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A clever and twisty new thriller from Nordic Noir master Jo Nesbo

Carl Opgard is the King of Os, a village of a thousand souls in the Norwegian mountains. He owns the Michelin-starred hotel and spa that dominates the community. And his older brother, Roy, isn’t doing so badly, either. He owns the gas station and convenience store, an auto-repair garage, and other local properties. But what really sets the brothers off from their neighbors is that, between them, they’ve committed seven murders over the course of 18 years. And the local sheriff, Kurt Olson, is obsessed with proving that Roy killed one of them, his father, the previous sheriff. But if that isn’t enough to threaten the Opgard brothers, the government is planning to build a tunnel that will bypass Os and immediately lower the value of all their property. So it goes at the outset in Jo Nesbø’s masterful new Nordic thriller, Blood Ties.

A clever serial killer narrates this tale

Few mystery writers display more insight into the minds of serial killers than Jo Nesbø. Most of his 30 novels involve people who have killed again and again, and it’s no accident that they’ve sold so well. His characters are credible. And in Roy Opgard, who narrates Blood Ties, he’s reached a new height. Roy is brilliant, never without a clever stratagem to wriggle out of a tight spot. In his cat-and-mouse game with the sheriff, it’s never clear who’s the cat, and who the mouse. And, meanwhile, resourceful that he is, Roy’s got a solution for the diversion of the highway. He’s going to bribe the engineers whose report approved the tunnel construction. A few changes in their report will set things straight. Or so it seems.

Blood Ties by Jo Nesbø (2025 423 pages ★★★★★A Norwegian mountain village somewhat like Os in Jo Nesbø’s novel. Image: Cameron Hewitt – Rick Steves EuropeComplication piles on complication

To complicate matters further, the relationship between the brothers is tense at best. Roy had carried on an affair with Carl’s wife, Shannon. It lasted until Carl discovered she was pregnant with somebody else’s child, and in a rage he killed her. Roy was forced to help him get rid of the body. Now, years later, Roy has begun an affair with Natalie, a woman half his age whom Roy hired to do marketing for the spa. He’s deeply in love with her. But that relationship isn’t simple, either. Natalie’s father had sexually abused her for years until Roy beat him nearly to death, forcing him to swear off his daughter. Never a dull moment in the lives of the Opgard brothers.

Meanwhile, Roy’s clever scheme to bribe the tunnel’s engineers is turning complicated, too. One of the two partners in the engineering firm has decided belatedly that he won’t settle for the generous payment Roy offered. He’s threatened to hold a press conference to expose the bribery. And if he does the sheriff will have yet another opening to investigate the Opgard brothers. Will this mean Roy has to commit yet another murder?

About the authorJo Nesbo. Image: IMDb

Wikipedia introduces Jo Nesbø as follows: “Jon ‘Jo’ Nesbø (born 29 March 1960) is a Norwegian novelist, musician, and former stockbroker, football reporter and player. His books had sold over 50 million copies worldwide by 2021, making him the most successful Norwegian author to date.” He is the author of 30 novels as of 2025, including 13 in his bestselling Harry Hole series.

Amazon reveals other interesting details: “Before becoming a crime writer, Nesbø played football for Norway’s premier league team Molde, but his dream of playing professionally for Spurs was dashed when he tore ligaments in his knee at the age of eighteen. After three years military service he attended business school and formed the band Di derre (‘Them There’). They topped the charts in Norway, but Nesbo continued working as a financial analyst, crunching numbers during the day and gigging at night. When commissioned by a publisher to write a memoir about life on the road with his band, he instead came up with the plot for his first Harry Hole crime novel, The Bat.”

For related reading

You’ll find my reviews of many more of the books in this series at The outstanding Harry Hole thrillers from Jo Nesbo.

I have also reviewed five other standalone thrillers by the author of the Harry Hole thrillers. You’ll find them at:

A standalone thriller from Jo Nesbø set in rural NorwayFrom Jo Nesbø, murder above the Arctic CircleThe most recent Jo Nesbø novel is a winnerJo Nesbø: outstanding Scandinavian noirAnother suspenseful crime novel from Jo Nesbø

You’ll see many other great crime novels at:

Top 10 mystery and thriller series20 excellent standalone mysteries and thrillers30 outstanding detective series from around the worldTop 20 suspenseful detective novelsTop 10 historical mysteries and thrillers

And you can always find the most popular of my 2,300 reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.

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How Joe Biden’s family and aides covered up his steady decline

Close observers could see signs of President Joe Biden’s physical and neurological decline even before he took office in January 2021. But, as journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson detail in their explosive new book, Original Sin, “what was going on in private was worse.” Far worse, as even a cursory reading of their book makes clear. But equally troubling was the way a small circle of his family and closest advisors covered up Biden’s decline. The detail Tapper and Thompson reveal is shocking. And they make clear that the tight circle around President Biden enabled, even encouraged his stubborn insistence on running for a second term until it was too late. They did so believing against all available evidence that only the president could beat Donald Trump in 2024. Which just goes to show that they were as much in denial as he was.

The crux of the matter

One of the more than 200 people Tapper and Thompson interviewed gets to the heart of the issue. “’The presidency is about two things: making decisions and communicating those decisions to the American people,’ one senior administration official who worked closely with Biden told us. ‘The president’s decisions were always solid and deeply considered. But the second part of that—communicating those decisions—that was never easy for him throughout his presidency, and in fact it got worse.’” The problem the Democratic Party faced was that, however well Joe Biden performed as a decision-maker—though it’s debatable, the authors never question that—he was incapable of mounting a credible campaign against a man who also bore the title of president.

Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (2025) 348 pages ★★★★★President Joe Biden. Image: Lillis Schnell The family and “the Politburo”

Close observers of the White House used a number of names to describe the tight circle around President Biden. Tapper and Thompson consistently employ the term “the Politburo.” Its members included:

Mike Donilon, Senior Advisor to the President, who “was the actual political director” regardless of his title;Steve Ricchetti, Counselor to the President, who controlled Legislative Affairs;Bruce Reed, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, who “was the real domestic policy adviser;” andRon Klain, Chief of Staff from 2021 to 2023, who “remained close to Biden even after exiting the role,” according to the New York Times.

These four men, all with long histories of working with Biden, formed the core of the Politburo. But others played instrumental roles in the cover-up, and the Times includes them in its list of the group’s members:

Anthony Bernal, a senior adviser to First Lady Jill Biden;Annie Tomasini, White House Deputy Chief of Staff;First Lady Jill Biden;Hunter Biden, the President’s sole surviving son; andVice President Kamala Harris.

Tapper and Thompson also cite others, but these nine people—and the President himself—were the primary actors. Meanwhile, they write, “Others on the White House staff thought the continued campaign was a catastrophe.”

Oh, just in case you’re wondering (as I did), the authors explain the book’s title: “The original sin of Election 2024 was Biden’s decision to run for reelection—followed by aggressive efforts to hide his cognitive diminishment.”

Three crucial weeks

Fifty million people witnessed President Joe Biden’s decline in full flower on June 27, 2024. That was the night when he debated former President Donald Trump. Many observers, including top Democratic Party officials, felt the evidence was so strong that the only wise course after that disastrous performance was for the President to drop out of the reelection campaign—or even to resign, ceding the office to Vice President Harris. (That would give her a leg up in a race against Donald Trump.)

Of course, the President didn’t take himself out of the running until July 21, more than three weeks later. And that came only after his friends outside the White House managed to penetrate the wall of denial the Politburo had thrown up around him. In Original Sin, Tapper and Thompson focus on those three crucial weeks, detailing the course of events as they unfolded day by day. It’s a deeply troubling account—and overdue.

About the authorsJake Tapper. Image: Philip Romano – Wikipedia

Jake Tapper is the lead Washington anchor for CNN and has won numerous awards as a journalist. He is the author of six books, including three nonfiction and a series of three murder mysteries. Tapper was born in New York City in 1969 and educated at Dartmouth College. He is married and the father of two children.

Alex Thompson. Image: Masters of Scale

Journalist Alex Thompson is a National Political Correspondent at Axios. He was previously a political analyst at CNN and a White House correspondent for Politico. Thompson was educated at Harvard. He lives in Washington, DC.

For related reading

You’ll find related books at:

Top 10 nonfiction books about politicsTop 20 popular books for understanding American historyTop nonfiction books about national security

And you can always find the most popular of my 2,300 reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.

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About all that Chinese art that disappeared from museums

Between 2010 and 2015, dozens of items of precious Chinese art and antiquities disappeared from European museums. They were among the estimated ten million artifacts stolen from China during its century of humiliation from the first Opium War (1839–42) through the Japanese invasion of mainland China (1931–45). Despite intensive and protracted investigations involving the FBI, Interpol, and European police, the Great Chinese Art Heist remains unsolved. It’s the subject of Grace D. Li’s highly entertaining heist novel, Portrait of a Thief.

The thieves? Five college students.

Li’s story revolves around the five overachieving Chinese American college students recruited for the caper. Their charge is to steal back five priceless items plundered by foreign troops in 1860 when they sacked and burned the Old Summer Place in what was then called Peking. The artifacts are sculptures of the five signs of the zodiac missing from those in Chinese museums. A billionaire Chinese tech entrepreneur offers them $50 million to return the items to her. And that’s an offer none of the students can afford to refuse.

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li (2022) 384 pages ★★★★★Objects stolen in April 2012 from the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University. Image: Cultural Property NewsFive compelling children of immigrants

All five students are children or grandchildren of immigrants. But they represent great diversity within the Chinese diaspora, living in far-flung cities around the country, growing up in varying socioeconomic circumstances, and possessing sharply contrasting views of their parents’ homeland.

Will Chen is a fourth-year art history student at Harvard. He’s the point of contact with the billionaire in Beijing, the mastermind of the heist.Will’s younger sister, Irene Chen, is a junior studying public policy at Duke. The two have a complicated history in which she has sometimes saved him from the consequences of impulsive actions.Irene’s roommate, Lily Wu, is a mechanical engineering major, also a junior at Duke. She’s from a struggling immigrant family in Galveston, Texas, where she had established herself as an almost unbeatable street racer. She will drive the getaway car. Alex Huang is an MIT dropout with a job as a coder at Google. Her parents in New York’s Chinatown run a successful restaurant founded by her grandparents. But the sign-on bonus at Google was more than her parents made in a year. She and Will had met on Tinder and had had two dates but would never date again. Daniel Liang is the only totally Chinese member of the team. He had been born in Beijing and spoke the language well. He had, however, renounced his Chinese citizenship out of fear that it would make his acceptance into medical school more difficult. He’s a pre-med student at UCLA. Daniel had grown up virtually a brother to Irene and Will Chen. His mother had died early, and his father was often absent on long work trips.

In fact, Daniel’s father plays a central role in the story. He is an FBI agent, the bureau’s only Chinese art theft expert. Those trips he takes are often to Europe to investigate thefts of ancient Chinese artifacts.

Don’t expect a replay of Ocean’s Eleven

A less artful writer than Grace D. Li might have simply taken the essence of Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels and translated it into a series of latter-day heists in museums rather than casinos. But Portrait of a Thief is nothing of the sort. It’s full of surprises which are far more than clever devices to drive the plot along. And this novel delves deeply into the intimate relationships among the five young thieves. It also explores their varying feelings about their relationships to China. In the final analysis, however, Portrait is a clever and suspenseful example of a heist novel.

About the authorGrace D. Li. Image: Yi Li – author’s website

According to her author’s website, Grace D. Li grew up in Pearland, Texas, and is a graduate of Duke University and Stanford School of Medicine. Her second novel is forthcoming. She is currently an emergency medicine resident physician at Harvard.

For related reading

For links to the nearly 90 reviews I’ve posted for other books in the category of “crime novels,” go here. This category typically excludes detective novels and historical fiction and deals with topics other than murder investigations.

You might also care to check out 20 excellent standalone mysteries and thrillers. But if the China connection in this novel interests you, go to 30 insightful books about China.

And you can always find the most popular of my 2,300 reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.

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A memoir by one of the greatest wits of the 20th century

Jessica Mitford was one of the greatest wits of the 20th century, and perhaps of any century. Her books, most famously The American Way of Death, eviscerated the American funeral industry, our prison system, and obstetrical care in the United States. But to those in Britain, where she was born in 1917, Mitford was best known for her first book, titled Hons and Rebels in the UK and Daughters and Rebels in the US. The book is a memoir of the first third of her life, covering the 1920s and 30s and the early years of World War II. She died in 1996 in Oakland, California, at the age of 78, having established herself as a civil rights activist as well as a celebrated bestselling author. But the memoir recounts the most interesting chapters of her life, when she was the “Red Sheep” among the notorious six Mitford sisters.

Seven unlikely offspring in one over-the-top family

Only in Britain can a family as eccentric and outrageous as the Mitfords have sprung into existence. The paterfamilias, David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, was such a parody of eccentric English minor nobility that he couldn’t possibly have been invented by any novelist, with the possible exception of P. G. Wodehouse. “Farve” to his seven children, and “Muv,” managed to create enough distance between themselves and their offspring that each of the girls developed a personality and a course in life that veered sharply from all the others.

The eldest, Nancy, became a novelist who wrote savage satirical novels about the family. Pamela spurned life in the city, remaining in the countryside nearly all her life. Still, she managed to produce scandals all her own through her marriage to a bisexual, six-times-married physician and then after her divorce as a companion to an Italian horsewoman. Diana first shacked up with and then married Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. She was a fascist all her life, denying the Holocaust and expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler.Unity outdid her older sister by going directly to the top, ingratiating herself with Hitler and his hangers-on. before the war. She attempted suicide in Munich after Germany’s declaration of war with Britain. But she succeeded only in incapacitating herself to the extent that she could no longer care for herself.Deborah married the son of a duke who became heir to the dukedom on his father’s death. She was one of the most prominent members of British society for decades. Brother Tom was a Nazi sympathizer who refused to fight against Germany. He died in action in the Pacific in 1945.

In Hons and Rebels, Jessica, known to one and all as Decca, the fifth of the six sisters, tells the hilarious tale of growing up in Oxfordshire in the midst of this menagerie.

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford (1960) 305 pages ★★★★☆Unity, Tom, Deborah, Diana, Jessica, Nancy, and Pamela Mitford at their ancestral home, Swinbrook House, in Oxfordshire, England, 1935. Image:Vanity FairDecca Mitford’s exotic life

Long before that, Decca renounced her privileged background while still a teenager. She then scandalized and upset the family by running away with Winston Churchill’s nephew, Esmond Romilly. Romilly was a romantic figure who had fought in the Spanish Civil War on behalf of the Republic. Decca had set her sights on him from afar after reading in the press of his exploits. The young man did manage to return to Spain briefly but as a journalist, not a fighter. The couple then moved to the United States, where they traveled and worked odd jobs. But he returned to England when war broke out and went missing in action on a bombing run over Nazi Germany in February 1941.

Decca Mitford was “the rarest of birds, an exotic creature,” as a San Francisco journalist wrote after she died. Her life was as off-center as any of her siblings’s. From an early age, she became enamored with Communism. She considered herself a socialist all her life, although she didn’t join the Party until 1943 when she married her second husband, attorney Robert Treuhaft, in Oakland. (Decca became an American citizen in 1944.) The couple both resigned from the Party in 1958 in the wake of Nikita Khruschchev’s “Secret Speech” exposing Stalin’s (but not his own) crimes.

Hons and Rebels, which appeared in 1960, was the first of Decca’s 12 books, the last in 1998, two years after her death. Only two of her four children survived her.

About the authorJessica (Decca) Mitford outside her Oakland home as I knew her slightly then. Image: Britannica

Jessica Mitford died at the age of 78 in 1996. She was then a resident of Oakland, California, practically a neighbor of mine, and I was privileged to know her slightly. I had driven her across the Bay to speak at a breakfast salon I had helped set up in San Francisco in the 1970s, and we spoke at length then. She was just as funny in person as in her books. Decca, as she was known to everyone acquainted with her, was the author of 12 books, two of which appeared posthumously. Hons and Rebels was her first, followed in 1963 by The American Way of Death, which was a runaway bestseller and remained her best-known work for the rest of her life.

For related reading

This excellent novel casts more light on the notorious Mitfords: The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict (Blundering through the 1930s with the notorious Mitford sisters).

In the following posts you’ll find similar books and others that cast light on some of what Jessica Mitford writes:

Two dozen excellent memoirs12 great biographies10 top nonfiction books about World War II

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page. I’ve posted more than 2,300 book reviews on the site. And you can take your pick of four weekly newsletters I send to subscribers. But don’t worry. It’s all ad-free. I don’t share email addresses. And there are no charges.

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Paul Vidich launches a new series of compelling spy novels

When we first meet Alex Matthews, he is on an errand for his old friend, the CIA Director. Matthews had once served as Moscow Station Chief. Now, having left the Agency nine years earlier, he is in Moscow running an investment firm. But this night he is on his way to meet BYRON, a spy he’d recruited but last seen a decade ago. As he sets out from his hotel, he could not know that the operation would threaten his life, his freedom, his family, and his livelihood. It would also set off a hunt for a mole in the CIA and promise proof that the President of the United States had been compromised traveling as a private businessman in Moscow. This is the setup in The Poet’s Game, Paul Vidich’s outstanding seventh novel of espionage, as we follow Alex Matthews as a spy in Moscow.

A former high-ranking CIA spy is back in action

Alex Matthews thinks of himself as “an ordinary middle-aged man.” He’s nothing of the sort. Matthews is a brilliant performer as CIA Station Chief and a world-class success as a contrarian investor. And everyone around him envies him his private life. He’s the father of a fourteen-year-old son and recently married a beautiful younger woman whom the boy is coming to accept. And though he created some resentment by leaving the Agency, he maintains a close set of friends who are still on the job there, including his wife, Anna Kuschenko. They’re all in senior positions within the CIA—and all will be caught up in the hunt for the mole who blew that operation in Moscow, aborting Matthews’s mission to meet BYRON.

The Poet’s Game: A Spy in Moscow (Alex Matthews #1) by Paul Vidich (2025) 336 pages ★★★★★Red Square, Moscow, includes two of Russia’s most familiar images: the Kremlin to the left, St. Basil’s Cathedral to the right. Image: National GeographicSpy novels grounded in CIA history

In a half dozen previous spy novels, Vidich built his plots around prominent events or characters in CIA history. Markus Wolf, the Stasi head of counterintelligence, for example. William Morgan, soldier of fortune executed by Castro. James Kronthal, aide to Allen Dulles, who committed suicide to save the agency from the embarrassment of his Soviet betrayal. and Frank Olson, a murdered bioweapons scientist in the notorious MK-ULTRA LSD scandal. They’re all set in the Agency’s past. Now, in The Poet’s Game, he has shifted the timetable to the current era, setting the story midway through the first Trump Administration. Once again, he has centered the tale around a matter well covered in the news media: the debate over claims that the KGB had gathered evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Donald Trump that made him vulnerable to blackmail by the Kremlin.

Kompromat on the President is the central plot device

InThe Poet’s Game, BYRON promises to deliver proof that Vladimir Putin possesses kompromat on the man in the Oval Office and has, as a consequence, become a Russian asset. Is he? Most of Vidich’s characters believe he is. And that belief drives the sense of urgency behind their efforts to exfiltrate BYRON from the clutches of the criminal Russian regime. But is it true? What will we learn in the end when BYRON reveals what he’s promised? Be prepared to be surprised as The Poet’s Game rushes toward its shocking end.

About the authorPaul Vidich. Image: author’s website

The Poet’s Game is Paul Vidich‘s seventh spy novel and the first set in the current era. Prior to turning to writing, Vidich had a distinguished career in music and media at Time Warner, AOL, and Warner Music Group, where he was Executive Vice President in charge of global digital strategy. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Vidich lives in Manhattan with his wife. They have children and grandchildren.

For related reading

You’ll find all of Paul Vidich’s historical spy novels at A newcomer who writes superb spy novels. The Poet’s Game is the first set in the current era. It’s also the first that introduces what is obviously a continuing series character.

Be sure to check out Red Notice: A True Story of High Finaunce, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder (A true story of high finance and murder in Putin’s Russia). It’s one of the books on which Vidich based his account of Alex Matthews’s experience running an investment firm in contemporary Russia.

You’ll find other great reading at:

The best spy novelists writing todayThe 15 best espionage novelsGood nonfiction books about espionageBest books about the CIA

And you can always find the most popular of my 2,300 reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.

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A Buddhist homicide detective in an over-the-top murder mystery

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Start with a devout Buddhist detective in Bangkok named Sonchai Jitpleecheep. He’s half-American, half-Thai, the son of a prostitute now retired to running a red light district bordello.

Add a rich and famous Hollywood director murdered in a perverted and mysterious manner. Then a Chinese-Thai high society lady with an Oxford doctorate in pharmacology who presides over the Thai branch of a centuries-old Chinese criminal society. Also, the police colonel and Army general who are (respectively) Thailand’s biggest and second-biggest heroin traffickers, and a powerful Tibetan Buddhist mystic who is leading the Tibetan resistance to China. Then pile on Sonchai’s sensitive transgender sidekick and assorted other uniquely complex characters.

Now, here’s what you’ve got:

(1) The fourth in John Burdett’s Bangkok cycle featuring Buddhist homicide detective Jitpleecheep and his criminal boss, Colonel Vikorn;

(2) a story so convoluted and perverse that your head will spin; and

(3) an over-the-top crime story unlike any other you will ever read.

The Godfather of Kathmandu (Sonchai Jitpleecheep #4) by John Burdett (2010) 321 pages ★★★☆☆Bangkok today is a bustling modern city of 11 million at its core. But most of its people live in squalid quarters far from the soaring towers of its downtown. Image: KittikornNot up to the level of Burdett’s earlier work

And in the list above, (3) is the problem. Burdett’s first book in the cycle, Bangkok 8, introducing Detective Jitpleecheep, was enthralling from start to finish. The detective’s struggle to remain honest in the midst of unbridled corruption, the complexities and contradictions of his life, the tug and pull of his Buddhist beliefs, and the extraordinary murder he set out to solve—all contributed to a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience. The second book in the series, Bangkok Tattoo, was almost as good; the third, Bangkok Haunts, not so much. The Godfather of Kathmandu, unlike its predecessors, contained puzzles within puzzles and was much harder to follow. Still rewarding, and worth reading to the end. Just not up to the quality of Burdett’s earlier work.

About the authorJohn Burdett. Image: YouTube

John Burdett is the author of the six novels in the bestselling Sonchai Jitpleecheep series (2003-15) and four other books, the most recent of which appeared in 2017. He was born in London, England, the son of a policeman, and became a lawyer with a practice in Hong Kong. For many years he split his time between southwestern France and Bangkok.

For related reading

I’ve also reviewed Vulture Peak (Sonchai Jitpleecheep #5)—Organ trafficking, prostitution, and drugs in the underbelly of Asian society.

This series is included in The best mystery series set in Asia.

You might also enjoy my posts:

Top 10 mystery and thriller series20 excellent standalone mysteries and thrillers30 outstanding detective series from around the worldTop 20 suspenseful detective novelsTop 10 historical mysteries and thrillersThe best police procedurals

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page. I’ve posted more than 2,300 book reviews on the site. And you can take your pick of four weekly newsletters I send to subscribers. But don’t worry. It’s all ad-free. I don’t share email addresses. And there are no charges. 

The post A Buddhist homicide detective in an over-the-top murder mystery appeared first on Mal Warwick on Books: Insightful Reviews and Recommendations.

The amazing story of how George S. Patton won the Battle of the Bulge

Famous generals proliferate in American history. After all, ours is a story of conquest and almost unceasing warfare from the earliest days of European settlement on the North American continent well into the 21st century. The names of George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower dominate critical events in our history. But few, if any, conjure up the awe and respect General George S. Patton commands even eight decades after he fought his greatest battle. Now, in Patton’s Prayer, a new Patton biography, British historian and journalist Alex Kershaw tells the jaw-dropping story of Patton’s leadership in what history knows as the Battle of the Bulge. It was Hitler’s last gasp, probably doomed to failure even before it started. But it required superhuman effort by the man often identified as America’s most aggressive and winningest general.

Unsurpassed courage in a titanic battle

The Battle of the Bulge was a titanic affair. Patton alone commanded some 350,000 men in his Third Army. And, as Kershaw notes, “In all, the US Army suffered seventy-five thousand casualties with nineteen thousand men lost in the fighting in the Ardennes, making the battle the deadliest for the US in World War II.” Arrayed against Patton’s men were some 300,000 German troops. One hundred twenty thousand of them ended up killed, wounded, or missing during the battle.

To achieve this thousands of Patton’s troops displayed courage far beyond the call of duty, with 21 Medals of Honor awarded for conspicuous bravery during the battle. And Patton himself repeatedly risked his life to visit his troops at the front. Yet he and many of the men under his command ascribed the victory to the eponymous prayer he had distributed throughout the Third Army. That prayer called for better weather, so the Army’s 8th and 9th Air Forces could provide support from above. And the weather did in fact begin to break on Christmas Eve, the ninth day of the battle.

Patton’s Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II by Alex Kershaw (2024) 362 pages ★★★★★Tanks like this one of the US 4th Armored Division crossed forbidding terrain for days to reach the embattled troops at Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge. Image: Warfare History NetworkDid George Patton deserve his reputation?

Abbreviated or casual histories of World War II typically leave readers with two impressions of General Patton. First, that he was Ike’s winningest general, universally feared by the German generals who opposed him in battle. He was the “most feared general on all fronts,” as Kershaw reports. And, second, that he was cruel to the troops under his command, as illustrated by his having slapped two soldiers hospitalized for battle fatigue in Sicily in August 1943. In a furious response, Eisenhower sidelined him from combat until after the early stages of the Normandy invasion.

He was, indeed, the “most feared general on all fronts.”

The first of these impressions is indisputable. Patton was, without question, the most aggressive and skillful of the senior US Army generals during the war. It’s no accident that he began his drive from the beachhead of Normandy to the far reaches of Germany with 250,000 men under his command in the Third Army. He ended the war less than a year later leading a half million troops in 39 divisions. And the men he led often paid the price for his aggression.

“Patton’s Third Army had been in action for nine months and ninety-eight days,” Kershaw writes, “suffering some hundred sixty thousand casualties with more than twenty-seven thousand killed. Almost twenty thousand men were missing in action at war’s end.” But he never lost a battle. And, despite repeated attempts by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to drive into Germany ahead of Patton, he failed again and again while Patton succeeded.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, he showed compassion and concern for hospitalized men

By contrast, the second element of Patton’s enduring reputation is misleading. It’s true, of course, that Patton refused to believe that shell shock or battle fatigue was anything but malingering, and that did indeed lead him to slap those two soldiers in the Sicily campaign. But Kershaw forcefully insists that “in fact Patton most often showed his deep compassion and concern for his men when he encountered them in hospitals.” He repeatedly risked his life to visit troops on the front lines, and his men loved him for it.

During the first phase of the Battle of the Bulge (December 16-25), some 200,000 German troops drove through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg, pushing deep into Allied-held territory. Then elements of George Patton’s 350,000-strong Third Army rushed northward to relieve the strategically located Belgian town of Bastogne. There, the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division was holding out against the Nazi onslaught at a frightful cost. Image: Wikipedia Patton’s faith has been overlooked

Alex Kershaw succeeds in Patton’s Prayer to convey a balanced picture of George Patton, and the book’s title suggests a long-overlooked aspect of the man’s makeup: his deep religious faith. He firmly believed that his God had favored him in response to a prayer for a break in the weather. Patton had that prayer, drafted by the Third Army’s chief chaplain, printed and distributed to every soldier in the army. And “[e]verywhere he went,” an investigator at the end of the war noted, “he found men in Patton’s Third Army who ‘believed—firmly believed—that God’ had answered Patton’s prayer.” Men in battle turn to religion more readily than they do in peacetime. So, doubtless, that prayer did in fact help boost morale and confidence in his troops. The upshot is that no one can truly understand George Patton without an appreciation for his faith.

About the authorAlex Kershaw. Image: author’s website

British journalist and public speaker Alex Kershaw is the author of a dozen nonfiction books, ten of which are about World War II. Many, including Patton’s Prayer, have been bestsellers. Kershaw was born in York, England, in 1966 and studied politics, philosophy and economics at University College, Oxford, and taught history for a time before turning to work as a journalist at The Guardian, The Independent and The Sunday Times.

For related reading

I’ve also reviewed the author’s earlier book, Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family’s Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Europe (A revealing account of life under the Nazis in occupied Europe).

Was the Battle of the Bulge one of the most significant events of WWII? Find out at The 10 most consequential events of World War II.

You might also enjoy:

10 top nonfiction books about World War II7 common misconceptions about World War IITop 20 popular books for understanding American history

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.

The post The amazing story of how George S. Patton won the Battle of the Bulge appeared first on Mal Warwick on Books: Insightful Reviews and Recommendations.

Is the bishop the killer in this African murder mystery?

The title of this African whodunit implies it. The cover illustration for my Kindle edition of Death by His Grace underlines the hint. And there’s a lot of evidence to suggest it. But is it true? Is multimillionaire Bishop Clem Howard-Mills of the Power of God Ministry Church the heartless killer who took a machete or a knife and carved up beautiful young Katherine Vanderpuye in her home? Chief Inspector Darko Dawson of the Ghana Police Service is under a lot of pressure to solve the murder. But the bishop is powerful and well-connected politically. So he’d better be on solid ground if he’s going to level a charge against the man. And, in fact, there are several other suspects, including Katherine”s husband, Solomon Vanderpuye, her mother-in-law, two of the bishop’s assistants, a mentally ill man seen watching the house the night of the murder, and the ex-boyfriend who’s helping her sue her husband for stealing their house from under her.

Bible-toting Christians don’t come off well here

In this, the last of the five novels in the Darko Dawson series, Ghanaian-American author Kwei Quartey departs from his pattern of engaging the inspector in a story heavy with police procedures. Instead, Dawson goes solo, and the result is disappointing. Of course, as he has done in the four novels that precede Death By His Grace in the series, he uses the opportunity to expose the ugly underbelly of Ghanaian society. The evangelical movement comes off poorly here, and there’s little doubt the picture reflects reality. Quartey is intimately familiar with life in contemporary Ghana. But in the earlier Darko Dawson novels, he did a better job constructing an inherently interesting mystery rather than an old-style whodunit.

Death by His Grace (Darko Dawson #5 of 5) by Kwei Quartey (2017) 273 pages ★★★☆☆Prayer service underway at a pentecostal megachurch in Accra, Ghana, like the one featured in this novel. Image: Suave’s TakeA whodunit that ends with big surprises

The story begins on a note of hope, as do so many things in our lives. “Katherine would never forget the day she married Solomon,” Quartey writes. “The wedding was immense, glorious, and the talk of Accra. Solomon’s father, Ezekiel Vanderpuye, a wealthy ex-member of parliament, spared no expense.” And for a time the marriage flourished despite continuous backbiting from Solomon’s mother and sister, who felt he had married beneath his class. At length it became clear that Katherine was incapable of giving birth to the child they demanded. (She suffered from an obstetric syndrome that prevented it.) But Georgina and Maude stepped up the pressure on her, rejecting the scientific explanation. Eventually, their charges that Katherine was a witch who was deliberately failing to give birth led to Solomon rejecting her and moving out of the house.

Then, one night weeks later, as the conflict separating the couple continued heating up, someone murders the poor young woman. And Chief Inspector Dawson faces pressure not just from his superiors but from his wife as well to solve the crime in short order. (She’s a cousin of the murdered woman and was close to her.) And virtually everyone wants to pin the crime on that mentally ill man seen in the neighborhood. But the inspector finds the evidence weak. And he gradually becomes convinced that Bishop Howard-Mills is the culprit. But is he? What will the investigation turn up?

Be advised: the identity of the murderer is not the only big surprise at the end of this novel.

About the authorKwei Quartey. Image: Amazon

Kwei Quartey is a retired Ghanaian-American physician who writes detective fiction set in his native Ghana. He has published 10 novels to date. Quartey lives in Pasadena, California, and has resided in the region since 1990. He was born in Accra, Ghana, to a Ghanaian father and a Black American mother, both university lecturers. He began training as a physician at the University of Ghana Medical School, completing his work toward the MD degree at Howard University in Washington, DC. Quartey is gay, as he reveals in his most recent novel, The Whitewashed Tombs.

For related reading

You’ll also find reviews here for the first four of the five books in Darko Dawson police procedural series:

Wife of the Gods (A fetish priest, an herbal healer, and a murdered AIDS outreach worker)Children of the Street (An outstanding African police procedural)Murder at Cape Three Points (A captivating murder mystery set in Ghana)Gold of Our Fathers (Chinese illegally mine gold in Ghana)

I’ve also reviewed the first four books in the later Emma Djan series:

The Missing American (A nitty-gritty view of Ghana today in this inventive detective novel)Sleep Well, My Lady (The truth lies undercover in this Ghana murder mystery)Last Seen in Lapaz (A missing woman, a murder, and a young PI)The Whitewashed Tombs (Anti-gay violence in West Africa erupts in this excellent mystery)

For other excellent mysteries and thrillers set in contemporary Africa, see:

The Death of Rex Nhongo by C. B. George – A satisfying thriller set in ZimbabweThe Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu – Zimbabwe through the eyes of a single motherMy Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite – Two Nigerian sisters and three murdersThe Night Ranger (John Wells #7) by Alex Berenson – An outstanding thriller set amid the refugee crisis in Kenya and Somalia

You might also enjoy my posts The best mysteries set in Africa, 30 outstanding detective series from around the world, and The best police procedurals.

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.

The post Is the bishop the killer in this African murder mystery? appeared first on Mal Warwick on Books: Insightful Reviews and Recommendations.

He has the worst job in the galaxy, and it’s killing him. Often.

So, here’s the problem. I picked up Mickey7 because it was an NPR Best book of 2022 and Amazon listed it as #5 in Humorous Science Fiction. Was I wrong to expect to laugh a lot? The premise has potential, because Mickey, the protagonist, volunteers for a job that requires him to die over and over again. The story moves along well enough. It’s even hard science fiction, which I always favor. The author, Edward Ashton, is a scientist. And Ashton has published several other novels, so he knows how to write a book. But I just. Didn’t. Laugh. Instead, the novel delivers on its premise: Mickey dies. Over and over again.

A disappointing story

Mickey7 could have been a much better book had Ashton done a lot more to develop the potential of the setting. Mickey is one of 198 men and women dispatched to colonize a new world in the Union. It’s a place called Niflheim, for unexplained reasons. And there they encounter creatures called creepers. Well, it will not surprise you to learn—it didn’t surprise me—that these creepers are sentient. So, the novel is, in reality, a First Contact story. But Ashton leaves that theme on the table. Contact between the colonists and the native sentients is limited, indeed. Not a likely story. And a disappointing one. That contact could have been very, very funny, with one misunderstanding compounding another.

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton (2022) 307 pages ★★★☆☆Does this centipede resemble the murderous “creepers” of the planet Niflheim in this novel? Read and find out. Image: Johnny B’s Pest Control It’s all one big thought experiment

Now, admittedly, I’m the odd man out in my reading of this novel. Critics loved it. They called it “inventive” (Publishers Weekly), “highly recommended” (Library Journal), “wildly entertaining” (Locus), and referred to its “wittiness and flair” (NPR). Many of them based their views of Mickey7 on Ashton’s supposedly serious exploration of identity and cloning. His inquiry into these themes revolves around the philosophical thought experiment “The Ship of Theseus.” It’s attributed to the philosopher Plutarch. The short of it is that the youth manning a Greek ship on a very long journey replace all the wood in the ship, plank by plank, as they all rot or wear out. The question is, then, whether they arrive in the same ship as the one they departed in. Now, philosophers love stuff like this. I don’t. It strikes me as mental masturbation. Enough said.

About the authorEdward Ashton. Image: author’s website

Edward Ashton has written five science fiction novels and a number of short stories. According to his website, “In his free time, he enjoys cancer research, teaching quantum physics to sullen graduate students, and whittling. . . He lives in upstate New York in a cabin in the woods . . . with his wife.”

For related reading

For better reading, check out:

The five best First Contact novelsThese novels won both Hugo and Nebula AwardsThe ultimate guide to the all-time best science fiction novelsThe top science fiction novelsThe top 10 dystopian novels10 new science fiction authors worth reading now

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page. I’ve posted more than 2,300 book reviews on the site. And you can take your pick of four weekly newsletters I send to subscribers. But don’t worry. It’s all ad-free. I don’t share email addresses. And there are no charges.

The post He has the worst job in the galaxy, and it’s killing him. Often. appeared first on Mal Warwick on Books: Insightful Reviews and Recommendations.

A hurricane, scam artists, a love story, and a homicidal water buffalo It’s Florida.

Welcome to the wild and wacky world of Carl Hiaasen. If anyone is better qualified to chronicle the madness unfolding in the state of Florida, I can’t think of who that might be. Hiaasen portrays the state as wracked by superstorms, shredded by misbegotten and unregulated development, and overrun with scam artists, drug traffickers, misguided tourists, and predatory invasive species both human and non. Of course, it’s all true, but Hiaasen has a lot of fun with it, and you will, too. It’s all out there in black and white in the pages of Stormy Weather, one of his earlier takedowns of the Sunshine State, with its wall-to-wall corruption.

A book you’ll like only if you like to laugh

Pick up any of Hiaasen’s 17 satirical adult novels, and you’ll find a sprawling cast of befuddled and self-seeking characters. The most prominent among them in Stormy Weather are a feral former Governor who lives on roadkill and insects in the swamps and a passel of assorted criminals. There’s a crooked housing inspector and the mobile home salesman who depends on him to forgive his failure to tie down the trailers he sells before an approaching hurricane. And a young woman obsessed with bagging a young Kennedy whom she can then accuse of rape. But that’s not all.

You’ll also meet a young tourist couple on a short-lived honeymoon. A Florida State Police officer who protects that deranged former governor from capture. Oh, and there’s also an indolent young man who inherits his late, drug-smuggling uncle’s menagerie of reptiles and endangered wildlife. Naturally, the animals escape into the wilds of Miami when a massive hurricane strikes. You’ll definitely consider your money well spent on this book if you like to laugh.

Stormy Weather (Skink #3 of 7) by Carl Hiaasen (1995) 450 pages ★★★★★A large trailer park in South Florida. If you imagine instead a strip of a half-dozen or a dozen mobile homes, this photo probably represents something closer to the place at the center of this hilarious novel. Image: The Real DealWhat happens in this book? Read it and laugh.

It’s impossible to summarize Stormy Weather, or any of Carl Hiaasen’s other novels, without explaining how all these disparate characters—and so many others!—come together in the story. It is, of course, silly to the core. But there’s a lot of hilarity between the covers of this book. If you enjoy satire, you’ll love Stormy Weather.

About the authorCarl Hiaasen. Image: Quinn Hiaasen – author’s website

Carl Hiaasen was born in 1953 in Fort Lauderdale and, except for a brief stint as a student at Emory University in Atlanta, has lived in Florida all his life. He has been writing satirical and often hilarious novels for adults and young people and an occasional nonfiction book since 1986. His work focuses on environmentalism and political corruption, and he has won numerous awards. He was also a columnist for the Miami Herald from 1985 until he retired in 2021. Hiaasen, a champion fly fisherman, is of Norwegian and Irish ancestry.

For related reading

I’ve reviewed three other novels in Hiaasen’s Skink series:

Double Whammy (Skink #1 of 7)—Carl Hiaasen introduces Florida’s feral one-eyed ex-GovernorStar Island (Skink #6 of 7)—Carl Hiaasen skeiwers celebritiesSkink: No Surrender (Skink #7 of 7)—Carl Hiaasen’s latest is disappointing

I’ve also reviewed seven other Hiaasen novels:

Lucky You—Carl Hiaasen on religious scam artists, Florida’s natural wonders, and the decline of local journalismBad Monkey—A severed arm, a detective on the roach patrol, and a bad monkeyBasket Case—Carl Hiaasen skewers newspaper publishers and rock musiciansSqueeze Me—A snake stars in Carl Hiaasen’s savage takedown of Donald TrumpSquirm—A new young adult novel from Carl Hiaasen that celebrates natureRazor Girl (Reality TV, African rodents, and the roach patrol)Chomp (Alligators, pythons, and vampires in the Everglades)

You might also be interested in My 17 favorite funny novels.

And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page. I’ve posted more than 2,300 book reviews on the site. And you can take your pick of four weekly newsletters I send to subscribers. But don’t worry. It’s all ad-free. I don’t share email addresses. And there are no charges.

The post A hurricane, scam artists, a love story, and a homicidal water buffalo It’s Florida. appeared first on Mal Warwick on Books: Insightful Reviews and Recommendations.