Finished: Since We Fell (Lehane) Well, this was quite a page-turner! I've never read a Dennis Lehane book, but I might have to read another. I'm just too tired to do an actual recap, so I will be lazy and put below what other sites have said about the book. Besides, there were so many twists and turns and tangents, that it would take me forever to write! I kind of wouldn't mind seeing a sequel with the two main characters, Rachel and Brian, but doubt that's in the works. ok, so here's Amazon's write up:

Since We Fell follows Rachel Childs, a former journalist who, after an on-air mental breakdown, now lives as a virtual shut-in. In all other respects, however, she enjoys an ideal life with an ideal husband. Until a chance encounter on a rainy afternoon causes that ideal life to fray. As does Rachel’s marriage. As does Rachel herself. Sucked into a conspiracy thick with deception, violence, and possibly madness, Rachel must find the strength within herself to conquer unimaginable fears and mind-altering truths. By turns heart- breaking, suspenseful, romantic, and sophisticated, Since We Fell is a novel of profound psychological insight and tension. It is Dennis Lehane at his very best.

Oooo this New York Times recap goes into good detail. It IS kind of weird how the first part of the book is about Rachel's despair and search for her father, and then the second part of the book kicks into high gear with all the shenanigans. I do agree with the last sentence...after all she goes through with her search for her father, dealing with her childhood with her impossible mother, facing her agoraphobia, a failed first marriage, an earth-shattering experience reporting in post-earthquake Haiti, and the "interesting" relationship with her second husband, and love of her life, Rachel DOES finally learn to depend on herself!

New York Times: “Since We Fell” is the first Dennis Lehane novel written from a woman’s point of view. She’s a tough character, but it’s a miracle that she can get out of bed in the morning. Rachel Childs was raised by Elizabeth Childs, Ph.D., a single mother, a self-help celebrity author who damaged her daughter in every way she could think of — and a woman with a fertile imagination. Elizabeth made a sadistic, narcissistic game out of not letting Rachel know the identity of her father.

Rachel grew up thinking of life as “a series of detachments,” which is a way of describing Lehane’s atypical “Since We Fell,” too. The novel begins with a string of joltingly different episodes from an author whose usual style is much more propulsively linear. The sequences are all parts of Rachel’s life, but that doesn’t initially glue them together; she is struggling to figure out who she is, and so are we. Only over time does the larger trajectory of “Since We Fell” become clear. 

It all makes much more sense in retrospect than it does as the book’s first chapters unfold. Here are some of its early developments: Rachel devotes herself to solving the mystery of her father. It’s complicated, and it leads the book into such unlikely areas as Luminism, the 19th-century style of American landscape painting. Lehane (“Mystic River,” “Gone, Baby, Gone”) has said that he can’t connect with white male working-class crime stories any more. Even so, this is a long way from home.The father question is answered, and not in ways likely to improve Rachel’s mental state. She’s the daughter of a man whose smile “wasn’t an invitation, it was a moat,” who brings to mind “the profligate poet, the drug-addled painter-genius, the musician who’d die in a car crash the day after he signed the big record contract.” So she fits right in with other tormented Lehane characters, who have two strikes against them before they even set foot on the field.

Continue reading the main stor

Strong and smart as she is, Rachel needs a man in her life. She marries a producer named Sebastian, who works at the Boston TV station where she is a rising star. He’s irritable when Rachel endangers her career, since he cares mostly about her status. She goes to cover the Haitian earthquake and can’t be chirpy enough to satisfy her bosses. “Our viewers need hope,” they tell her. “Haitians need water,” she replies. One on-air meltdown later, Rachel has been fired and is a public pariah.

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Already subject to panic attacks, which are exacerbated by the horrors she saw in Haiti, Rachel stays in her apartment for 18 months. Sebastian drops out of her life. And it leads to Rachel becoming reacquainted with Mr. Right, Brian Delacroix, who she’d known casually and now looks at with new interest. He is tall, dark and handsome, and he is the first lover who really wanted to help her. Rachel falls gratefully into his arms, and they are married.

Their marriage ushers in a string of wall-to-wall spoiler alerts. Suffice it to say that this second part of “Since We Fell” is sharply different from the first. Instead, it’s packed with signs that Lehane sold this story to the movies, which he did, in 2015, and that he loves the Hitchcock classics that prey on mistrust. Suddenly, he begins delivering nonstop suspense only loosely rooted in Rachel’s story and its foundations.

Like so many mystery authors who have been drawn into screenwriting, Lehane writes best when he’s thinking solely about a book. “World Gone By,” the elegiac 2015 novel that preceded this one, had a tragic grandeur that is never approached by this less credible, more action-oriented thriller. But “World Gone By” had none of the tricks, shocks, visual effects, mad coincidences and disguises that propel “Since We Fell.” And Lehane is no slouch at those, either. He remains one of the great, diabolical thriller kings who seems intimately acquainted with darkness and can make it seep from the page or screen. A line of dialogue like “Oh, ho, ho, my man, let’s not push me tonight,” delivered with brittle levity, carries more menace than any outright threat could.

Rachel works extremely well as the focus of the book. Lehane has always written wrenching female characters into his stories, and he has no trouble giving center stage to one. The question is never whether she will escape her past. We know she’s got the moxie to do it, but where is she headed? Her options narrow as the book becomes more crime-centric and throws her into life-or-death situations rather than contemplative ones. But she’s as much of a pragmatist as anyone Lehane ever dreamed up. She comes a long way through the twists and turns of “Since We Fell,” which takes its title from a love song about desperate dependency. By the end of it, she’s learned how to depend on herself.

Finished: The Silent Corner (Koontz) Not as big of a page-turner as other Dean Koontz books I've read, but still good, and it comes with a sequel. It's the story of Jane Hawk, a grieving FBI agent whose husband has uncharacteristically committed suicide. Jane refuses to believe that Nick would have killed himself, but when she starts exploring they "whys", her life is threatened by very powerful people, as well as the life of her precious five year old son, Travis. Jane quickly sells her house, quits the FBI, stashes her son, not with known family, but with obscure friends, and goes about investigating further what caused not only her own husband to take his life, but several other people as well. Jane Hawk is tough, smart, wary and ruthless when it comes to finding her answers, and makes some unlikely allies along the way who are instrumental in helping her. She uncovers a corrupt group comprised of rich men, many high level, some even in her own department, who are using a super secret prostitute compound where the beautiful women have actually had something inserted into their brains to make them forget about their past, and be completely docile and compliant. Even the security guards have been treated as well, and don't ever "see" the members as they come and go. They are programmed only to respond to what names they hear called out by the computer announcing members. It goes even deeper as Jane discovers the creator of the implant is a scientist who also designed an algorithm on a computer to identify people who are a possible danger to their program, and to mark them for elimination by receiving the implants programmed to commit suicide. It's a bit of a convoluted plot, and just not quite as compelling as other Koontz books I've read. I was not tempted to sit there and read until I was finished while on vacation, or even when I got home. The book ends with Jane and her main ally breaking into the compound of the scientist and forcing him to give them all of his data AND his serums he has already created. Meanwhile, Jane's old FBI boss and mentor, who she was very close to in the past, is implanted and instructed to find Jane and kill her!! Sadly, Jane is forced to kill him first, recognizing he's been injected and knowing there is no cure for his deteriorating condition. So, at the end of the book, Jane has defeated the scientist, but has just scraped the surface of going after all the rich and powerful men in the group. She manages a quick visit to her son while he's sleeping, so he doesn't get his hopes up that she's home for good, and the book ends. I believe Jane Hawk's story continues in the sequel The Whispering Room.

Finished: Small Great Things (Picoult) A very good book that tackles the social inequity of an African American labor and delivery nurse, with over twenty years of experience, who is accused of letting a Caucasian newborn die because she has been instructed by her supervisor not to touch the baby, per the request of the white supremacist parents. Whew, that's a mouthful, and the book is an eyeful. Ruth Jefferson, a single mother to a very intelligent teenage boy, has worked hard to provide for her son since the death of his father who served our county. Ruth is determined that her son, Edison, will have all the educational advantages of his white peers. Ruth has been a practicing labor and delivery nurse at New Haven's Mercy West hospital for over twenty years..the small hospital's only African American labor and delivery nurse. She has held her tongue as a much younger and less experienced nurse was given the job as supervisor; she has turned the other cheek when people have raised their eyebrows to see that she lives in an upper class, white neighborhood; and she's kept her cool when followed through stores by salespeople who want to "keep an eye on her". When Ruth begins her shift one morning, taking over for the nurse who was with a couple when their baby was born, her life changes in ways she never expected. As Ruth goes in to assess the newborn baby boy, his parents, Turk and Brittany, cringe and are very reluctant to let her touch him. Ruth writes it off as new parent nervousness, but soon finds out differently. Within an hour, a request has been made by the parents that Ruth be reassigned and never allowed to touch their infant again! Ruth is incredulous when she reads the post it note that her supervisor pins in the chart "Infant Not To Be Touched By Any African American Nurses". Of course, since she's the only one of those, Ruth is terribly offended. She let's her disdain for the unfair treatment be known, and then she goes home for the day. Upon working a double shift the next day, Ruth is in the nursery caring for another infant when Turk and Brittany's baby, Davis, is brought in after his circumcision. Sleeping soundly due to his sedation, the new nurse asks if Ruth will look after him because she is suddenly called to the operating room for an emergency C-section. The new nurse says she'll be back in twenty minutes if Ruth will just keep an eye out on little Davis. Of course, Ruth looks over at Davis when she is alone with him and notices that he's not breathing and turning blue. She has a momentary moment of hesitation as she wonders if she SHOULD touch him to help him, and then she does just that. She jiggles his feet, a common tactic to get newborns to start breathing again, and she rubs his chest. Just then she hears her supervisor coming in from the same emergency C-section and she swaddles Davis just in time for it to appear to the supervisor that Ruth has done nothing at all to help the baby. Code blue is called and all kinds of doctors and nurses rush in. Ruth begins infant CPR on orders from the pediatrician, and after several horrific minutes of trying to resuscitate the baby, he is pronounced dead. Unknowingly to all the medical personnel, the parents have been standing in the doorway and witness the horror. Too many details in the book to recap it all, but the bottom line is that the parents accuse the n-word of having it out for them and purposely killing their son. :-( Ruth is arrested and goes to trial. Her lawyer, Kennedy McQuarrie, is one who is appointed since Ruth can't afford an attorney. Kennedy is a young, white, smart-as-a-whip attorney, who is also a young mother, who has never been allowed to take a murder case for the public defender's office yet. After meeting Ruth, she begs to be given the case, and her boss agrees. Kennedy considers herself completely unprejudiced, but after spending a day with Ruth once she's out on bail, Ruth manages to make the point that even though she's worked hard to put herself and her son in a better environment, she is still treated like a lesser being. Kennedy and Ruth develop quite the friendship, though with its ups and downs, as the pre-trial and then the trial gets going. Ruth also struggles with Edison as he suddenly begins skipping school and putting his potential college career in jeopardy. We also read the view point of Turk, as we learn the history of how he became a white supremacist, how he met the "leader" of his group's daughter, Brittany, and married her with her father's blessing. Brittany is one little bad-ass white supremacist herself, and has no problem with the idea of just running over a black person if need be. They are truly awful people. We follow them all as the trial proceeds and we wonder whether Kennedy will really be able to get Ruth acquitted, especially after Ruth insists on taking the stand and explaining to the jury how it feels to be a black woman in a white person's world...something Kennedy is vehemently against her doing. Anyway, in the end, the jury is hung, but the judge, who Kennedy has had two losses with, who really doesn't like Kennedy, rather than declaring a mistrial and putting everyone through the whole ordeal again, he acquits Ruth. He states that he was able to sees clearly that she was not at fault. Basically the big defense argument was that the baby had a metabolic condition that was life-threatening, but that, because he was born near the weekend, was not relayed to the doctors by the lab after his little routine heel stick, until it was too late. If they'd been notified sooner, they would never have had him fast before the circumcision due to his condition, and would have had an intravenous sugar solution flowing through his little body. In other words, there wasn't much that could have been done to save little Davis. The judge apparently has the right to make the decision whether or not to interpret the testimony himself and acquit or call for a re-trial. He thankfully acquits!  The kicker at the end of the book is this....when Kennedy is putting away her notes on the case, she takes a last look at Davis' lab results and realizes there's something else written on the back that none of them even looked at. They all stopped when they got to his metabolic condition and went with that. It turns out that Davis was a sickle cell carrier, which is very rare in Caucasian babies, but very prevalent in African American babies. Kennedy does a little digging and finds out that Brittany's father, who has raised her by himself, always saying that her mother cheated on him and left, had in reality had Brittany with a black woman!!! When confronted with the facts, the father, this supreme being of the white supremacy movement, doesn't deny it and Brittany and Turk both go into a tailspin. Brittany is half black!! Brittany, unable to handle the thought of one drop of black blood in her body, kills herself. Turk, realizing how much he loves Brittany no matter what, begins to question everything he's been taught his whole life. He realizes that if his baby were alive he would be part black, and that would be ok with him as long as his baby was alive. Turk completely turns his life around, remarries a couple of years later, and has a little girl. He spends his time going on the lecture circuit to talk against white supremacy and racism...the very ideals he was brought up with that began the entire ordeal with Ruth. Edison goes on the graduate from Yale, and Ruth furthers her degree, becomes a nurse practitioner and opens her own clinic with money that she most likely won from the hospital when Kennedy filed a wrongful termination suit against them. A very good book that really does make you step back and see that still in this day and age, we have so very far to go in terms of us all becoming truly color blind.

Finished: The Essential Neruda Selected Poems (Neruda, edited by Mark Eisner) "Yo no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido" A book full of lovely, introspective poems about love and loss, written by Pablo Neruda in his native Spanish, and then translated on each facing page by Mark Eisner and his team. Of course, I guess interpretation is open for discussion, because in all the years I had of Spanish growing up, quiero meant want and not love, but the above sentence is translated as "I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, and forgetting is so long." So, I guess it's in the eye of the beholder. All I know is that I really love that line "Love is so short, and forgetting is so long." How true is that when dealing with the loss of love or the loss of a loved one?  I read Neruda's poem The Morning Is Full online and really liked it, and it made me want to read much more, so this book seemed like a nice collection of his works to explore. :-) As the editor explains, the poems look and roll of the tongue so much more fluently in their native Spanish, but I just read all the English versions, occasionally glancing at some of the words of the Spanish poems. A few of my favorites were...The Great Ocean, The United Fruit Co., Poet's Obligation, Ode to the Book (II) and the one below from his book of Twenty Love Poems:

From Twenty Love Poems
#20 I can write the saddest verses

I can write the saddest verses tonight.

Write, for example, "The night is full of stars,
  twinkling blue, in the distance."

The night wind spins in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this I held her in my arms,
I kissed her so many times beneath the infinite sky.

She loved me, at times I loved her too.
How not to have loved her great still eyes.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I don't have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls onto my soul like dew onto grass.

What difference that my love could not keep her.
The night is full of stars, and she is not with me.

That's all. In the distance, someone sings. In the distance.
My soul is not at peace with having lost her. 

As if to bring her closer, my gaze searches for her,
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, of then, now are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, it's true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched for the wind that would touch her ear.

Another's. She will be another's. As before my kisses. 
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, and forgetting is so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is not at peace with having lost her.

Though this may be the final sorrow she causes me,
and these last verses I write for her. 

Pablo Neruda

Finished: And Quiet Flows the Don (Sholokhov) The epic tale by Sholokhov that most say was instrumental in him winning the Noble Prize in Literature, And Quiet Flows the Don is the story of several Cossack families who live near the Don River in Russia, and how they face the trials of World War I, and then the revolution and civil uprising in their own country. Often compared to Tolstoy's War and Peace, I don't think it was nearly on that level, but it was still a good book. It was difficult to get attached to the main characters, and I think that is mostly due to this particular translation, which seemed jerky at times, and much of the time presented the characters more robotically than passionately. We follow a few Cossack families, and a couple of upper class families, through four main sections in the book: Peace, War, Revolution, and Civil War. In Peace, we get to know the families and their relationships, their thoughts, their hardships of making their living on the land, etc. When War starts, many of the Cossack sons are sent off to the front lines to fight against the Germans. Being Cossacks, they take pride in their military ability and their bravery. However, as the war drags on and on, and they are constantly sent to the front lines to fight for mother Russia, some begin to wonder if they are being used to fight a battle they don't even believe in. Eventually, the Bolsheviks, the party backed by Lenin who wanted to overthrow the czarist rule in Russia, began the Russian Revolution and turned many of the Cossacks into believers of their cause. So, once the war with Germany came to an end, the Cossacks were thrown into the Russian revolution, which then led to Civil War within their own country. Much of the book was so political, that I had to consult my handy Russian history expert son for explanations, and I'm still not sure I understand it all! Anyway, the story followed the main characters throughout each of the four defined periods of their history. Some survived, many did not; some questioned their beliefs; some fell in love; some lost their loves; and some just wanted to not be a part of any of the major changes in their way of life. The book ended rather abruptly without wrapping up the story for each one of the major characters, but with enough of an ending to leave me wishing the translation had been just a bit more coherent.

Finished: The Sympathizer (Nguyen) Perhaps the first book I've ever read where not a single word of prose was wasted, at least not to me, The Sympathizer is a Pulitzer Prize winning book which tells the story of a communist double agent in 1975 South Vietnam. The narrator, a captain in the South Vietnamese military, working directly for a general and his family, tells his story in a 300+ page confession to his North Vietnamese commandant after he is captured by his own people during one of his double agent non-assignments gone wrong. I think I may have learned more about, or at least related more to, the war in Vietnam than I did when I was in my teens and living with it on our television news broadcasts every night. The story begins in April of 1975 with the fall of Saigon as the captain scrambles to get the general, his family, a select few of his officers, and his own best friend, Bon, with wife and child, out of the country. Their narrow escape by the last plane taking off from the airport as the enemy closes in with bombs and gunfire is harrowing and heartbreaking. All of the major players that move forward in the story make it out safely, except for his best friend's wife and baby son. :-( :-( It is just so horrific. And thus we see the first sign of the captain's grand dilemma. He's grown to care about the general and his family, but he loves with all his heart his best friend Bon. Yet, his complete allegiance lies with his communist cause. The captain, who is never named, and Bon and another Vietnamese man, named Man, all met as young teens at school, and then attended university in the United States. Man and Bon had jumped into a fight where the captain was being beat up by bullies, much larger than all three of them, and though they were all battered and bruised, they went that night together and sliced their hands and became blood brothers for life. From that moment on, they had each other's backs no matter what. What Bon didn't realize was that once Man and the captain got done with university, they had both bought into the Communist Manifesto and had turned against their country and his own ideals. Working in South Vietnam, but directly against Bon's own cause for a non-communist country, Man and the captain remained the best of friends with Bon, but never told him of their allegiance. So...after the captain, Bon, the general, his family, and the other few officers escaped from Saigon to the United States, they first suffered through the tragic funerals and burials of Bon's wife and child, and then through two different "refugee camps", before landing in California where they scraped by on menial jobs. The captain kept in touch with Man through super secret letters, reporting back to him all the details of how the general was planning to get his men back together to once again go and retake South Vietnam. Of course, it was a pie in the sky idea, but the general was determined, and so he actually got secret funding from one powerful congressman. So many details and a few notable side stories will not be in this recap, but as I said earlier, the prose was just riveting, heartbreaking, page-turning at times, introspective, and sometimes required me to read pages two or three times to make sure I understood exactly what was being said. The captain stayed loyal to his communist cause throughout the entire book, but it was definitely clear the he sympathized with the plight of his South Vietnamese countrymen and fellow refugees. In the last hurrah, when the general felt he had enough backing, he decided to send a delegation of his men back to Vietnam to penetrate into the North Vietnamese territory and go on a scouting mission to see if his idea was viable. Bon volunteered to go right away, on this mission that was basically a suicide mission. Bon had nothing more to live for but to die for his country after losing his wife and child. When Bon volunteered, then the captain volunteered immediately as well. Reluctantly, the general gave him the go ahead to be a part of the group. Man, however, in a secret-coded letter back to the captain told him his orders were to "stay there, do not come". The captain was determined, though, to go and in being there, figure out a way to save Bon's life, so he disobeyed orders for the first time in his life. Once there, having spent several grueling days in the heat penetrating all the way into Laos, the group was attacked by the enemy and taken to a prison camp. This camp is where the captain was kept in isolation for a year, writing his "confession" to his North Vietnamese superiors. That's all I'm going to say about this, because there are a couple more surprises towards the end. The book itself was just very, very good. It also forced me to look up things about the Vietnam War that I never knew, even though it was a prominent feature of my teen years. I'm so glad to have read this book and it will definitely be finding a place in my Top 100!

Finished: The Double (Dostoevsky) Very weird and rather sad book by Dostoevsky...not one of his most popular, about a man, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who is socially awkward and just an average Joe, who one night sees his exact double...a man who worms his way into Yakov's life, job, and mind, sending him spiraling in his sanity. It turns out, which you figure out pretty quickly, that Yakov is really just going insane and the double he is seeing, which he thinks everyone else is seeing and interacting with, is all in his mind! A bit of a disturbing read, but Dostoevsky is such a great writer! I confess, I got this book for Josh, my Russian studying son, and I read it before I'm giving it to him, lol. Anyway, I'm just going to cheat and put the Wikipedia recap below:

The Double centers on a government clerk who goes mad. It deals with the internal psychological struggle of its main character, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who repeatedly encounters someone who is his exact double in appearance but confident, aggressive, and extroverted, characteristics that are the polar opposites to those of the toadying "pushover" protagonist. The motif of the novella is a doppelgänger (dvoynik).

Golyadkin is a titular councillor. This is rank 9 in the Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great. As rank eight led to hereditary nobility,^[3] being a titular councillor is symbolic of a low-level bureaucrat still struggling to succeed. Golyadkin has a formative discussion with his Doctor Rutenspitz, who fears for his sanity and tells him that his behavior is dangerously antisocial. He prescribes "cheerful company" as the remedy. Golyadkin resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He proceeds to a birthday party for Klara Olsufyevna, the daughter of his office manager. He was uninvited, and a series of faux pas lead to his expulsion from the party. On his way home through a snowstorm, he encounters his double, who looks exactly like him. The following two thirds of the novel then deals with their evolving relationship.

At first, Golyadkin Sr. (the original main character) and Golyadkin Jr. (his double) are friends, but Golyadkin Jr. proceeds to attempt to take over Sr.'s life, and they become bitter enemies. Because Golyadkin Jr. has all the charm, unctuousness and social skills that Golyadkin Sr. lacks, he is very well-liked among the office colleagues. At the story's conclusion, Golyadkin Sr. begins to see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic break, and is dragged off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz.

Finished: A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal (Macintyre) Wow, a true story about the infamous British MI6 agent, Kim Philby, who was, for thirty years, secretly a spy for Russia! Born into the British elite, Kim Philby's head and his loyalties were turned by communism while he attended Cambridge. It was an ideology he never wavered from, even at the expense of lifelong friends, wives, children, and his own country. He was responsible for systematically getting his own fellow MI6 agents to talk about their own assets and various operations in Russia, and then tipping off his bosses in Russia, invariably leading to the botching of the operations and the deaths of countless British intelligence agents. He charmed everyone he met, and befriended two men in particular, Nicholas Elliott, who would make his way up the ranks in MI6, and James Jesus Angleton, an American who would eventually go on to lead the CIA. Both of these men were outstanding agents, and both of them fell for the charm and camaraderie supplied by Kim Philby. They told Philby everything, as the agents, unable to tell their wives or families where they really worked, often unburdened themselves with each other over great amounts of alcohol at various posh British clubs. Throughout the entire World War II Philby passed any intelligence that he acquired as a British agent on to his superiors in Russia. At the time, he could rationalize that England and Russia were on the same side against Hitler. Once the war was over, though, and the Cold War years started, and particularly during Stalin's years, there was nothing he could do to rationalize his loyalties, and he didn't think to. He was staunchly a communist with his heart in Russia. When Philby was recruited at Cambridge, so were four other university students that he knew. They came to be known as the Cambridge Five. They all went on to very high level positions in secret intelligence. Philby rose so high and was so favorably thought of in Britain's MI6, that he was at one point made the chief over their Russian intelligence division! He had to maintain a balance of not failing in that job while at the same time making sure none of their planned operations succeeded. Eventually he was promoted to be the MI6 representative in America at the CIA!! Finally, in 1951, two of his former friends from the Cambridge Five were identified as Russian spies by a defector from Russia. Being in the know, he was able to tip them off and they made their escape to  Russia right before the MI6 came down on them. The fact that they were friendly with Philby, however, put the spotlight on him and he was subjected to a long interrogation. The CIA (except for Angleton) were convinced he was guilty, and the MI5 side of the British intelligence was as well. They couldn't prove anything. With Nicholas Elliot and his other MI6 buddies loudly proclaiming his innocence and how absurd the idea was that Philby would in any way be involved as a Russian spy, all the MI6 ended up doing was asking him to step down. Philby did this, and remained in England...but was out of work and bored. It took several years of being tailed and bugged, but Philby maintained radio silence with Russia and eventually Elliott was able to convince MI6 to rehire Philby. At that time, the Middle East was becoming a hotbed, so Philby was assigned to a lower level position in Beirut, while Elliott was made chief of a couple of other offices in different cities before being made the chief in Beirut. After the coast was clear, his Russian superiors made contact with him again, and Philby was back to his spying for Russia. Finally, in 1963 when yet another high level KGB agent defected to England, there came more definitive proof (even though his name was never uttered) that Kim Philby was, in fact, a Russian spy. Elliott's boss at MI6 called him in to inform him, and Elliott was crushed. Philby was his friend, his mentor, his hero, and he'd betrayed him all these years. Elliott insisted on being the one to confront Philby to get him to break and tell the truth. He thought he could succeed where so many had failed back in 1951. Meanwhile, Philby pretty much figured out that the noose was tightening around his neck with the latest defection. When called to meet with Elliott in a hotel room for tea, he said "Ahh, I always knew it would be you." And with that, they began a conversation where Elliott offered Philby full immunity and no prison if he'd give up all his operations and the names of all other known Russian spies. Philby finally confessed, but gave very few details in some flimsy papers. He agreed to meet back with Elliott the next day and then promptly got in touch with his Russian handler. Russia agreed that it was time to extract Philby and bring him home, but it would take a few days. Philby stalled, insisting that Elliott come to dinner to make sure the wife didn't think anything was amiss. They then had yet another session where Philby brought more papers with more information. Elliott informed his bosses that they were on their way to the full confession and turned the job over to his higher ups. Elliott left for his next assignment, but incredulously, no tail or watch at all was put on Philby! Philby was able to be extracted from Beirut by his handler within a couple of days, and was taken to Russia where he lived out the rest of his days. Some say that the MI6 couldn't afford another scandal after the defection of the other two Cambridge spies to Russia years before, and the recent uncovering of yet another Russian spy high up in their ranks, who was tried in England and basically sentenced to the rest of his life in prison. They say that not putting a guard on Philby was their way of leaving him to be extracted by Russia to become their problem. The truth of that will never be known. Meanwhile, James Angleton at the CIA was beside himself! He worshiped Philby more than Elliott did and from that moment on, nearly ruined the CIA by "seeing" moles at every turn. He was eventually retired from the CIA. Though it didn't read like fiction (which it wasn't, lol), the book still held my interest! I'd never heard of any of these people or of this betrayal, so it was fascinating to read.

Finished: My Life With Bob (Paul) A book about books, written by New York Times Review editor, Pamela Paul. Bob is her Book of Books. It's the book she has kept listing all of the books she has read since her junior year in high school. My Life With Bob is a book about Pamela's life as a shy, book-loving, person and how each of the books she read had some impact, good or bad, on her life. She talks more about her own life experiences than she really does about the books, so the chapter titles, which drove me to buy the book, were a bit misleading. However, it was interesting to see her grow as she weathered: her parents' divorce, having all brothers, having all step-brothers, her parents' stand-offishness, her own self-consciousness and misgivings, her dream wedding to her dream man that turned into a broken-hearted divorce less than a year later, her traveling to live in Thailand with no language or culture experience about Thailand what so ever, her struggles and self-doubt about whether she should become a writer, her post-divorce relationship, her father's death, and finally some of the good things: meeting her next soul mate and husband, having three children with him, becoming a successful author, and finally having her dream job as first the New York Times Children's books reviewer, and then moving on to the New York Time Review editor for all the books. Though I think I would have liked reading more about the actual books that influenced her, just the snippets she gave were interesting and prompted me to write down a few titles that I'm adding to my "to read" list. :-)

Finished: All's Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare) Another twisty Shakespeare dramedy with the witty banters and lovely soliloquies typical of his writing. This one gives us the famous quote, All's Well That Ends Well, among others, but one of my favorites was "Who cannot be crushed with a plot?", uttered by side character, Parolles, after he realizes he was set up in an intricate plan to confess that he would betray his friend Bertram, the Count of Rousillon. Then, there's this quote that I loved:

"Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under they own life's key..."

Love that one! The play is about a girl named Helen who is the daughter of the now deceased physician to the Countess of Rousillon, Bertram's mother. The countess considers Helen to be like a daughter, even though she is "common" and beneath their station. Helen is in love with Bertram, but he doesn't give her much thought. Bertram's father has just died and he will soon step into his father's shoes. He's a bit arrogant. His mother sends him to see the King of France who is very sick and not expected to live much longer. Their families are good friends. Meanwhile, the Florentine wars are going on in Italy, and France has not committed to helping out in Italy. After Bertram leaves, the Countess realizes that Helen loves her son! She thinks Helen would be a perfect match for Bertram. When Helen tells the Countess that her father taught her many of his cures, and she can fix the king's particular ailment, the Countess sends her immediately to see the king. In trying to convince the king that she can help him, Helen even promises that if she doesn't cure his ailment, she will offer her life as payment. In return, the king says if she does cure his ailment, she can have her pick of the eligible bachelors in France to marry. Helen is successful in curing the king, and she chooses Bertram to marry! The king loves the idea and also gives Helen a very rich dowry and a special family ring. Bertram balks and wants nothing to do with marrying Helen. The king is insulted and will have none of Bertram's attitude and insists Bertram marry the person who saved his life! Bertram relents and marries Helen, but doesn't consummate the marriage. Instead he goes off to Florence to fight in the wars. He writes Helen a letter and tells her that he will only consummate and respect their marriage once she has his family ring on her finger and is pregnant with their child. In other words, never, because of the obvious Catch-22. Helen is distraught at the rejection, but more so at the idea that Bertram has gone to war and put himself in danger because of her. Helen has a letter delivered to Bertram in Florence telling him that his new wife has died, hoping it will make him come back home and to safety. She plans then to head to a monastery that just happens to be in Florence. In Florence she meets a widow woman and her beautiful daughter, Diana, who Bertram is pursuing now that his wife is "dead"! Bertram is basically a hound and just trying to get the virgin Diana to sleep with him. She refuses and refuses, making him more and more interested. Helen comes up with a plan! She promises the widow that she will pay Diana's dowry for when she does get married if they will help her out. She has Diana tell Bertram that she will succumb to his advances, first if he will give her his family ring, and secondly, if he will meet her in the silence and darkness of her room, not speaking, to consummate their relationship, so her mother will not hear them. Bertram does both these things, and has his way. Of course, he was not interested in a commitment to Diana, and after his conquest, he heads for home since he is no longer tied down by an unwanted wife. Helen then also makes her way home, with Diana and her mother in tow. The king goes to visit the Countess and Bertram, hoping to arrange yet another marriage when Diana shows up. She claims that Bertram has taken her virtue and therefore should be betrothed to her. Bertram denies all involvement with Diana, but can't explain to his mother or the king why she has his cherished family ring! They are beginning to see how duplicitous he is when Diana admits that she is not the one who Bertram slept with that night, but Helen. They are all shocked and happy to see Helen, and of course, Helen is with child! Helen shows the king Bertram's letter that said he would honor their marriage if Helen had his ring and was pregnant with his child, so the king says, done deal! Even Bertram realizes the lengths that Helen has gone to just for his love, and he gives in and says he will love her well. I'm sitting there thinking, do you really WANT this dude, Helen? But, you know, all's well that ends well...and that's the end of the play. :-) This is one I'd seen as a production, but never read, so glad I finally did. :-)