Rick Skwiot's Blog, page 3

Ben Macintyre on duplicity

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

British journalist Ben Macintyre’s absorbing new book A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal examines and exposes the human damage done in the real world by fanatical adherence to abstract dogma—in this case, communism and Soviet ideals. It continues Macintyre’s entertaining investigation of 20th century European espionage, following on the heels of Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat and Agent Zigzag—which the Boston Globe called “the best book ever written.” Ah, for blurbs like that.

Coming from a privileged British upbringing and Cambridge, Philby was born to rule. Despite his university days’ conversion to the communist cause and recruitment as a Soviet spy, he was readily accepted into the high ranks of the British intelligence service because most everyone there knew his family. In the 1940s and 50s he fed the Soviets information that enfeebled both British and American intelligence operations and cost hundreds of lives—not just intelligence operatives but also freedom fighters in Greece, Albania and elsewhere as Philby tipped off the Russians on their operations. Macintyre’s driving narrative of how Philby managed to pull the wool over the eyes of folks who should have known better makes this an engrossing read. An added bonus is a revealing afterword by John Le Carré on his interviews with one of the key players in this real-life drama of betrayal.

Fact mirrors fiction in St. Louis

Coincidentally and sadly, what’s going on these days in Ferguson, Missouri, mirrors some of the events of my forthcoming St. Louis mystery, Fail, including the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white cop. The book also deals with political corruption and educational malpractice that puts thousands of miseducated teen dropouts on the streets each year–not exclusive to my hometown.

FYI, below is a link to my publisher’s page for the novel, slated for an October 27 launch in St. Louis. You’ll find a précis and an excerpt if you scroll down…

http://blankslatepress.com/authors/ri...

Inside World War II Berlin

To get an idea what daily life under the Nazis might have been like in World War II Berlin, read Hans Fallada’s “Every Man Dies Alone.” The novel gives a gritty, intimate portrait of working-class home life, police scrutiny and the Hitlerian version of political correctness, where party membership and obeisance often made the difference between prosperity and poverty, “freedom” and incarceration, or life and death.

Called “the greatest book ever written about the German resistance to the Nazis” by Primo Levi, it was first published in 1947 just after the author died of a morphine overdose and first translated and published in English in 2009. Though lengthy (some 500 pages—I estimated about 200,000 words—which Fallada was said to have written in a mere 24 days!) it is a page-turner in an odd way—not to find out who done it (the Gestapo and the SS, of course)—but to see the compelling human drama played out to its end.

Based on the case of an actual Berlin couple, the novel argues for personal integrity and resistance to corruption.

Recommended: the novels of Robin Jenkins

Have you read Robin Jenkins? I made his acquaintance over the past few months, reading five of the late (1912-2005) Scottish novelist’s 30 some works: Fergus Lamont, Guests of War, The Cone-Gatherers, Poverty Castle, and A Very Scotch Affair.

I find his work psychologically deep and subtle; full of humanity, beautiful language, irony and cutting humor. His novels—which depict a cross-section of 20th century Scottish society, from slum dwellers to aristocrats, from workers to artists and educators—often contain characters struggling with difficult and complex moral choices.

Social-class conflicts, religion and hypocrisy frequently infect and fever his characters and his stories, which often convey an affecting warmth—though always with a hard edge. He draws both male and female characters convincingly, with a Dickensian richness but with more believability, i.e., less of the Dickensian melodrama. Redemption or damnation often hang within the grasp of his central characters, and Jenkins seldom tips his hand as to where the fruit may fall, producing a palpable tension.

I particularly recommend Fergus Lamont, a novel with social and historical sweep and moral scope. The Cone-Gatherers, perhaps his best known novel, is a compressed, seemingly allegorical tale based in part on his forestry work as a World War II conscientious objector. In Guests of War and Poverty Castle, both affecting family dramas, spirited women protagonists fuel the action.

Apparently of some renown in Scotland, Robin Jenkins deserves a larger audience in the U.S. and elsewhere.