What this Comedian Said Will Shock You: Bill Maher, author (2024). Just in time for the 2024 elections…wow! I needed this. An irreverent critique of everything going on, especially the political circus acts. It’s something that grabs you by the throat and makes you almost die laughing at the follies of human beings and their cultural milieu. (The ‘almost” will be considered below.)

We often take ourselves too seriously. Okay, life is serious. We’re now in a dash—no marathons now—for November, 2024 when we must decide if we still want some sort of democracy in America or some sort of awful fascist state where some fascist psychotic sociopath declares himself president-for-life and begins to mimic Stalin’s purges. (Neither Bill Maher nor I can know what kind of democracy either: There are so many things wrong with the current one, starting with the US Constitution!)

But we need to laugh a bit before we begin grieving over our dead democracy, especially at ourselves and our compatriots who are letting it die. If this book doesn’t accomplish that, you’re a brain-dead zombie. (Most MAGA maniacs are, of course, but plenty so-called liberals living in their echo chambers are too.)

Because a serious book review is supposed to contain critiques (verbal equivalents of a sharp elbow in the ribs), let me begin attacking Bill with this one: Your title is very misleading! What Maher states here isn’t all that shocking; I agree with at least 87.765 percent plus or minus 3.923 percent margin-of-error of what he says and have probably said more shocking things in my political blog at pubprogressive.com. (Why are the Big Five publishing conglomerates and TV networks afraid of calling Donald Jackass Trump, J. Done-Nothing Vance, and their cronies fascists? That’s what they are!)

Of course, I don’t say it comically; I’m deadly serious. What extremists (fascists come from both the left and the right, moving around that grand circle that’s humanity’s political spectrum to that one single point called fascism) have done to this country (let’s call it “ripping the country apart”) is beyond the pale because its source is the destructive evil lurking there in the dark ready to attack any good people who might be left in the body politic. (Extremists hog the internet with their blathering. Normal people can’t get a word in edgewise, which is why I’m no longer on Facebook or X. In those cases, of course, the extremists also run those websites.)

That leads to another critique: Bill Maher is a bit simple-minded because he can’t imagine any of this country’s problems leading to another civil war. (I think he does mention the possibility of a Nazi-like putsch somewhere, though.) Would he be ready to fight for what’s right and good? I can’t answer that even for myself, but it’s a quandary he should have mentioned…except that it’s not very funny, is it?! (But maybe it’s a better and more practical use for all those damn guns?)

It’s easy to go after Narcissus le Grand and his MAGA maniacs, from the far-right wingnuts who support them, i.e., those evangelicals (unlike Maher, I refuse to capitalize that), Catholics (capitalized only because “catholic” can have a more general meaning—look it up), to white supremacists and a few crazed blacks and hispanics. It’s hard to look the other way at far-left extremists and recognize that they’re also approaching fascism as well, often supporting questionable causes (Hamas in Gaza, i.e. terrorists; eco-terrorists, i.e. tree-huggers who destroy trees; injuring or killing cops, i.e., anyone—everyone seems to hate cops now; believing in communism, with a small c or a big one, is the solution to everything; etc., etc.). Maher wraps all that up in his generic attacks on the nation’s youth (who all too often deserve those attacks of course!), when it’s not about immaturity (unless you want to call old Bernie Sanders “immature”?). The extremes of both political parties push their other more reasonable members toward the middle (maybe a good thing?), but that still allows the extremes to do a lot of damage on their way to fascism, so much so that it will likely destroy our country unless it’s halted.

Okay, I’ve proved myself wrong: What this comedian says is damn shocking because he tries to turn a serious debate into comedy. That should shock anyone who values our democracy. In fact, Mr. Maher is showing his age, not quite the comedians’ Biden yet, but his words seem an awful lot like my father’s. And my father lived in a better time when our family’s Eisenhower Republicans and Truman Democrats could get together for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter and not physically pommel each other. (Maybe go home a bit angry with the relatives, though.)

There are interesting little datapoints sprinkled throughout this book that are significantly serious, though. For example, the tragedy of some Trump MAGA maniacs: Consider Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force vet who needlessly died for Trump on January 6, 2021, believing that if he won, he might help her with the usurious loan she’d stupidly signed up for to save her business. (And Trump said no one died on January 6! She was your follower, you “f&^%ing moron”!) Another tragedy that obviously couldn’t make the publishing schedule for Bill’s book is found in the fireman who attended that recent Pennsylvania rally with his family and took a bullet for Trump while trying to protect his family. Trump doesn’t have to kill anyone on Fifth Avenue in New York City; he manages to do it at his rallies!

These cases and others are doubly tragic because the supporters of that “f%$#ing moron” (an ex-SecState Tillerson quote, by the way, in case you think I made that up) can’t seem to recognize that Narcissus le Grand only cares about himself; he’s a psychotic sociopath. That’s the diagnosis from an ad hoc committee of respectable mental health professionals published years ago. With his advanced age and impending dementia—he’s now the oldest presidential candidate ever!—he’s become even worse!

Unfortunately, Bill, those cases of lemmings among the MAGA maniacal hordes following their fuehrer over the cliffs aren’t comical—they’re an American tragedy in many ways. Treating them as comedy is easy; diagnosing and combatting the reasons why they’ve become mentally ill in that way is complicated and serious work that comedians like you and fiction writers like me can’t possibly do alone. Our society is sick and dying, and it needs some real professional help from many good people to find a cure if it’s going to survive.

And a final (and perhaps more light-hearted?) critique: What’s wrong with Bill’s sense of irony? He writes: “…when a big-game hunter gets trampled by an elephant and then eaten by a lion [it] is ‘hilarious.’” Wrong! It’s simple justice! (And why didn’t it happen to Don Jr.?)

I read this lengthy collection of comedy gigs in parallel with other more serious books. That’s called multitasking by some; I call it comedic relief from the more serious stuff. It’s not healthy to take life too seriously, but it’s also not healthy for us or the country to go laughing to our graves as American fascists set out to destroy this country and the world. We’ll see who has the last laugh, Bill. I’ve already prepared my “I told you so” speech, Mr. Maher. It’s a short one, and I quote a young acquaintance of mine: We’re so screwed!

***

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A Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. To prove I’m not such a serious fellow and that I can write comedy (or be bold enough to attempt it?), this sci-fi rom-com hopefully has given a few smiles to my readers and will do the same for those who missed it and peruse it now. It treats some serious themes, but it’s mostly tongue-in-cheek. And, by the way, it does time travel right, i.e., without paradoxes. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold. (You might even find it on Amazon among all the overly expensive crap the Big Five publishing conglomerates like to sell…like the above.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Age of Grievance. Frank Bruni, author (2024).

[Note to readers from Steve: This might be the most unusual book review you’re ever read! It’s in the format of an email because my intention was to send it to Mr. Bruni, which turned out to be impossible. (Mr. Bruni’s website, www.FrankBruni.com, doesn’t have a contact page.)]

Dear Professor Bruni,

After your appearance on Jake Tapper’s “The Lead,” my wife, bless her, decided that gifting me your book The Age of Grievance for Father’s Day would be an appropriate addition to my to-read-list of non-fiction books (I keep them on my shelf afterwards too…as references). In retrospect, I dare say that “appropriate” is quite an understatement! It jumped to the top of my reading list. You sir have put into words many of my own worries about our troubling times.

As one of the first baby-boomers, I grew up amidst the euphoria, hope, and optimism for a better world after World War Two—we’d been able to defeat fascism around the world, after all!—and despite the glitches like we had with the Korean and Vietnam Wars, all occurring before my first graduate degree, I felt like the far horizons for a better America were now nearer and reachable, the race to the moon and fall of the Soviet Union adding to that feeling.

In your book, you explore the broad changes in the psyches of the American public, many of them not at all positive, but you rarely mention how twenty-first century events have changed the minds of the US and world’s youth, replacing that euphoria, hope, and optimism with depression and frustration. This has long been a concern of mine as well. As much as I could, I fought the good fight, but today’s youth will need to have more mettle to continue the fight. Fascism is on the march again, and now it has better tools even if it lacks better leaders.

I was lucky enough to teach college courses and learn something from my students (not what I was teaching, of course) while doing some research in both the US and South America (Colombia, to be specific), and this ennui among today’s youth was already apparent in both groups of students. This isn’t completely attributable to imagined grievances nor immaturity. (I’ve found college students, especially juniors and seniors, to be quite mature until events like those at Columbia University and UCLA occurred.) As a retiree, I’ve become more of an observer of the human condition to facilitate my fiction writing, and all this has indicated that the situation is worsening.

You’re in a position where you can offer some suggestions to these lost generations. For health reasons, I can only do that now through my fiction, mostly via my young adult sci-fi mysteries, but those are read more by adults who are young at heart than young adults (my book events have provided that evidence).

One thing that seemed to work well in my old day-job with young employees and interns on my research teams was for us to chat about things—better stated, take advantage of their desire to talk about things and my willingness to listen to what they said. Reading your book, I felt you were doing that with me: You seem to be able to offer a sympathetic ear in your op-eds and in your book. May I suggest you write another one especially for today’s youth?

I apologize for bothering you with all this, but your excellent book got me thinking.

Take care…and please keep writing.

r/Steve Moore

***

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Other non-fiction. For an unusual book review, why not an unusual ad? See my “Steve’s Bookshelf” web page for a list of other recommended non-fiction books. (Of course, the fiction books listed there are damn good too!)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas! 

Democracy Awakening. Heather Cox Richardson, author (2023). This is an interesting but incomplete history about the rise of authoritarian thinking in the US; it’s also a bit simplistic. However, perhaps this simplicity adds power to the author’s arguments?

It doesn’t take much to see the fascists’ plans to convert the US into a fascist state—presidents like Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, and other politicians’ shenanigans, aided by fascists in Congress (not gender-specific anymore because even women are also fascists hiding under the cloak of patriotism like Donald J. Trump) and the fascist SCOTUS majority. “Make America Great Again!” has been the fascists’ rallying cry in America for a long time! And, as this history shows, as the numbers of the FPA swell ever so slightly (that’s the Fascist Party of America aka Republican Party, now led by the purely fascist Trump, that “f%$#ing moron” as labeled by Trump’s ex-SecState Tillerson whom Il Duce essentially fired), they lash out with increasingly dirty and evil tricks to satisfy their greed and thirst for power from Reagan’s Iran-Contra ploy to supporting the murderous Pinochet and far beyond, reminding everyone in the world how close America’s fascists have come to a complete takeover.

If the reader thought it all ended with the attempted coup on January 6, 2021, you are terribly mistaken! (By the way, one complaint I have about this type of non-fiction: Ms. Cox refrains from using the word “fascist” and “fascism,” the two words most applicable to America’s GOP now.)

Bottom line: This book can be recommended as a simplistic reminder to those readers who’ve forgotten on purpose or otherwise some or most of the facts about fascist movements in the US. We must be ever-vigilant if we are to protect democracy in America because fascism is a contagious disease that’s always around and ready to strike at America’s body politic.

***

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“Mary Jo Melendez Trilogy.” AOC and her little fascist friends in the US Congress aren’t smart enough to realize that extremists at either end of the political spectrum can become fascists, although they often prove it in deed. The political spectrum isn’t linear: The far-left and far-right bends around at each end and joins up in that point called fascism, as Cuba and Venezuela have proven on the far-left and Hungary and Turkey on the far-right. Of course, China, Russia, and the US are heading in that direction as well (arguably the first two are already there), which is why Mary Jo’s trilogy, although a work of fiction, might make the hair on your nape stand on end. This trilogy will remind readers of many worldwide events in Muddlin’ Through, Silicon Slummin’ and Just Gettin’ By, and Goin’ the Extra Mile as the books carry Mary Jo around this fascist world. Available wherever fine ebooks are sold.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Renegade. Adam Kinzinger, author (2023). Between Liz Cheney’s book (reviewed last week) and this one, the reader will have most of the full story of what led up to January 6, 2021 and what has come after in the years that followed, laying the foundation for holding DJT accountable for the mayhem and murder that occurred as a consequence of his futile attempt to lead a coup against the duly elected new president Joe Biden and American government in general. You will only need to add the select committee’s full report to get the full story, one that most of the Marchin’ MAGA Morons don’t care about, of course. (Narcissus le Grand is their fuehrer, king, and lord who they believe walks on water. He will save them from all the non-white invaders and God deniers, don’t you know? But can he save them from themselves?)

Kinzinger’s is the most personal tale which nicely complements Cheney’s. He is more biographical and goes farther back in time. You peek inside his mind a lot more. His is a story about the makings of a true conservative, what fascist Trump and his fascist followers are not and never can be, because Kinzinger believes, as I do, that true conservatives are needed to balance that exuberant progressivism that so often fails to see the unplanned-for bad consequences of their policies. (“Sanctuary cities” are an obvious example because the federal government has so far refused to help them.) There are only a few such conservatives left in government, especially in Congress and SCOTUS. Many true conservatives in Congress have had to run for their lives literally because of fascist threats to them and their families. Even Kinzinger’s family members and friends who’d supported him in his political campaigns for the House in Illinois turned against him. He now lives near his wife’s family in Texas, of all places. (I’d never live in Texas; it’s a completely fascist state now, and it really belongs to Mexico.) And all his troubles maxed out when Cheney and he participated in that January 6^th committee investigating Trump’s attempted coup. (Cheney had it worse in Wyoming. I imagine that both still have bodyguards as DJT’s “retribution campaign” for 2024 includes his spurring on followers to maim and kill anyone who defied him.) Remember the gallows erected on January 6 and the chants of “Hang Mike Pence!”? According to many fascist members of Congress, these were just ordinary Americans on a tour of the Capitol!

Kinzinger points out how Il Duce’s followers live in a fictional alternate reality created by their fuehrer and promoted by Fox News and other far-right media. That old Nazi spin-doctor Goebbels must be smiling. He had the original idea: Say lies often enough and stupid people will start believing them. Forget obvious idiots like QAnon’s conspiracy believers. American fascists keep saying that President Biden lost. He actually crushed DJT in both the popular vote and Electoral College, turning Narcissus le Grand into one of the biggest political losers in American history, which continued in the 2022 midterms. Trump has never won the popular vote, not even in 2016! Sadly, the Marchin’ MAGA Morons still believe these lies!

Kinzinger agonizes over and laments the nasty bifurcation and polarization in our country, this us-against-them attitude today’s Good Ole Piranhas continue to promote in their politics. He agonizes over how Trump has corrupted religious beliefs so much that they have become the evil tool of the fascists. And, like me but unlike Cheney, he’s not afraid to use the word “fascism” to describe what the current battle for America’s soul is all about. But Kinzinger, more than anything, laments the death throes of the Republican Party as it solidifies into the Fascist Party of America. He’s a voice crying in the wilderness, though, as the US sinks more into the fetid cesspool known as fascism.

***

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“Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. This nine-book series follows some of Esther’s history in working for MI6 and Scotland Yard while also helping her paramour and later hubby Bastiann van Coevorden solve mysteries and bring criminals to justice (or vice versa). The art motif harks to her association with recovering stolen artworks and running a gallery, but the case histories recorded by her one-time boss in the Art and Antiques Division of the Yard, starting with Rembrandt’s Angel and ending with Celtic Chronicles (there’s a free PDF download, Defanging the Red Dragon, that’s a crossover novel involving Chen and Castilblanco, and the duo also appears in the “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy), the reader will enjoy these 21^st century versions of Miss Marple (Esther’s a lot more limber!) and Hercule Poirot (Bastiann is Dutch not Belgian). Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (but not always on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Oath and Honor. A Memoir and a Warning. Liz Cheney, author (2023). I have the official report from the January 6^th Select Committee. While there are glimpses into the author’s political thoughts here in this book, I hasten to state that, like that committee’s report, her book is more a bipartisan indictment of the ex-president Donald J. Trump and proof that he’s a clear and present danger to democracy in America.

There are a few nits to pick besides those I might have about the author’s political biases, though. Let’s consider them:

This book is not a memoir! You really need to read closely to find details about the author’s life. The book is truly a warning, one good people don’t need very much (except for my third point below). But isn’t any book about Narcissus le Grand a dire warning if it’s worth anything at all? The whole subtitle is therefore unnecessary.

An oath to the Constitution should not be taken as “originalist” fealty to a dated document! The very event that required VP Pence to stand pat and do his “constitutional duty,” much to his credit, would never have have been needed if the Founding Fathers had decided not to create the Electoral College that clearly violates the one man-one vote principle. This, among other mistakes, puts chinks in the armor of democracy America’s fascists have found; the Electoral College has guaranteed that GOP candidates have won the White House without winning the popular vote ever since Reagan. That’s not democracy; that’s fascism. The Constitution that Ms. Cheney so loves badly needs editing. And the Oath Keepers, after all, claimed to be keeping their oaths to the Constitution!

The author commits the same sin that many authors do when criticizing today’s GOP. Too many are afraid of not saying a person who talks like a fascist, walks like a fascist, and threatens people and institutions like a fascist, is indeed a fascist! Good political writers should make every effort to choose the correct words. Not calling Trump and his marching MAGA morons fascists only leads to some people conflating true conservatives, so necessary in our political system, people like Cheney, Kinzinger, and Romney, along with a few others, with those fascists. Even a progressive like me recognizes that we need true conservatives if only to balance the exuberance of progressives in a democratic society. We don’t need fascists!

All that being said, the best way to treat this tome is to consider it a guide to the full report. In fact, I’ll place both books side by side on my bookshelf…and recommend them as guides to anyone who considers themselves to be a responsible citizen of this once great country that Donald J. Trump has damaged so much.

***

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“Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series. These books are fiction, but they’re ample evidence for my continuing concern for America’s future. The fictional prose here can only help people like Cheney and many others on the right and left who are also concerned about America’s future continue to raise the alarms. None of that will help unless people heed them and take action, of course, using the democratically established tools of ballot boxes.

These two NYPD cops provide a great example, in fact, of how people can agree on the bigger dangers for free societies. Castilblanco, the progressive, is the type of guy far-right traitors and so many others love to hate, even though he’s more American than most. (FYI to them and DJT if they’re possibly reading this: Puerto Ricans are Americans!) Chen, the conservative who’d probably enjoy talking with Cheney about America’s future, is a Chinese-American who teams up with Castilblanco to thwart the bad guys.  The eight novels (one, Defanging the Red Dragon, is a crossover and a free downloadable PDF) will provide readers with hours of reading entertainment…and hopefully spur them onto voting for truth and the American way!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

All the Demons are Here. Jake Tapper, author (2023). It seems that everyone wants to write a novel now. Actually not—most people don’t have the endurance to run that literary marathon—but Mr. Tapper has written three. I read a previous one, The Hellfire Club (I can’t remember if I wrote a review of it because I’m not that motivated to help out Big Five publishing conglomerates), and this one is a mixed bag in comparison.

The historical setting might interest a lot of people of my generation. (As an observer of society in general and a political observer in particular, necessary for my own writing, post-Nixon, pre-Reagan years represent the times many of us came of age like Ike, one of the protagonists—the other is his younger sister Lucy.

However, you might get the feeling that “Hey, I don’t remember that happening!” or “I never heard that song!” or whatever, and more often than not you’d be justified. Check the end notes. Tapper made up a lot of stuff and admits it, and that all became annoying to me. (This includes stuff about Evel Knieval and Elvis Presley.) Join me in feeling a bit swindled.

Those examples are minor criticisms, though, compared to the feeling that it’s hard to know where Jake is going with the plot. It alternates between Ike and Lucy from chapter to chapter, their two stories written in the first person. Do they come together? Beyond certain limitations (mostly with point of view), there’s nothing much wrong with this ping-pong match between main characters. I used it myself a while ago in A Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. (It’s a sci-fi rom-com, so the two protagonists are intimately involved from the start—Mr. Tapper’s never really are.) But Ike’s story revolves around the drunk, show-boating Evel; and Lucy’s around sleazy Max Lyons and his family, a fictional caricature of the Murdoch family. You wait and wait for the two stories to come together. It takes fourteen chapters to even get to where something interesting occurs that brings the siblings’ stories together and make the plot worthwhile. Maybe you should just read this novel for its chapters fifteen to eighteen? Of course, that all occurred on a dark and stormy night!

The reference to Agatha Christie is almost blasphemy, by the way. This is no mystery tale. Is it a historical thriller? Maybe. Is it a political thriller? Perhaps. Or maybe a manual on how to ride a motorcycle? Whatever it is, it’s not a mystery. It’s more an anthem celebrating how honest journalism always wins, as it should, considering it’s Jake Tapper writing!

I’m not sure it’s a thriller either. The book is advertised that way, and the endorsements (Connelly? Coben? Really?) express this, but its thrills are few and far between and mostly in those last three chapters.

I don’t know how to classify this novel, but I have little to recommend it, even if you think Mr. Tapper is the best political reporter on TV now. (He is.)

Note to Jake: I generally don’t purchase Big Five books. This one was a gift.

***

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A Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. There are a lot of historical events, politics, and comments of human societies, past and present, in this sci-fi rom-com that unlike many time-travel stories does time travel right, by jumping through the multiverse among different possible states of the universe we inhabit. It gives a new meaning of “lost in space-time” to “lost in space,” and the protagonists, physicist Gail and her tech Jeff, have many adventures along the way as their relationship matures. You’ll either hate me or love me for my comments on our past, present, and future as you read about their travels. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Nine Black Robes. Joan Biskupic (2023). “No one should be confident that this majority is done with its work.”—Dissenting opinion, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Thus begins and ends this excellent expose of the fascist takeover of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) written by CNN commentator and SCOTUS expert Biskupic.

Yes, fascist SCOTUS! Unlike the author, I’ll call a spade a spade, and the SCOTUS’s new majority are rabid fascists who conspire with the Good Ole Piranhas, which include fanatical evangelicals and Catholics, Putin lovers, racists, and bigots, along with many other far-right elements in government. And they are out to destroy democracy in America by whittling away at individual rights, enabling mad-dog gun enthusiasts, etc. by arguing that’s what the Founding Fathers wanted!

Too strong? If you believe that, read this excellent book, and then let’s talk. (Probably too much to ask of MAGA maniacs that they actually read something worthwhile of course. Their fuehrer doesn’t like to read.) It’s a toss-up which group in America represents the most existential problem for American democracy, the climate-change deniers (let them die in the three-digit heat waves and other extreme climate events that will continue to plague the country and the world!) or the idiots out to destroy America by other means. (Of course, these groups have a lot of members in common!)

Here the author knows the law, SCOTUS history, and the ins and outs of the legal issues. She presents the story of how Trump, McConnell, McCann, and other fascists over decades created today’s fascist majority in the court…and she does it well. Although the story is comparable to how Mein Kampf led to Hitler’s takeover, it’s been a much slower one in America compared to Germany, aided and abetted by every conservative president since Reagan. (Of course, “conservative” morphed into “fascist” during that process in American government and elsewhere!)

Today we have the following in that SCOTUS fascist majority: Thomas, who’d be welcome in the Ku Klux Klan; Alito, who’s more fascist than Scalia ever was (and that’s saying a lot); Chief Justice Roberts, who has turned hypocrisy into a fine art; and the two new lackeys of the far right, Comey Bryant and Kavanaugh—all of them rabid Catholic fundamentalists except for Thomas. (Beyond fascism, he just goes along with his colleagues fundamentalism, but you can bet he’d never receive the support of the BLM or #MeToo movement.) These fascist judges will be around a long time, and they’re out to ruin American democracy by legislating from the bench.

The author doesn’t dwell on the obvious solutions required to weaken these fascists’ powers: age and term limits plus increasing the number of judges. The Dems had better control both houses of Congress and the presidency in 2024 so these solutions can be implemented. Of course, the way things are going (SCOTUS doesn’t protect the integrity of elections!), maybe the Dems will never win another election in America if they can prevent it!

So, in brief, this book is a good portrayal of the current SCOTUS, doesn’t use the appropriate word “fascist” to describe the six judges who form the junta basically in charge of the country now, and doesn’t consider the obvious solutions. Perhaps it needs a second volume to do that? Or the author simply accepts that American democracy is dying and doomed, and we can do nothing about it? In this sense, this book is a depressing yet very informative read.

***

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The Klimt Connection. I don’t write legal thrillers. The nearest I’ve come is this eighth novel in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series where Esther backs an old Austrian Jewish man who is conned into selling his Klimt painting, complete with trial. There are a lot of other things going on, including the introduction of readers to Inspector Steve Morgan who has a secondment with MI5 to bring down a far-right terrorist group. (He soon has his own series!) This is a complex mystery/thriller that has Esther in a case that harks back to her days in Scotland Yard’s “Art and Antiques” Division. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (but not on Amazon). Enjoy.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Hatchet Man. Elie Honig, author (2021, 2022). While one could argue that this is more a book for addicts of legal thrillers, it’s unfortunately non-fiction. It paints a disturbing picture of the man who never tried a case in his life yet became US Attorney General twice, William Barr. The focus here is on the second time, his two years as Jeff Sessions’s replacement in the Trump administration. In those two years, he preached the gospel of Trump’s “absolute immunity”; selectively released only aspects of the Mueller report to confuse people, and waved it off as a waste of time and money; damaged DoJ’s reputation (it’s still recovering); and promoted Trump’s “big lie.” And then he became the rat leaving the sinking ship by resigning!

I’d like to highlight four new things I learned in this expose of Barr’s incompetence and malfeasance in office. (Biopic? Chronicle? Call it what you want, but it’s an unflattering picture of an old fool who went out of his way to end his career by damaging so completely his reputation!)

First, by comparing Barr’s actions with the author’s time spent in the SDNY as a prosecutor  where he even prosecuted John Gotti a fourth time (the jury was incurably deadlocked, as in the previous three times), we not only see how unprepared Barr was to be AG but how much Trump and his family resemble a mafia family. More of an embellishment on what I already knew but with some surprises, and entertaining nonetheless.

Second, the book shows how complicit Barr was in destroying the DoJ’s reputation by turning his and his department’s focus on acting as the ex-president’s personal lawyers who would defend him at all cost. Added to the distrust we now have of SCOTUS and the court system as a whole caused by loading the courts with far-right judges, America’s justice system has been left in sad shape. It will take a long time for it to recover, if it ever does. Judges serve life terms, and Barr set the bar very low (pun intended) for any future AG who could very well think he can get away with the same crap.

Third, Barr’s actions were more driven by self-interest and furthering his own agenda. He viewed Trump only as a tool, a battle axe he could use to attack secularism in American society and promote the agenda of far-right Catholicism. I had no idea he was such an ultra-conservative Catholic. No one, absolutely no one, filled with such religious fanaticism should ever be AG! This unqualified and unscrupulous AG wrote papers about how secularism is corrupting America. Of course, evangelicals also saw Trump as their tool as well. This is also true of several current members of SCOTUS. The US barely escaped becoming an evil theocracy like Iran…and that still could happen!

Fourth, considering the damage Barr did to the DoJ, the reader of this review might ask what we can do to fix it. To Honig’s credit, he makes some sound proposals for reform in the chapter titled “The Road Back” that Garland and his minions should try to make DoJ policy. (Unfortunately, none of this chapter offers a solution for the problems with SCOTUS, which could do more lasting damage for a long time!)

This isn’t a long book, but it’s a pithy one. It will add a great deal to anyone’s understanding of how Trump and his MAGA maniacs almost succeeded in destroying democracy in America. It also provides a road map for what to avoid and what to fix in the future. Highly recommended!

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Menace from Moscow. Coming soon! In this third novel of this post-apocalyptic sci-fi trilogy, the critical and difficult management of geopolitics in a post-apocalyptic world caused by a worldwide bioengineered virus continues: Survivor Penny Castro and her friends’ new task is to recover nuclear-armed missiles aboard a US submarine that sunk off Cuba’s coast at the beginning of the pandemic. As if the train trip from Colorado to Florida across a dangerous, desolate, and devasted US isn’t enough, what awaits them in the Caribbean and beyond will put any fan of sci-fi thrillers on the edge of their seats. From SoCal to Cheyenne Mountain and on to Florida, Cuba, and what remains of the Russian Federation, Penny’s adventures are full of mystery, thrills, and suspense. This novel will be available at most online retailers (but not Amazon!) and at most library and lending services. For your consideration and enjoyment: The end of Penny’s post-apocalyptic adventures.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

The Hobbit. J. R. R. Tolkien, author (1957). “What?” you say. “I come here to read reviews about new books, not old ones. I can just see the damn movie!” A fair complaint, I suppose, but any reader of this blog who might say such a thing doesn’t write the articles for this blog! And while I greatly enjoyed the three Lord of the Rings movies, I read the corresponding books as a kid. (Much better reads than that Harry Potter crap, of course.) But I didn’t read The Hobbit, which is like Asimov’s Prelude to Foundation relative to his Foundation trilogy, i.e., this book is the prelude to the Rings trilogy. (By the way, that trilogy was just one epic novel that Tolkien divided into three for publication.) So, if I ever see The Hobbit movie (a big “if”), I’m better prepared to critique what Hollywood does with it.

As many of you know, this is the story of not Frodo but Bilbo Baggins, the little hobbit whom Gandalf the wizard forces upon the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield and his dwarf buddies to serve as their aide and moral rock on their quest to reclaim their riches guarded by the evil and murderous dragon Smaug. The reader will meet many more creatures from Middle-earth in addition to the dwarves and hobbits: goblins (where Bilbo steals the infamous ring from Gollum); elves (not always good guys and quite self-centered and smug at times); talking birds and wolves; and ordinary humans.

I couldn’t help making a comparison between Tolkien’s book and H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines. Of course, there are many stories about searches for lost treasure, old and new, and The Hobbit is both a weird and entertaining one. It has all the trappings of an adventure story, though—or a modern thriller!—but it’s fantasy, of course, one of the pioneering originals, better known than most, and better in quality than most everything else I’ve read.

Tolkien’s work, in fact, can provide lessons for any aspiring author. (See next week’s article for an unusual one.) None of his main characters are simple ones. Each one is as complicated as any real person might be. The settings are strange but well-described. The plot moves inexorably forward (although possibly a bit rushed toward the end?), and it’s mostly in the POV of the hobbit, alternating between action and introspective reflection for him and among its characters. This is classic storytelling that should be studied in any MFA writing program worth its salt.

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Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape. I don’t write a lot of fluff (and could never compete with Tolkien writing fantasy, or many other authors either, for that matter), so I don’t have any fantasy novels. But this collection of short fiction contains some stories that could be called fantasy—ghosts in a Massachusetts town, a zombie chasing a time traveler, a dog take over by an ET, and so forth—so you might want to have some reading fun with it. In contrast to other books, it’s only available on Amazon (it’s the other way around with my recently published books!). Note: The other volumes in this series of short fiction collections are even less expensive—they’re free. (See the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page for a list of all my free downloadable PDFs.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Confidence Man. Maggie Haberman, author (2022). Unlike other books about Donald J. Trump and his MAGA fascism, this one is more of a standard biography. We see the making of a sociopathic leader who led an unsuccessful coup against the US government on January 6, 2021. Unfortunately, he’s not unique because there are many others now on America’s far right and they could accomplish what he set out to do: Turn the USA into the FSA, the Fascist States of America. In fact, he might return in 2024 to lead MAGA maggots on.

Like many pundits and analysts studying the extreme right-wing of the Good Ole Piranhas, Ms. Haberman is afraid to use the words fascist and fascism. I’m not, and I challenge any intelligent person to read this book and not see the parallels with 1930s Germany and the rise of the Nazi party. Germany’s fascism wasn’t the creation of Hitler; America’s is not the creation of Trump. They’re both just examples of two charismatic and narcissistic leaders’ abilities to brainwash millions of citizens and turn them into lemmings who follow them over the cliffs into the abyss of fascism.

But this is a book review, so let’s get some technical details out of the way first. This book is badly edited—you can tell it was hastily put together. The publisher, Penguin Press, did Ms. Haberman no favors. This applies to content-editing as well as copy-editing. And I understand the intention of the front and back images on the flyleaf cover: They wanted to state in images that the biopic considers all of DJT’s life from his time as a spoiled yet tortured brat in the household of a sociopathic father (a mental illness DJT also suffers from, according to many mental health professionals, including his own niece) to the incompetent businessman and fanatical, narcissistic, and paranoid fascist. But the back pic and its sentence (see below) would have been better on the front.

With the chaos DJT has created and is still creating, it’s of course difficult to content-edit and maintain a more rational feel in a book about him. A man who can go from one topic to another in minutes and rarely seems focused was always a real challenge for anyone trying to “manage him,” as the huge turnover in his administration indicated. That chaos is also any challenge for any biographer too, so the majority of pages in this tome are roller-coaster rides, a whacka-mole reading experience.

More disconcerting for me, though, were the copy-editing errors that often interrupted my reading when I would need to stop and say “Huh?” until I figured out what was meant. I shan’t blame the author for all of these errors—she’s an accomplished journalist and probably a better writer than anyone in Penguin’s editorial staff—so I blame the latter. At the retail price of $32 as indicated on that flyleaf cover, Penguin will make a killing with this book everyone’s been waiting for, so they should have delivered a more polished product. (Unfortunately, this critique is all too applicable to traditionally published works today, especially from the Big Five publishing conglomerates that are anxious to make their money as fast as possible.)

Still, the reader has here a well documented portrayal of the man who is out to destroy American democracy. You see here no positives about Trump or his rabid MAGA maggot followers, or inept and chaotic administration, or his wild and incoherent policies—only negatives. It is indeed “…the book that Trump fears most” because it portrays the most dangerous person American government has ever known while being at the same time the most moronic one.

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