Private is first in a series called “Private” by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, featuring Jack Morgan, a former CIA agent turned private detective with a worldwide agency of the same name. I doubt I will read many of the dozen or more books in the series. Private is fast-paced, with short chapters, and filled with formula law-enforcement slang, beautiful young women, and danger in every direction. Jack is the brave, glib war hero who seems to have an answer for every difficult situation. The book cover tells you where Jack will be traveling, and the bullet hole is a clue to the drama he will face. The character development is shallow, but there is never a dull moment in the lives of Jack and his colleagues.
This was my first Kristin Hannah book, but it will not be my last. Winter Garden was difficult for me to read, but rewarding to complete. The story is about the Whitson family, who operated an apple orchard business in Leavenworth, Washington, a town I have visited many times. Evan Whitson married a very reserved Russian woman, Anya, and they have two daughters, who never feel loved by their mother. Anya is a distant, cold, and forbidding mother, but a devoted wife.
Just before his passing, Evan asks his daughter to promise to make their mother finish a Russian fairy tale she never completed. The Russian fairy tale is about the life of a young woman living in Stalinist Leningrad. The tale is about Anya’s life during the Siege of Leningrad by the Natzis in WW2 and the brutal violence that claimed the lives of 1.5 million Russians between 1941 and 1944. Leningrad is now Saint Petersburg, another place I have been fortunate enough to visit. As Anya tells her adult children about the pain and sorrow of the siege, I was drawn into the narrative to the point that I could read only two pages per day. Hannah describes the trauma of not only Anya and her family but the entirety of the Russian experience.
Fourth Wing, a new genre for me, came to my attention at a Barnes & Noble book display table outfitted with cards, posters, jewelry, and clothing. The display reminded me of the Harry Potter craze in the last century. Castles, dragons, magic, and a war college set in an unidentified time and place. I picked up one of the three books in Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean Series, and I was hooked within a few pages. The genre, frequently identified as “romantasy,” adult fiction, and magical fantasy, is not for young readers. After Violet Sorrengail enters Basgaith War College, the book never comes to a calm place where the reader can go into neutral for a few pages.
Starting on the first day of war college, in a universe unlike our own, student mortality thins the ranks of future riders of flying dragons who spend three years training to defend the nation of Navaree. There are only two ways out of Basgaith College: graduate or die. In the midst of the brutal training and drama, students find a diversion in sex, mostly between first years and upperclassmen, explaining the “romantasy” genre label. I have yet to decide whether to continue with the series. The book deserves the attention, acclaim, and many awards received over the past few years.
Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery, Gavin Newsom
I am writing this review while golfing in California and enjoying the sunshine. Yesterday, my Republican golf buddy, sitting next to me in the golf cart, said, “This state has a governor who is famous only because of his looks.” My MAGA-adjacent friend is still open to a civil conversation about politics, up to a point. I suggested he read Young Man in a Hurry by Gavin Newsom before he assumes the Fox News version of the author is even remotely accurate.
I would loan him the book, but my friend is not a reader. The irony is that, like my friend, Newsom was not much of a reader as a young man because he is dyslexic, a condition I am familiar with. Newsom has a serious version of the disorder, and it shaped much of his early life. A few days ago, Donald Trump said Newsom should not become president because of his dyslexia. Trump is projecting more than just a phobia of people with disabilities.
I have read other memoirs by politicians who are more guarded than Newsom about their past, struggles, and even failures. He must have understood that his opponents would seize upon select sentences for their own political purposes. Yet, he does not shy away from being transparent with his readers.
There are some insights and quotes in Young Man that are too good not to share:
In explaining how to cope with his condition, Newsom says, “This is how I discovered one of the secret powers of dyslexia. I could read a room with the best of them.”
Newsom was appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors by Willie Brown, the city’s first black mayor. In announcing the appointment, Mayor Brown called the Irishman his “affirmative action pick.”
In addressing the homeless issue as the new mayor in San Francisco, Newsom explained that, “No liberal bias was required to put forward the case that the one man most responsible for the rise of homelessness in America was California’s own sunny Ronald Reagan.” He went on to explain that among his first acts as president, Reagan had “gutted” Jimmy Carter’s Mental Health Systems Act, which removed $800 million earmarked for California.
Not to be missed in the final chapter is Newsom’s detailed description of his first meeting with President Trump when Newsom was Lieutenant Governor and Jerry Brown was Governor.
Buckeye is proof that a depressing novel can still be well written. I read misleading reviews: “Captivating,” “A once-in-a-decade-novel,” and downloaded the Audible version because I was between assignments. A more honest review states that the book is an LGBTQ-adjacent historical novel because it focuses on themes of sexuality, repression, and hidden identity. The author, Patrick Ryan, seems to make the point that gay men in the pre-WWII era had to hide who they were.
The other aspect of this work is the theme of spiritualism, seances, communication with the dead, and psychic events. It added very little to the book, and I found it a distraction. Interestingly, the psychic character (Becky) was an appealing person who did not charge for conducting seances in her home. I guess the point is that she may have been a lost soul, fooling herself and her clients, but she was not cheating them financially.
Theo of Golden, Allen Levi
For some readers, Theo of Golden will be about portraits on the walls of a coffeehouse in a fictional town in rural Georgia. I received the book as a testament to faith, giving, and the power of love. It is also about the unrequited love of a man, Theo, who let fame and striving drown a relationship that he never appreciated until it was too late. By the time Theo arrives in Golden, the woman he loved has passed, but her son, their child, is an accomplished local portrait artist.
Golden is all the things you would expect in a Hallmark-style town with a bookstore, coffee shop, art, music, gardens, birds, river, churches, walking trails, and fine dining. There is even a fountain at city-center. Everything is perfect, except the people. Theo is the protagonist, but I believe Tony is the more interesting character, a combat veteran, agnostic, skeptic, and bookstore owner who complains his shop is perpetually one week away from closing. His story and journey are inspiring. I’m glad my book club leader encouraged me to read Allen Levi’s book.
The Coffeehouse Investor’s Ground Rules, Bill Schultheis
The Coffeehouse Investor’s Ground Rules is an update and reflection on Bill Schultheis’s first book, The Coffeehouse Investor, which I read over twenty years ago, unaware that the author was living in Skagit County when he wrote the book. At the time, I was in an investment club and an active investor, doing all the right things by Wall Street standards to be financially successful. After reading Bill’s book, I realized I was headed in the wrong direction.
Bill was an early advocate for “buying the market” through index mutual funds. It simply changed my investment life. I became a subscriber to Bill’s newsletter and forwarded it to friends and family over the next twenty years. Ground Rules expands upon the indexing investment philosophy and gives readers a look back at how it has worked out financially for investors who refuse to watch CNBC daily. I recommend reading The Coffeehouse Investor (1998) or The New Coffeehouse Investor (2009) before Ground Rules (2020) to get a fuller understanding of the passive investing strategy.
Somebody’s Fool is the latest in Richard Russo’s North Bath Trilogy, and it is also the best. The first two are Nobody’s Fool (2011) and Everybody’s Fool (2016). You don’t need to read the first two before Somebody’s Fool, but reading them will give you a firm footing on the returning characters and the bigger plot. The unidentified, decomposing body of a suicide is found in an abandoned hotel. We don’t see the connection between the annexation of North Bath and the decomposed body until the last chapter.
You will learn about Donald “Sully” Sullivan’s son and grandsons, who connect with the very barstool named after Sully in his favorite watering hole. Doug Raymer, the town’s chief of police, returns after a disastrous campaign for reelection on the platform of “We are not happy until you are not happy.” Hired as a consultant by the new chief, Charice Bond, Raymer is called upon to identify the suicide. Did I forget to mention that the suicide had a Blackberry Phone? Only a fool would forget to mention that Rub Squeers survives the annexation of his town and loses his trademark stutter. You will love this book.
The Wealth of Shadows is a work of historical fiction about World War II and the hidden economic war against the Nazis. The author, Graham Moore, brings to life the drama going on in the FDR administration during a time when most Americans wanted nothing to do with the Nazi invasion of Europe. Within the Department of the Treasury was a group of people, including economists, who saw a way to defeat Hitler without a military victory.
It is a fascinating and well-written story about a young couple in Minneapolis who were frightened by the rise of Nazi sympathies in 1939 and wanted to join others who opposed Hitler and his domestic supporters. They end up in Washington, D.C., working for the federal government and find ways to influence policy. The book concludes with the Bretton Woods Conference, the establishment of the International Monetary Fund, and the creation of the World Bank. The real heroes are the economists. I highly recommend Wealth, which is the second book I’ve read by the author. The first was a Book Club selection in 2020, The Last Days of Night, also a great read.
The invaluable Author’s Notes at the end of the book include this advisory, “This book is a work of fiction, spread out on a canvas of reality.” That reality is not pretty because it involves Nazis in our own country, antisemitism, the Holocaust, war, and duplicity.
