Historical Fiction

DOGSTAR RISING by Parker Bilal

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(Temple of Queen Hapshepsut, Luxor, Egypt)

Periodically we read in a newspaper or hear broadcast news accounts of attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt.  The latest and every bit as horrific as others during recent years was in October, 2013 as Egyptian gunmen opened fire on a Coptic Christian wedding in Cairo.  “Three people, including a girl aged eight, died when gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on the wedding party outside a Coptic Christian church in Cairo.” (BBC News 21 October, 2013)  Some Islamists groups have been targeting Coptic Christians who accuse them of supporting the army’s overthrow of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi last July.  Human Rights Watch reports that attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt have been on the rise and Egyptian authorities have done little to investigate the attacks or take actions to prevent them.  Another aspect of the problem is the kidnapping of Coptic Christian women and forcing them to convert to Islam, and then releasing them.  The issue is that Islamic conversion is irreversible, even under threatening conditions, and if one tries to reverse the marriage, the punishment is death.  “One priest in Cairo estimates that at least 21 young girls, many as young as 14, have disappeared from his parish alone.” (THE AUSTRALIAN May 21, 2011)  This atmosphere becomes part of the background for Parker Bilal’s novel DOGSTAR RISING.  The story is extremely timely as he begins the narrative with the murder and mutilation of Moslem children in Cairo.  The event takes place in 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks and involves threats against employees of the Blue Ibis Tours company for supporting and aiding western pollution of Islam.  Makana, Bilal’s central character, a former Sudanese policeman who is a detective in Cairo is hired by the head of the tourist agency to investigate.  From this point on the novel twists and turns around the murder of the children and its possible link to a pedophile who is involved in smuggling linked to military officials, and attempts by journalists to expose the creation of an Islamic bank, the Eastern Star Bank that was set up to launder money for illegal activities.

The plot rests on a series of attacks on Moslem boys, journalists, and anyone who might be an impediment to the corruption that poisons Egyptian life.  By making the murders appear as if Coptic Christians are performing ritual murder, the television “Islamic evangelist,” Sheikh Mohammed Waheed publicizes this conspiracy theory to further the radical cause to make Egypt another Iran. The story highlights the dichotomy that is Egypt.  As Sami Barakat, a journalist points out, “You know what our problem is?  We can’t decide what we want.  Do we want West or East, Islam or the joys of secularism?  We think we can have it all.” (201)

Bilal has constructed a many layered novel involving fears of ritual murder, the plight of Coptic Christians, government corruption, Islamic extremism, and the hopes by some to recapture and make amends for their past.  The characters are numerous and well conceived.  Some return from Bilal’s previous novel, THE GOLDEN SCALES, but he introduces many new ones i.e.; a murdering pedophile, a Coptic priest, assorted Egyptian mobsters, corrupt police officials, a radical Imam, and every day Egyptians who have to bear the weight of the poverty that is their existence.  Throughout the novel, Bilal makes numerous references to Egyptian history and tries to place contemporary Egypt in that context.  His discussion of radical philosophers is accurate as his use of certain historical events to assist in the flow of the narrative.

The story itself is extremely complex and Bilal’s literary style makes it easier for the reader to keep up with the constant changes that seem to take place on every other page.  The ending is somewhat of a surprise and it will easily lead to another sequel as Makana’s search for his daughter, who he thought was dead, remains unresolved.  I enjoyed both Makana mysteries and I look forward to the publication of the third installment, THE GHOST RUNNER.

THE GOLDEN SCALES by Parker Bilal

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fo01 (The slums of Cairo…at a minimum 25% of Cairo’s citizens live beneath the poverty line)

Most Middle East specialists would agree that Egypt is a key component if Middle East peace is ever too achieved.  Therefore, any insight into that country is well worth pursuing even if it is in a mystery format.   Jamal Mahjoub, writing under the pseudonym Parker Bilal is just the writer to bring insights from that perspective.  Having been brought up in Khartoum, Sudan and lived in Cairo his feel for the people and culture of the region is something he draws upon in his first Makana mystery, entitled THE GOLDEN SCALES.  The story begins in 1981 before the assassination of Anwar Sadat by the Muslim Brotherhood and then jumps to 1998.  The narrative takes place during the increasingly autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak that is dominated by the Egyptian intelligence and military communities who reign supreme in everyday Egyptian society.  It is a time when the “Arab Spring” is a reformist fantasy and repression and poverty are the order of the day.  (Tahir Square, during the Arab Spring, 2011)

At the outset, Bilal offers an insider’s look into a missing person’s situation and a murder investigation.  He has the reader witness the underside of Cairo’s economic and social structure as we confront Egyptian gangsterism and corporate crime as the 20th century begins to draw to a close.  Employing a former police inspector, named Makana, who has his own demons that relate to his experiences in Sudan where his wife and daughter were killed, we meet a driven man who believes that no matter the consequences for himself, the law must be up held for society to function properly. Once Makana begins to oppose the Islamic fundamentalism that emerges in Sudan he is forced to immigrate to Egypt.  Bilal lives on a rickety wooden house boat on the Nile and from that base he launches a series of investigations that rub the gangster, intelligence, and corporate worlds of Cairo in the wrong way.  The background history Bilal presents is very accurate as he creates a number of characters that interact with Makana to tell his story.  Bilal puts together a plot that reflects the political and economic upheaval under the repressive regime of Hosni Muburak that Egypt still has not overcome to this day. Bilal creates an eclectic group of characters for Makana to work with and sometimes cope.  The story revolves around the disappearance of a four year old child in 1981 and the murder of her mother seventeen years later; the disappearance of Aldi Romario, a national soccer favorite; the machination of Saad Hanabi, a former gangster and now one of the richest men in Egypt; Sami Barakat, an unemployed journalist; Vronsky, the former Russian soldier and intelligence agent; Soraya Hanafi, the heiress to the family fortune; Daud Bulati, a former partner of the Hanafi’s who becomes an Islamic revolutionary;  and Okasha, a police inspector in Cairo.  There are a number of other important individuals who appear but machinations among those named form the core of the narrative. Makana is hired by Saad Hanafi to locate his star player, Aldi Romario who has gone missing from the soccer team which he owns.  Makana’s investigation has numerous twists and turns as he theorizes how the disappearance of the child, the murder of her mother, and the disappearance of Adil are all related.  In developing the story, Bilal periodically alternates chapters stepping back from the criminal investigation to events in the Sudan seven years before.  We learn about Makana and the plight of his family in the context of the Sudanese civil war caused by the rise of Islamic extremism. Throughout the novel the reader is exposed to what the citizens of Cairo must deal with on a daily basis, as Makana remarks early on that in Cairo, “life was lived on the streets.”  The teeming masses, the never ending poverty, the lack of civil rights are all part of the burden that most Egyptians share.  The novel will incorporate the Egyptian intelligence branch, the SSI; Sudanese “supposed” law enforcement officers, jihad, the breakdown of the Egyptian welfare network, and the violence that is Cairo.  For a murder mystery the book contains exceptional prose as Bilal has written a number of other novels before embarking on his Makana series.  The plot line has tremendous depth and I challenge any reader to try and figure how the novel concludes.  This book was recommended to me by a friend, to whom I am grateful as I have already begun to read the second installment of the Makana series, DOGSTAR RISING.

THE LINCOLN MYTH by Steve Berry

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In 2009 Governor Rick Perry of Texas told a Tea Party Rally that “We’ve got a great union.  There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it.  But if Washington continues to thumb its nose at the American people, you know who knows what might come out of that.  But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re pretty independent lot to boot….When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation….and one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want.  So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”  The remarks created a furor that Perry was suggesting that Texas had the right to secede from the United States.  Perhaps Steve Berry thought about Perry’s comments when he was developing his new novel, THE LINCOLN MYTH, as the main theme of the book surrounds the concept of secession and whether the Founding Fathers may have supported the idea that the union of the United States was not a perpetual one.  Employing Cotton Malone, a former Justice Department intelligence operative as his main character as he has done in his previous books the scenario runs something like this; Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormon church in 1854 predicted that the Civil War would occur and that would end the persecution of Mormonism.  Berry calls this the “White Horse Prophecy” and Young struck a deal with Abraham Lincoln that allowed the north to defeat the confederacy.  To show their seriousness Young and Lincoln traded important information.  Young informed Lincoln where Mormon gold was stored, and Lincoln provided a document, signed by the Founding Fathers, that said individual states possessed the right to leave the union.  A Utah Senator who was next in line to become the prophet of the Mormon Church along with a few other plotters to foster Utah’s secession from the union as a precursor to the creation of Deseret, the new Mormon nation.  Once Utah would secede other states would follow once the Lincoln document was made public and the Supreme Court overturned the 1869 Texas v. White decision that ruled unilateral secession by any state unconstitutional.  According to Harvey Tucker, a professor in the political science department at Texas A&M University, “among scholars, the consensus is that the Civil War settled all these issues, and Texas does not have the right to secede.”

(Brigham Young, 19th century Mormon Leader)

Whether the issue of secession has been put to bed or not, Berry has created an interesting yarn that has some basis in history, but as is the case in the author’s Cotton Malone series he takes historical license and creates many primary documents to further his narrative.  In terms of legitimate history Berry does make the case that Mormonism played a much larger role in American history than many have given it credit for.  The argument put forth is whether the Founding Fathers created a perpetual union at the constitutional convention that precluded any state from seceding once it ratified the constitution.  Scholars argue that the constitution was a contract that could not be broken.  The information presented dealing with Lincoln’s ideas are somewhat cherry picked by Berry, but he is totally accurate when he presents the Great Emancipator as a president who fought the war to maintain the union, and freeing the slaves was not the most important thing on his agenda.  According to Utah Senator Thaddeus Rowan, “Lincoln fought the Civil War not to preserve an indivisible union.  Instead he fought that war top create one, conning the nation that the union was somehow perpetual.”  Rowan argues accurately that the Declaration of Independence was an act of secession that violated British law and the Constitution was an act of secession from the Articles of Confederation.  For Rowan it is clear that Lincoln violated his executive power by conduct during the Civil War.  Historians have debated whether Lincoln overstepped the bounds of executive power during the struggle between the states and in some areas he did.  But Berry takes it a step further through Thaddeus Rowan’s character who argues that what Lincoln had done was taken away the “natural and inalienable rights” of all Americans, and he intended to restore them.

The novel itself is very suspenseful, but at times predictable.  The documents that Berry creates are somewhat believable and are employed to support the “Utah type coup” that is the core of the novel.  Berry brings back characters from previous novels such as Cassiopeia Vitt, the historical preservationist, and now a love interest of Cotton Malone, and Stephanie Nelle, Malone’s old boss at the Magellan Billet, a Justice Department Task Force.   In addition to Rowan we have Josepe Salazar, a Spanish elder in the Mormon Church who in line to be the prophet and leader of Mormonism.  Whether you accept that Lincoln believed a constitutional contract among the states was irreversible, or you support the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who believed the opposite is not the issue for Berry.  He has created an interesting plot line that has overtones in today’s political world of partisanship which seem to be on steroids.  To assist the reader in ascertaining the true historical record, Berry includes a ten page chapter at the conclusion of the book identifying what areas are historically accurate and what aspects of the book he created on his own.  If you enjoyed Berry’s previous “Cotton Malone” novels, I would suspect that you would enjoy THE LINCOLN MYTH.  But keep in mind, what Berry alludes to as his plot line, currently is circulating in certain political circles.

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr

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(Saint-Malo, Brittany, France where much of the novel takes place)

Among the many wonderful things that a fine novelist can achieve is to create characters whose traits and thoughts embody people like Marie-Laurie Leblanc, the heroine in Anthony Doerr’s new novel, ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE.  The story involves an intricate plot surrounding Marie-Laurie, a blind girl who by 1940 is thrust into the whirlwind of World War II.  Her father is a locksmith at the Museum of Natural History in Paris and as the war unfolds he is given possession of the “sea of flames” diamond, a gem attached to the myth that the person who possesses it cannot die, but also those in close contact with the owner of the gem may suffer greatly, which is sought by a Nazi gemologist, Reinhold von Rumpel.  The story that Doerr’s weaves is much more than a search for the missing gem.  It is a tale that follows the relationship between Marie-Laure, who loses her sight at the age of six and her father.  Their relationship is a tender one as he keeps his daughters spirits high by creating wooden “puzzle boxes” that she must figure out in order to obtain the gift inside.  Further, to assist his daughter, the locksmith creates a small wooden replica of her Parisian neighborhood so she can employ her other senses to gain some autonomy.  Doerr organizes his novel by taking the reader back and forth in time as the war progresses and he alternates chapters depending on which major character he is presenting.  The story revolves around Marie-Laurie and her travails, but other individuals emerge that are central to the book’s theme.  Werner Pfenning, a fourteen year old orphan who is an electronics whiz finds himself in an elite Nazi school and then is attached to the German army to try and locate “partisan” communications throughout Europe.  Another strand revolves around Marie-Laurie’s great uncle, Etienne, a man who seems to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome because of his experiences in World War I.  Once Marie-Laurie’s father is seized by the Nazis, she lives with her Uncle Etienne in Saint Malo, a small village in Brittany that is controlled by the Germans.

Doerr weaves a fascinating story as he intertwines the lives of his characters.  Werner, the electronics expert hears transmissions with his sister Jutta while living in an orphanage, Etienne is the source of the transmissions, and later the two will come across each other as Etienne transmits for the French resistance during the war, while Werner seeks to find him.  The fluidity and care that Doerr crafts each sentence enhances the readers’ experience as the story unfolds through constant time changes.  Each character has its own development.  Through Werner’s experience Doerr takes us on a journey were a young man has his sense of decency tested by the school commander’s destruction of his friend Frederick, and then he must survive as a boy among men in the German army as he witnesses the hunt for and death of partisans who fight against the Nazis.  Uncle Etienne suffers from extreme PTSD symptoms dating back to World War I where he survived and his brother did not.  He locks himself away in his room repeatedly and hears voices.  Finally with the death of his housekeeper and the Nazi seizure of Marie-Laurie’s father he is presented with two life altering opportunities.  First, he must care for his niece.  Second, he employs his radio transmitter as “the nexus of a web of information” by transmitting codes to partisans to prepare attacks against the Nazis.  As Doerr describes Etienne; “when he’s opening the tiny scroll in his fingers, (containing the necessary codes) lowering his mouth to the microphone, he feels unshakeable; he feels alive.” (331)  Etienne is seen by others as having mental problems, but as R.D. Liang and Thomas Szaz have hypothesized, people who supposedly suffer from mental illness are really using it as a mechanism to cope with an insane world, which World War I and II certainly are.

There are a number of strands that Doerr seamlessly weaves together.  Marie-Laurie who unbeknownst to her is in possession the of “sea of flames” diamond hidden in one of her father’s miniature houses. Werner who seeks a decent world that does not exist.  Etienne who discovers a purpose for his existence, and finally, von Rumple who searches for the gem that will save his life.  All of these characters come together in Saint-Malo, a village under German occupation that slowly becomes like the model that Marie-Laurie’s father has created, as Doerr describes Marie-Laurie’s fears as the “streets [are] sucked empty one by one.  Each time she steps outside, she becomes aware of all the windows above her.  The quiet is fretful, unnatural.  It’s what a mouse must feel, she thinks, as it steps from its hole into the open blades of a meadow, never knowing what shadow might be cruising above.” (274)

The German occupation, allied bombing, day to day starvation and murder are all apparent as the savagery of war is presented through the lives of Doerr’s characters that are haunted by what they experience.  It is a master craftsman that Doerr certainly is as a writer as he juxtaposes the book; TWENTY LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Jules Verne, that Marie-Laurie’s father gave her in Braille as a child with his own story.  The narrative that Verne created is intertwined with the novel and its use by the author in providing another prism of understanding of the events and emotions that are on display throughout the narrative is remarkable.

Of all the characters in the book I find Etienne one of the most important, if not interesting, as he carries around the baggage of World War I’s devastation each day and is able to finally leave his home at 4 Rue Vauborel after twenty-four years of self-exile to care for his niece and at the same time deal with the demons that have haunted him.  Throughout the book the theme of “what the war did to dreamers” dominates. (506)  the reader will feel it on every page as each character tries to overcome the obstacles they are confronted with.  The book concludes with a few chapters bringing the story to the present and trying to bring cloture for the lives the reader has spent hours with.  What Doerr has done is create a gift that all who indulge it will certainly reap many rewards.

THE SIEGE by Helen Dunmore

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(Map of Leningrad, today called St. Petersburg)

On June 22, 1941 Adolf Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union.  The Germans surprised the Russians who suffered enormous casualties and retreated into the interior.  The Russians had been warned by the British of Nazi intentions, but Joseph Stalin ignored the British, reasoning that London wanted to create another front in its war against Germany.  Stalin did expect Hitler to break the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August, 1939 but he believed he had more time to prepare.  Stalin was in such shock as German troops marched through Russia that he disappeared for ten days, probably fearing that why would the Russian people support a murdering dictator, but the reality was that Stalin, was their murdering dictator and Hitler was not!  The support for Stalin and the “Russian Motherland” emerges in Helen Dunmore’s novel, THE SIEGE which takes place during the siege of Leningrad that lasted from September 1941 to 1944.  As New York Times reporter, Harrison Salisbury labeled the events in Leningrad, “The 900 Days,” the title of his book about the city that suffered the death of over 650,000 people.  Dunmore’s novel provides insight into the lives of every day Russians as they struggled through starvation, fear of German artillery shells and bombs, the lack of any bureaucratic relief by city officials, and the constant paranoia that they could not trust their own government.  The reader is presented with a number of characters; the family of Anna, her younger brother Kolya who she raises after her mother died in child birth, and her father Mikhail, a writer and poet who has been rejected by the Soviet Writers Union because he has not adapted to the tenets of socialist realism, and Marina, an aging actress who comes to live with them.  We are also exposed to Andrei; a young doctor who reports the horrors of the siege from Leningrad’s remaining hospitals, and other characters like Dimitri Pavlov, who is sent from Moscow to address the city’s food shortages.  Pavlov realizes that Leningrad, a city mostly of islands, similar to Stockholm, is now a “stone island,” and “has got to depend upon its own resources” to survive. (198)  what are those negligible resources?  A government ukase suggests the nutritional value of wallpaper paste that once boiled can provide sustenance for those who are starving.

(Images of Leningrad during the siege by Nazi Germany)

The story is set when Mikhail’s wife Vera dies in childbirth, thrusting motherhood on her daughter Anna before the German invasion.  The paranoia of Stalin’s Russia before the arrival of the Germans is readily apparent from the outset of the book.  Anna, a nursery school teacher assistant, fears raising her voice at work as Kolya is play acting the Russian Civil War between the White and Red soldiers because she might be heard by her boss who she fears will denounce her.  The Great Terror of the 1930s is in the air as it seems everyone is afraid that someone will denounce them to the authorities.  Stalin has warned his people that “wreckers, traitors, enemies, and saboteurs….had infiltrated the Party itself, and were among the elite, masking themselves as irreproachable Party activists and committee members.  But how could you ever prove it wasn’t a mask, Anna wonders.  Only by ripping off your own flesh…” (21)

Dunmore provides a description of how Leningraders attempted to deal with the German advance through Anna’s eyes as she works on digging trenches and tank traps.  The bombing of food warehouses and Leningrad’s geographical isolation make any defensive preparations useless in dealing with the siege.   Leningrad’s citizens are urbanites who only know how to forage for food by queuing up at food centers, not by using what the earth provides.  One might ask why Leningraders were able to survive as well as they did, probably because they had experience of starvation in the 1930s when Stalin’s collectivization policies created the lack of food.  In a way Stalinist agricultural policies might be considered somewhat normal in the minds of Soviet citizens. The queuing before the war for food and goods created a mentality that was put to good use during the siege and created the false hope that food would soon be available.  Leningrad’s main problem was its “impossible arithmetic” for a city with 3.5 million people with little food resources other than wallpaper paste and boiling leather to obtain fluid to make soup.  Leningrad is a city of “a million flailing hands” as people constantly reach for food. (146)

(Russian prisoners of war taken by the Germans during the summer of 1941)

To best understand Leningrad’s plight I would recommend that the reader place a map of Leningrad in front of them to understand how difficult it was to supply the city.  Lake Ladoga to the east was useful once it froze during the winter months, but the Germans made it very hazardous for any truck convoys as they continued to bomb the ice.  The result is the grim process of the black market that Anna has to deal with to obtain anything.  People become animals as they try to survive.  In a way the best means of survival is sleep because it provides an escape from hunger. As Anna points out “you should never wake anyone once they’ve gotten away, deep into their dreams, where there is food.” (189)

The relationship between Anna and Andrei is a tender one that is developed nicely by the author.  Considering the conditions one would think that love would have difficulty flourishing, but in this instance Anna and Andrei’s needs are such that their relationship becomes a life line for survival.  Having survived the winter of 1941-1942, Leningraders were greeted by spring and improved food rations and supplies.  Dunmore describes the scenes of people planting vegetables in city parks and the optimism that those who were still alive would survive the German siege.  Dunmore leaves the reader in the spring of 1942, but for the remaining population of Leningrad the war would continue for two more years.  If you find the time to read THE SIEGE, Dunmore’s sequel THE BETRAYAL will not disappoint.  If you are interested in the history of the siege of Leningrad I would recommend Michael Jones’ LENINGRAD: STATE OF SIEGE.

THE BETRAYAL by Helen Dunmore

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(The notorious Lubyanka prison in Moscow)

Helen Dunmore’s THE BETRAYAL brings to mind the works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn as she tells the story of a physician and nursery school teacher who get caught up in the Stalinist paranoia that existed in the Soviet Union following World War II until Stalin’s death in March, 1953.  The chronological parameters of the book are the Nazi siege of Leningrad during the war culminating in the Doctor’s Plot where Stalin and his henchman dreamed up a conspiracy of Jewish physicians who were bent on killing the Soviet leadership as these supposed Zionists worked with the CIA to destroy the Soviet leadership.  Thankfully Stalin died in the midst of this fantasy and many historians believe his death avoided a second Holocaust for the Jewish people.  The novel concentrates in the year 1952 with flashbacks to the World War II siege.  Immediately, Dunmore provides insight into the plight of the average Russian citizen following the war.  There are references to the lack of husbands reflecting the massive death toll of Soviet soldiers during the war.  Communal apartments reflect the lack of housing after the war due to the destruction from Nazi bombing.  The paranoia of the Stalinist state is rampant as anyone can be destroyed and no one is irreplaceable as “anyone can go out of favor in the blink of an eye.” (11) When Kolya, a sixteen year old boy eats his food he wraps his arms around the bowl, exhibiting the fear that someone will steal his supper as occurred during the siege.  Repeatedly as the story is developed characters express the fear that if one of them is arrested, the rest of the family is in danger as occurred during the “Great Purge” of the 1930s.

(Joseph Stalin)

In living our lives we believe in certain assurances; the sun will rise and set at the prescribed hour, we will not grow hungry; we will have shelter and be able to rest when needed.  What life does not prepare us for is to live in a state of suspended animation were by we lose all control of our freedoms.  In post-war Russia life is a riddle that the accused cannot solve.  Innocent people become prisoners of this riddle like Andrei, a physician, and his wife Anna, a nursery school teacher.  The riddle is played out as Andrei is manipulated into taking on a patient named Gorya, the son of a MGB officer named Volkov who is high up in the state security apparatus.  Gorya, a ten year old boy suffers from cancer and after his leg is amputated the cancer spreads and his father needs a scapegoat, a Jewish doctor.  Unaware of the coming Stalinist persecution of Jewish doctors Andrei, who is not Jewish gets swept up in the Soviet prison system, but first he has to untangle the riddle, a phone call he receives early in the morning from his hospital’s medical personnel, “I am to inform you that, with immediate effect, you are suspended from your duties, pending investigation of serious irregularities.  You are to hold yourself available for investigatory interview without notice.  You are not permitted to enter hospital precincts during the period of investigation.” (195)  Andrei’s journey through the Stalinist legal system begins with that phone call and will culminate in his imprisonment in the Soviet Gulag.  Along the way the reader becomes a member of Andrei’s family and a witness to Andrei’s imprisonment, interrogation, and beatings. The fears of his wife Anna and other characters are explored as we witness the world of Stalinist persecution that is right out of the works of Solzhenitsyn and the likes of the poet, Osip Mandelstam.  For Andrei and Anna what is worse; the experiences of the siege of Leningrad with its starvation and constant death during the “great patriotic war,” or the very real fear that the loud banging on the door in the middle of the night will result in a trip to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow.

(The siege of Leningrad, 1942)

Dunmore does a remarkable job developing her story and plotline keeping the reader fully engaged.  Her character development is impeccable and she posses a sound knowledge of Soviet history from the purges of the 1930s through Stalin’s death.  If you have read Solzhenitsyn’s CANCER WARD or THE FIRST CIRCLE, Dunmore’s work fits that genre.  If not and you are interested in reading a historical novel that you will become totally engrossed in and not be able to put down, THE BETRAYAL is an excellent choice.

(The Soviet Gulag and its victims)

I am listing a short bibliography for those who are interested in this period of history and might like to read further;

For books on Stalin see STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED STAR by Simon Sebag Montefiore; STALIN by Adam Ulam; STALIN by Robert Service; STALIN by Edvard Radzinsky: STALIN AND HIS HANGMEN: AN AUTHOROTATIVE PORTRAIT OF A TYRANT AND THOSE WHO SERVED HIM by Donald Rayfield.

The purges of the 1930s see THE GREAT TERROR by Robert Conquest and EVERYDAY STALINISM, ORDINARY LIFE IN EXTRAORDINARY TIMES: SOVIET RUSSIA IN THE 1930S by Sheila Fitzpatrick;

For the Soviet prison system (Gulag) see GULAG: A HISTORY OF THE SOVIET CAMPS by Anne Appebaum; INTO THE WHIRLWIND and WITHIN THE WHIRLWIND both by Evgenia S. Ginzburg; THE TIME OF STALIN: PORTRAIT IN TYRANNY by Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko.

The Doctor’s Plot see STALIN’S WAR AGAINST THE JEWS by Louis Rapaport; STALIN’S LAST CRIME by Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov.

For the siege of Leningrad consult LENINGRAD: STATE OF SIEGE by Michael Jones; 900 DAYS: THE SEIGE OF LENINGRAD by Harrison Salisbury; LENINGRAD: THE EPIC SEIGE OF WORLD WAR II, 1941-1944  by Anna Reid; THE FATEFUL SEIGE, 1942-1943  by Anthony Beevor; and Helen Dunmore’s previous novel, THE SEIGE.

for further reviews visit http://www.docs-books.com

PARIS by Edward Rutherfurd

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(Paris is liberated after WWII !)

Edward Rutherfurd’s latest historical novel, PARIS begins in 1875 following France’s crushing defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, a war that the French writer, Emile Zola described as “the  debacle” in his novel of the same name.  Rutherfurd goes on to describe the failure of the Paris Commune, a sort of socialist-anarchist movement to replace the French government that succumbed to Prussia in 1871.  The theme of revolutionary movements from 1789 to 1968 is one that is an undercurrent that appears and reappears as Rutherfurd’s plot unfolds.  Rutherurd’s technique is one that has been successfully used in all of his Michneresque type books.  Whether it is SARUM, THE PRINCES OF IRELAND, or NEW YORK, the reader is exposed to a multi-generational milieu that is tied together by historical events that are integrated in and around all of the major characters.  In his current book, PARIS, Rutherfurd again uses his unique ability to capture the reader’s interest as he presents a historic panorama, this time through a history of France, centering on Paris.  Having read a number of Rutherfurd’s previous novels I looked forward to his latest effort and the result is a wonderful read, except for the author’s periodic ploy of creating too many romantic interests and concerns about marriage.

The plot line in part centers around two families, the Le Sourd, a family that supports leftist revolutionaries, and the de Cygne, representative of the conservative aristocratic French social structure.  The novel covers a formidable time period ranging back and forth from 1261 to 1968.  Along the way the reader is exposed to the major events in French history.  Though not entirely chronological in presentation Rutherfurd’s characters are present during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), the St. Bartholomew Day’s Massacre (1572), the reign of Louis XIV (1661-1715), the French Revolution (1789-1795), the Napoleonic Wars (1801-1815), World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945), and culminates in an epilogue that takes place as Parisian students occupy the Sorbonne in opposition to the Vietnam War and other events in 1968. Rutherfurd is a master in creating characters who seem to fit into the flow of history, be it as participants in the French religious civil war at the end of the 16th century resulting in the conversion of Henry IV to Catholicism to unite the French throne, observations concerning the Dreyfus Affair of the late 19th century, the Popular Front under Leon Blum in the mid-1930s, or as members of the French resistance during World War II.  It is obvious that Rutherfurd’s command of Parisian and French history is impeccable.  I would have appreciated some sort of bibliography at the conclusion of the book, but the author states in his acknowledgements that he “never thought it appropriate as a simple storyteller to supply a detailed bibliography for each novel.” (808)

(Hitler visits Eiffel Tower 1940)                (American GI looks at the Tricolor 1945)

Rutherfurd’s multi-generational approach fits together like a puzzle.  Though the constant switching from one era to the next can be confusing, the extensive family tree provided in the front of the book and maps are useful tools.  As the novel progresses the reader meets numerous artistic and literary figures.  As the novel unwinds a Josephine Bonaparte or Baker appear, as do the likes of Marc Chagall, Ernest Hemingway, Claude Monet, Marcel Proust, and Pablo Picasso.  In the political realm we meet Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, Robespierre and Danton, Napoleon I and Napoleon III, Alfred Dreyfus and Emile Zola, and on and on.  The reader can listen in to private conversations amongst these figures and the characters that the author develops as he draws the reader further and further into his grasp.  There are a number of stories that are new even to a seasoned historian, i.e.; how one of the book’s characters participated in immobilizing the elevator to the Eiffel tower so Hitler could not use it to lord over of Paris in 1940.  The detail describing the building of the Eiffel Tower is also fascinating and one of the highlights of the book.  As alluded to before the only drawback to the narrative is the author’s division between the love interests of his characters and the important events that are unfolding during each period.  The repeated romantic interludes that appear in the first two thirds of the book and the author’s obsession with marriage and mistresses detracts from the overall fictional recreation, and are not woven into the storyline as flawlessly as in Rutherfurd’s previous works. Despite this concern I commend Rutherfurd’s talent in creating so many interesting characters and weaving them throughout French history and maintaining the reader’s interest as the fictional journey unfolds.  If you are about to travel to France, or Paris in the near future, Rutherfurd’s new book would be a marvelous tool.

THE MASTER OF RAIN by Tom Bradby

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(Shanghai, circa 1926)

Set in Shanghai in 1926, Tom Bradby’s first novel published in the United States begins with the murder of a Russian girl in her apartment.  The murder is a brutal one and the investigation that follows lures the reader into the seamier side of Shanghai at a time when China is splintered between the Guomindang, under the leadership of Chang Kai-Shek; the emerging Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong; and the various European interests that date back to the unequal treaties of the 19th century.  THE MASTER OF RAIN, a title chosen for its relationship to a Chinese legend is a suspenseful novel that contains countless twists and turns that continue to the last page of the epilogue.  The story centers on Richard Field who left Scotland to join the International Settlement police force in Shanghai.  Field is an idealist who will soon learn the cruelties and corruption that make up daily life in the city.  Field will investigate the murder of Lena Orlov and will be drawn into a situation that he could never have fathomed when he arrived in China.

As the plot unfolds the reader is given an accurate portrayal of the political and economic situation in China in the mid-1920s.  The undercurrent of the civil war between the Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party is ever present.  Historical figures such as Michael Borodin, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Mao Zedong make cameo appearances to lend authenticity to the story.  The underworld of Shanghai is controlled by Lu Huang, a Chinese version of Al Capone in association with various westerners.  Lu possesses people as if they were objects, and controls the opium trade in conjunction with western elements, and all aspects of the city’s governing body including the police through graft and murder.

There are a number of interesting relationships that are developed throughout the novel.  Field falls in love with one of Lu’s “possessions,” another Russian girl, Natasha Medvedev and the reader follows the ebb and flow of their interactions.  Caprisi, a detective who works with Field, who arrived in China from Chicago, forms an interesting partnership with Field as he tries to protect him from himself and deal with his own demons.  Throughout the story Field tries to maintain his idealism, but when confronted by the drug trade, prostitution, and political corruption, he has to finally make his own deal with the devil as the book comes to a close.  The cast of colorful characters is well developed as the plot line keeps shifting and at times the reader is not sure where the story is leading.  After following the social and political undercurrent described in THE MASTER OF RAIN it is not surprising that following World War II, China would be taken over by the Communist Party.  The period Bradby writes about reflects how little westerners valued the lives of the Chinese people and how they were exploited for over a century.

AN OFFICER AND A SPY by Robert Harris

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On Monday afternoon I went to see the film Monuments Men and once again I squarely faced the anti-Semitism that was rampant in France during World War II. Even in dealing with art and culture the French collaborationists of Vichy brought my blood to a boil. My wife asked me how a country that was the home of the enlightenment and the emancipation of Jews in the 18th century could still remain a prisoner of the disease of religious prejudice. First, I explained French roots in Catholicism and then mentioned the Dreyfus Affair, both endemic to the split in French society that has existed for centuries preceding World War II. As if by coincidence I have just read Robert Harris’ new historical novel, An Officer and a Spy that attempts to create the atmosphere in France following the trial of Alfred Dreyfus for supposedly selling French national security secrets to the country that soundly defeated them in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The affair invigorated the split in French society between liberals and anti-Semites that evolved into two political forces; the Dreyfusards, symbolized by the likes of Emile Zola and Georges and Albert Clemenceau who fought for the acquittal of Dreyfus, and the anti-Dreyfusards who were embodied by the Catholic Church and supporters of the French military establishment. The Dreyfus Affair not only affected French society and politics of the period but it also enhanced support for the burgeoning Zionist movement as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper was in attendance at the initial trial; one, Theodore Herzl. Harris’ novel, despite the negative comments in Janet Maslin’s February 3, 2014 review in the New York Times, is well conceived and after a somewhat slow start in developing the story achieves a dramatic flair that is well grounded in original source material. Of course, as any novelist, Harris does at times take some literary license, but overall it accomplished its goal of educating the reader on the implications of a historical event that still has repercussions today.

Harris does not recapitulate the entire Dreyfus Affair as he concentrates on the battle to overturn Dreyfus’ conviction of treason against the French state. Dreyfus was an artillery officer in the French army who was serving as a staff officer to the French General Staff. The novel is told through the voice of Colonel Georges Picquart who was promoted to be Chief of French Military Intelligence soon after Dreyfus was convicted. Picquart starts out supporting the conviction of Dreyfus but soon develops doubts about the evidence that was used to convict, and as he digs deeper, he comes to the conclusion that there was another spy who turns out to be Major Ferdinand Halsin Esterhazy. After spying on the suspect and accumulating further evidence Picquart is convinced that Esterhazy was the original spy and that Dreyfus was framed. The novel explores the machinations of French military authorities to the highest levels and their cover up to preserve Dreyfus’ guilt as he rots in a prison on Devil’s Island off the coast of South America.

Harris style is very descriptive, be it a palace, a courtroom, a prison cell, or a restaurant. Though the author does make up some of the dialogue, which is to be expected, it seems to conform to existing trial transcripts and other documentation. The travesty of injustice is presented and at times makes the readers’ “blood boil” because though the book is considered fiction, it represents accurately the historical events it discusses. Harris does a good job of presenting Picquart’s evolution as a military officer who out of honor refuses to accept the fallibility of his military superiors to a person who at first questions authority resulting in a mindset that challenges the duplicity and treasonous behavior of Generals Mercier, Billot, Gonse, and Boisdeffre, the leaders of the French army who know Dreyfus is innocent, but refuse to reverse themselves despite the fact that the evidence used to convict was falsified. The novel follows Picquarts’ public and private life, his imprisonment, and the culmination of his work in a way that captures the reader’s attention as all the major historical players are integrated into the narrative.

(Cartoon depicting Emile Zola’s famous newspaper article that skewers the French military establishment)

Perhaps the most interesting aspects of the novel are the repartee that takes place during the trials of Picquart, the French novelist Emile Zola’s libel trial, the final trial of Alfred Dreyfus, and the final meeting between Dreyfus and Picquart. I do agree with Janet Maslin that at times the dialogue and flow of the narrative is uneven, but as the story evolves it becomes an engrossing political thriller, and if one is learning about the “affair” for the first time it is an education in of itself. I recommend the book highly and I would encourage everyone to explore this topic because its lessons whether partisanship, prejudice, or rigid ideology that at times seems to infect our leaders is still in full display today.

THE WHISKEY REBELS by David Liss

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I have been a fan of David Liss’ historical novels since they first appeared. THE CONSPIRACY OF PAPER, THE COFFEE TRADER, AND THE DEVIL’S COMPANY all possessed a historical flair that drew in the reader in a rather plausible plot line.  Liss’ THE WHISKEY REBELS, though a good read, falls short of the quality of his first three efforts.  The narrative of this somewhat light historical novel centers around two characters Ethan Saunders, and Joan Claybrook, who become involved in a plot to either save or destroy the Hamiltonian system of finance during the administration of George Washington.  Other fictional characters abound and they are integrated with the likes of Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, William Duer, James and Marie Reynolds, Phillip Freneau, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and of course George Washington.  The plot rests on events that preceded the actual Whiskey Rebellion that took place during this period and portends to present some of the causes of the revolt of western Pennsylvania farmers, angered by a federal excise tax on whiskey in 1794, whose cause was eventually crushed by an army of 13,000 men led by Alexander Hamilton.

After presenting the background narrative of the story concerning the plight of western farmers through through the eyes of the two main characters, Ethan Saunders and Mary Maycock, Liss then goes on to develop the financial schemes that are the heart of the novel.  Liss fictionalizes a plot to destroy the heart of the Hamiltonian system, the National Bank of the United States, and the events leading up to the actual the Panic of 1792.  The reader is presented with enough financial chicanery that would even bring a smile to the likes Bernie Maddoff.  Though there are no credit default swaps, bundling of real estate assets, derivatives or under water housing bringing about the phrase, “too big to fail,” the author does explores “the machinations in government securities, the attempt to overtake the Million Bank, and Duer’s bankruptcy-all of [which] are a matter of record.” (522). To Liss’ credit accurate historical themes are weaved into the narrative.  The reader witnesses the hatred between the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian factions that existed at the time.  The fight by western agrarian interests against eastern capitalist forces plays out and will remain part of the American political landscape through the twentieth century.  The duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton is “dually executed,” as is the burgeoning conflict that will ultimately lead to the actual Whiskey Rebellion.  Some of the characters are a bit difficult to accept, especially the battle hardened Jewish banker and former Revolutionary War spy, among others.  Overall it is an interesting tale chocked full of twists and turns but I recommend would Thomas Slaughter and William Hoagland’s monographs on the Whiskey Rebellion as a more accurate representation of what actually took place.