Stalin:The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore (2004)

Stalin, Bulganin, Kruschev, Molotov, Beria, Yezhov, Mikoyan, Zdanov, Zhukov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and so many others are associated with mass murder in the name of a cause, but in the end in the name of one man's egomania. The size of the author's research task on Russian documents must make the book a research epic (720 pages). He managed to do it all in 5 years from Kremlin archives to publication. The killings are weird to read about because their scale is so great and within the lifetime of this reader. Then later a few thousand deaths here or there seems banal in face of the millions of individual tragedies. Even among comrades and colleagues Stalin got rid of those he got tired of, or suspected of outshining him, or of being an alternative leader. And he could always read a report or receive a verbal account in person from torturers 'working' not far away in the Lubianka. He headed a team of Commissar-Butchers who would take a train to a region and arrange executions of local officials by the hundred, or even greater 'units' sometimes, in order to solve some 'problem'. Poskrebyshev, Stalin's ' Cabinet Secretary' with his space outside the door to Stalin's office,

Havana Black by Leonardo Padua, Trans. Peter Bush

The reluctant police lieutenant Mario Conde, "The Count", is given 3 days by his chief to solve the murder of a Cuban returnee (from the USA) whose body was found on a beach. Set in Havana, the atmosphere of loyal friends and their enjoyment of eating and drinking together is an effective one amidst the decay of the city under Castro. The Count is a reluctant policeman, always thinking of leaving the police force. Meanwhile, he learned of ancient treasure shipped from the Philippines to Cuba and then to Spain. There is a golden Buddha involved. This reminded me of The Maltese Falcon a story by Dashiell Hammett, made into a film, 1941. The icon ornament of this earlier story, a black falcon, was also on its way to Spain.

Back to Havana Black: apparently when Castro's regime came to power a lot of private property was appropriated by the state. Perhaps not all of it found its way into the state museums and galleries. The book is one of a series with Mario Conde doing better than that other Count questionably "eating kippers with his mother-in-law tonight". Eight out of ten.

The quote about another Count comes from the tv series Monty Python where the question "Is the count eating kippers with his mother-in-law tonight?" is used as an absurd password.

The Colour of Blood by Brian Moore and Single and Single by John Le Carré

The Colour of Blood, 1994. Set in a communist country possibly an amalgam of Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland, before the end of the Cold War. Cardinal Wem survives an assassination attempt but is kidnapped the same night by what are perhaps a group of Roman Catholic rebels. Do both State and Church rebels have it in for him?

There are mysterious cars following other mysterious cars. The Cardinal escapes and tension builds up around him. A faceless malevolence met in other stories about countries behind the iron-curtain seems to surround events which build up to a climax in the days before a Church festival celebrating a martyrdom 200 years earlier. The Cardinal is determined to attend. In the presence of the Prime Minister and with anonymous Security Police in the congregation, the Cardinal speaks out against violence. He gives communion and sees a face he remembers. Eight out of ten. Very strong on atmsophere. Brian Moore's (same author) 'The Mangan Inheritance' was the first book reviewed on this blog, see below. You can also follow the link to the dangerous life of a real Cardinal.






Single and Single by John le Carré, 1999
A traditional English gent in tweeds with son in Public School, a minor one but nevertheless...

Knole and the Sackvilles by Vita Sackville-West, copyright 1949 (non-fiction)

There were cricket professionals as early as the eighteenth century. Knole House in Sevenoaks, Kent had one or two on the staff. They have long gone but the cricket square is still there in the grounds at Knole. The grounds are undulating meadowland in a park with great old trees and a smarter garden close to the house. On one visit there with family by car (my family, not the Sackvilles) we had trouble keeping the deer from eating our sandwiches. You go for a quiet day out and this is what happens!

The panorama of Sackvilles, Earls, then Dukes, of Dorset is centuries wide so the family tree at the front of the book is needed often. The history of the house starts in the 13th century, and the history of the Sackvilles there began in the 16th when Queen Elizabeth gifted it to her Treasurer Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst whom she made the first Earl of Dorset...with a house in Kent! Sevenoaks was closer to the office than Buckhurst in the Weald, the family's home. Thomas must also have sighed with relief when the Queen held court at Eltham or Greenwich rather than Westminster as it was also an easier commute.

The joy of the book is in the detail such as the names and jobs

One Shot by Lee Child

One Shot (A Jack Reacher novel) by Lee Child, copyright 2005

Jack Reacher is the writer's stock character, a Frederick Forsyth type of hero, a former military policeman, officer, currently living loose, without permanent address (I can't thing why - a loose cannon image perhaps?). Anyway, he is big, aggressive and a know-all to boot but somehow it works. Luckily I found I was reading a large print copy which managed to keep his character within limits. However, it is an uncomfortable size -and when you drop off to sleep it falls on your face, hard.

A rock solid case seems to put James Barr as the certain perpetrator of a massacre in a small Indiana town. Video and other evidence lead to Barr's arrest in bed at home. He will say nothing except "Get Jack Reacher!". It turns out that Barr had done a similar set of killings as a sniper in the army in Kuwait City. Yeah, it is one of those books in a long tradition - at least since the Crusades - that use the reflected 'glory' of characters who have been in a war to impress the reader. And it always works, doesn't it?

Emerson, the detective, Rodin the D.A., his daughter - newly qualified as a lawyer and a nefarious group of violent villains all have a part to play as Reacher gets to know them. As does an old flame of his, Brigadier-General Eileen Q, a military lawyer (How's that for a fantasy ..... whether in judge's wig or general's uniform with pips?) while gradually light is thrown on how the killings were done, by whom and why - although it is almost unnecessary in the end given all the other fun. Enjoyable, nine out of ten.