched beheadings are soon over”.

For a time, the self-made 'ruffian' (as he described himself) - ruthless, adept in the exercise of power, quietly determined in religious revolution - was master of events. MacCulloch's biography for the first time reveals his true place in the making of modern England and Ireland, for good and ill.

read more @ Penguin Books and @ Publishers Weekly

MI5 and Me by Charlotte Bingham

Review by Lucy Hughes-Hallett in The Guardian:

In "MI5 & Me" veteran fiction author, Bingham has written the prequel of her bestseller "Coronet Among the Weeds", and we discover how much – as an ostensibly guileless girlish narrator – she was actually holding back.

Cold war British counter-espionage was often cruel. Lottie’s friend Arabella explains, over a teacake in the canteen, that the service’s purpose is to make socialists’ lives “unmitigated hell. But in a very nice way, of course, because that is what we British do.” 

This book is frivolous, but in refusing to take spooks seriously it may be as sensible as it is amusing. “You’re in danger of becoming a lightweight,” Lottie’s father tells her. Perhaps it’s cleverer to be light than it is to be ponderously paranoid. Some of what he himself does is in danger of becoming not only morally reprehensible, but plain daft.

read more here @ Sydney Morning Herald and @ The Telegraph

Showdown in the Levant by Nicholas Morton

Wall Street Journal - Reviews:

Oxford Professor and Author Christopher Tyerman reviews ‘The Field of Blood’ by Nicholas Morton

Nine hundred years ago, on June 28, 1119, near the northwestern Syrian town of Sarmada, an army led by European settlers was annihilated by a superior force of Turks led by Ilghazi, ruler of Aleppo. The scale of the massacre gave the battle its name in Frankish memory; the ager sanguinis, the Field of Blood.

Yet according to Nicholas Morton’s book “The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East,” the clash may claim a double significance, at least in historical memory.

See also review @ The National