Cannonball Read 15

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The Long Road to Brighton

There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll

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In 1984, the IRA killed five people and came dangerously close to assassinating then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – and yet this disaster has gone mostly undiscussed in recent years. In this book, Carroll brings together the long chain of events which led up to the bombing, and unravels the complicated investigation that followed. Having been to school in both the United States and India, I like to think that I have gained a wider perspective on world history than I would have otherwise, but there […]

Corona Days

Honor Thy Father by Gay Talese

Hit and Run by Lawrence Block

The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost

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After two-plus years of successfully evading the coronavirus, it finally caught up to me last week. Fortunately, my symptoms were mild (vaccinated and boosted), the only one lingering was fatigue. That and family responsibilities left me little time to write reviews this past week. So I decided to put these three here instead of my monthly dump because they were all worthy of longer reviews, two good, one damn fine. Honor Thy Father **** One of the things that made The Sopranos such an excellent television […]

“Rooting around in the presidential innards”

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

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Listening to Assassination Vacation is like taking a road trip with your strangest friend. Well, Sarah Vowell is on a road trip- and is unabashedly strange- but having her narrate the journey to you is a little cozy, a little crazy, a little creepy- and a LOT of fun. Her morbid fascination with presidential assassins (both would-be and verified) and the zeal for putting friends and relatives into uncomfortable situations is a hoot, and the audio experience feels like gossiping with your own partner-in-crime. She […]

Every moment points toward the aftermath

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Mallard

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If you were asked to name every president who was assassinated, would you remember James Garfield? He was president for only a matter of months, part of a generally undistinguished cohort that served between Grant and McKinley. There is no great legislation that we credit to Garfield, no famous speeches or charismatic wife. On the surface, Garfield was nothing more than a generally decent man, a loving father, a good husband–an ineffectual president, although to be fair he spent a third of his term in office dying of a […]

Jack Reacher in Europe, with an unexpected twist

Personal by Lee Child

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While I won’t claim it’s his best, or even that great, I found this latest (19th) Jack Reacher story an intriguing enough premise, a rapid page-turner (including the ballistics details which others found boring but which I enjoyed), a truly scary bad guy, and an unexpected punch-to-the-gut ending.   Someone has taken a long-distance shot at the French president, but special bullet-proof glass protected him from assassination. The CIA decides, along with Europe’s top intelligence agencies, that this was just a practice run aimed at […]

Pros and Cons of Using Killer Drones

Sting of the Drone by Richard A. Clarke

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A relatively even-handed and close-up look—in fictional form–at the U.S. drone program currently used in the so-called “war on terrorism,” Sting of the Drone provides the reader with an insider’s view of one of the latest and most controversial weapons currently being employed by the Obama administration. Clarke, a 30-year veteran national security advisor to multiple U.S. governments, gives us a fictionalized account of an impending Christmas attack on several U.S.  cities by a combined force of al-Qaeda and drug cartel elements from “that side […]



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