Book Review: The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz

The Girl Who Lived Twice: A Lisbeth Salander Novel, Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series by David Lagercrantz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Two sisters, mirror opposites, have been on a collision course for years and now it comes to a head on either side of an investigation into an ill-fated Everest expedition. The Girl Who Lived Twice is the sixth book of the Millennium series and third by David Lagercrantz, sees the final confrontation between Lisbeth and Camilla after finding out the truth behind an incident on Mount Everest.

Lisbeth Salander attempts to kill her sister Camilla in Moscow, but can’t pull the trigger and goes to Copenhagen and gets into a relationship with a domestically abused woman while spying on her sister and helping in-a-slump Mikael Blomkvist investigate the death of a homeless man. Blomkvist’s investigation happens when a coroner calls him because the dead man has his phone number and Mikael learns the man accosted a female journalist spouting about the Swedish Defense Minister who is enduring a disinformation campaign from Russia. The homeless man turns out to be a Sherpa who was apart of an ill-fated expedition up Mount Everest that caught global attention because of the death of a socialite who was on it, but it turned out so was the Defense Minister before his political career. It turns out the Minister’s friend was working for the Russian mob and essentially killed the socialite for her American billionaire husband who is also connected with the mob and convinced the Sherpa to leave her and help the Minister off the mountain instead. The Sherpa feels guilty and after the death of his wife loses his mind and wants to tell the truth, but the Minister is convinced to get him out of Nepal to a asylum in Sweden but he later escapes and the Minister’s corrupt friend killed him then started blackmailing him resulting in him almost committing suicide but Blomkvist saves him. While Blomkvist is going to interview the Minister, he is abducted by Camilla and her associates to be tortured and get Lisbeth to them. Lisbeth now in Sweden, tracks them down, and confronts her sister who attempts to set Lisbeth on fire only to light herself up instead and kills herself because she is no longer beautiful. The Minister’s corrupt friend is arrested, Mikael’s new lover writes the article about the truth of the ill-fated expedition, and he learns of Lisbeth’s “help” at his stalled article.

While Lisbeth and Mikael are “featured” they aren’t the heart of the book, that goes to the characters created by Lagercrantz that are connected with the main plot of the mysterious Sherpa and an ill-fated Mount Everest expedition he was apart of along with the future Swedish Defense Minister and his friend as well the socialite that died on it. Throughout Lagercrantz’s books in the series, Lisbeth has been sidelined and Mikael has been “used” more but only for original characters to have the spotlight. If the Mount Everest plot had been a book not connected to the Millennium series, I might have really enjoyed it more. But this series is supposed to be about Lisbeth Salander and throughout the last three book it has not been. The “climactic” confrontation between Lisbeth and Camilla at the end, is so disappointing that the build up over the previous books was a waste as well. Frankly Lagercrantz’s Lisbeth is a pale imitation of Larrson’s Lisbeth thus making this and the previous two books a waste.

The Girl Who Lived Twice might be billed a Lisbeth Salander novel, but in fact she’s just a name so David Lagercrantz can sell books.

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Book Review: Behemoth, or The Long Parliament by Thomas Hobbes

Behemoth, or The Long Parliament by Thomas Hobbes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For supporters of Charles I and his son, the middle of the 17th Century was a hard time and in the aftermath of the Restoration was a time to show they were right. Behemoth is Thomas Hobbes’ history of the lead up to the English Civil War and the resulting Interregnum.

Covering roughly two decades of political, military, cultural, and religious upheaval within the frame of a dialogue, Thomas Hobbes uses the political framework written in Leviathan to analyze the breakdown of political order and how it was restored. The first and second section of the book concerns how Charles I strong political position was undermined by seven factions acting independently of one another and how the King’s attempts to combat one faction were used by other factions to represent tyranny against their own party eventually leading to a rupture and war between King and Parliament. The third section covered the civil war itself with neither side getting an advantage until the rise of Oliver Cromwell turned the tide for Parliament that eventually lead to the capture of the King and after political machinations from both sides, Charles is put on trial then executed. The last section highlights how Parliament had no idea how to replace the King and went from one solution to another all the while Cromwell continued to accumulate power until taking over the place of Charles in all but the title of King. However, after Cromwell’s death and weakness of his son’s leadership, General Monck uses his army to takeover the political situation and invite Charles II to take the throne.

While Hobbes uses the ideas in Leviathan to frame this history, it is essentially a Royalist view of the history of the 1640s and 1650s. Throughout the book the prime factor that Hobbes saw as being the instigator of Parliament’s position against the King wasn’t taxes, but religion more specifically Presbyterian minister preaching from the pulpit against the King so they could achieve leadership of the nation like John Calvin had done in Geneva. Though Hobbes did mention several other factors, his obsession on the religious aspect overawed everything else in this history which at times became too much.

Behemoth is ultimately a royalist history of events in the mid-17th Century. Thomas Hobbes shows the breakdown of political order when the sovereign’s position is challenged and usurped by those that have no right to it and the chaos that follows, but through his partisan lens.

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Book Review: Scorched Earth by George Galdorisi

Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Scorched Earth by George Galdorisi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After making a huge propaganda killing against the United States, a terrorist leader is incensed when a retaliatory strike hits too close to home and makes his war even more personal. Scorched Earth is the third book of the Op-Center reboot and the first exclusively by George Galdorisi as retired Admiral Chase Williams coordinates his Op-Center team in fighting the war on terror that has suddenly become personal on both sides.

General Bob Underwood—a special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL—is kidnapped after his security detail is massacred then hours later is beheaded on live television. American forces retaliate with a strike on Mosul resulting in the death of the ISIS leader's son, his father promises vengeance. A homegrown terrorist cell kidnaps the admiral who oversaw the strike on ISIS but are accidently foiled in their attempted to send him to Mosul to be killed and retreat to a hideaway in rural Maryland. Based off information that it’s Geek Team Op-Center’s SEAL team is sent to Iraq to investigate all the aircraft delivering to the city, but come up empty resulting in the Geek Team backtracking and the terrorist cell and finding their location in Maryland. Op-Center’s CIRG team locates the house and rescues the admiral while taking out half of the terror cell. Meanwhile the admiral’s son, a SEAL himself, believing the Navy fumbled the ball goes AWOL to Iraq with help from an old teammate and infiltrates the ISIS headquarters in Mosul but is captured. The SEAL team, with information from the Geek Team, with a contingent of Rangers rescues the prodigal son while shaming the ISIS leader.

Like the previous book this was quickly moving story was an engaging read from start to finish, especially the first two-thirds of the book when the kidnapping of the admiral was the main plot. However, once his son decided to go rogue the end of the book was relatively telegraphed paint-by-the numbers ending. Yet despite the “going rogue” cliché and the ISIS leader’s desire to “go live for the evening news”, the action was particularly good which made up a tad for the headshaking narrative turn. Overall Galdorisi’s solo effort was good and while I wish he would have avoided the stupid “going rogue” trope as it probably would have improved the book some, it did not ruin it.

Scorched Earth is a good military-political thriller and is George Galdorisi only solo effort in the reboot series, so far. While I did not like subplot that finished off the book, it did not make the book bad and throughout the action scenes were solid. Overall, this book is better than a vast majority of the original Op-Center run.

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Book Review: Inca Gold by Clive Cussler

Inca Gold by Clive Cussler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The vast amounts of gold the Inca possessed at the time of Pizarro is legendary, yet even as the Spaniards plundered the riches they began wondering if they had found everything. Inca Gold is the twelfth book in the Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler as the titular character and his ever faithful friend Al Giordino begin their adventure with going on a rescue mission in the Andes only to end up needing rescue at the end in the Sea of Cortez.

In 1532 a fleet of ships sails in secret to an island in the middle of an inland sea. There they hide a magnificent treasure vaster than that any Pharaoh would ever possess. Then they disappear, leaving only a great stone demon to guard their hoard. In 1578 the legendary Sir Francis Drake captures a Spanish galleon filled with Inca gold and silver and the key to the lost treasure, which includes a gigantic chain of gold, a masterpiece of ancient technology so huge that it requires two hundred men to lift it and a large pile of diamonds worth more than 200 billion dollars that belonged to the last Inca. As the galleon is sailed by Drake's crew back to England, an underwater earthquake causes a massive tidal wave that sweeps it into the jungle. Only one man survives to tell the tale. In 1998 a group of archaeologists is nearly drowned while diving into the depths of a sacrificial pool high in the Andes of Peru. They are saved by the timely arrival of the renowned scuba diving hero Dirk Pitt, who is in the area on a marine expedition. Pitt soon finds out that his life has been placed in jeopardy as well by smugglers intent on uncovering the lost ancient Incan treasure. Soon, he, his faithful companions, and Dr. Shannon Kelsey, a beautiful young archaeologist, are plunged into a vicious, no-holds-barred struggle to survive. From then on it becomes a battle of wits in a race against time and danger to find the golden chain, as Pitt finds himself caught up in a struggle with a sinister international family syndicate that deal in stolen works of art, the smuggling of ancient artifacts, and art forgery worth many millions of dollars. The clash between the art thieves, the FBI and the Customs Service, a tribe of local Indians, and Pitt, along with his friends from NUMA, two of whom are captured and threatened with execution, rushes toward a wild climax in a subterranean world of darkness and death – for the real key to the mystery, as it turns out, is a previously unknown, unexplored underground river that runs through the ancient treasure chamber.

This is the book that originally got me into the Dirk Pitt series—via audiobook—and over twenty years later it very much holds up as a fun adventure yarn that keeps the pages turning. While the book isn’t perfect for various factors, the first being that the “main” antagonist went from being clever conman that kills when necessary to a raging would-be killer in one scene in the middle of the book that was jarring especially since his main henchman was already a wanton murderer who took pleasure in it. Cussler switches with his female “lead” with Dr. Kelsey being replaced mid-book with Pitt’s on-off flame Loren Smith, but for once Smith is fully fleshed out and not giving off damsel-in-distress vibe like previous books. The main positive of the book is that all the subplots are not only intriguing but have good characters like Billy Yuma that tie into the main plot as the book reaches its climax.

Inca Gold is the book I personally feel that the Dirk Pitt series began hitting its stride at least what I remember from the late-90s to the mid-00s. Clive Cussler mixes characters, plot, and action to create a real page-turning adventure that will make you take a look around for more of his titular character.

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Book Review: Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Bleak House by Charles Dickens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are many curses that people place upon themselves and their descendants, some are the rest of their actions and others by their indecisions complicated by bureaucratic failures then sometimes it’s both. Charles Dickens shows the effects of both in his 1853 novel Bleak House not only on his main characters but also on secondary characters who are just unlucky to interaction with the afflicted persons.

Sir Leicester Dedlock and his wife Honoria live on his estate at Chesney Wold. Unknown to Sir Leicester, before she married, Lady Dedlock had a lover, Captain Hawdon, and had a daughter by him. Lady Dedlock believes her daughter is dead. The daughter, Esther Summerson, is in fact alive and is raised by Miss Barbary, Lady Dedlock's sister, who does not acknowledge their relationship. After Miss Barbary dies, John Jarndyce becomes Esther's guardian and assigns the Chancery lawyer "Conversation" Kenge to take charge of her future. After attending school for six years, Esther moves in with him at Bleak House. Jarndyce simultaneously assumes custody of two other wards, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare (who are both his and one another's distant cousins). They are beneficiaries in one of the wills at issue in Jarndyce and Jarndyce; their guardian is a beneficiary under another will, and the two wills conflict. Richard and Ada soon fall in love, but though Mr. Jarndyce does not oppose the match, he stipulates that Richard must first choose a profession. Richard first tries a career in medicine, and Esther meets Allan Woodcourt, a physician, at the house of Richard's tutor. When Richard mentions the prospect of gaining from the resolution of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, John Jarndyce beseeches him never to put faith in what he calls ‘the family curse’. Richard disregards this advice and his subsequent career endeavors fails as a result of his growing obsession while his personal relationship with Jarndyce deteriorates. Lady Dedlock is also a beneficiary under one of the wills and while looking at an affidavit by the family solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, she recognizes the handwriting on the copy and almost faints, which Tulkinghorn notices and investigates. He traces the copyist, a pauper known only as "Nemo", in London. Nemo has recently died, and the only person to identify him is a street-sweeper, a poor homeless boy named Jo, who lives in a particularly grim and poverty-stricken part of the city known as Tom-All-Alone's. Lady Dedlock investigates while disguised as her maid, Mademoiselle Hortense. Lady Dedlock pays Jo to take her to Nemo's grave. Meanwhile, Tulkinghorn is concerned Lady Dedlock's secret could threaten the interests of Sir Leicester and watches her constantly, even enlisting her maid to spy on her. He also enlists Inspector Bucket to run Jo out of town, to eliminate any loose ends that might connect Nemo to the Dedlocks. Esther and Lady Dedlock see each other at church and talks at Chesney Wold without recognizing their connection. Later, Lady Dedlock does discover that Esther is her child. However, Esther has become sick (possibly with smallpox, since it severely disfigures her) after nursing the homeless boy Jo. Lady Dedlock waits until Esther has recovered before telling her the truth. Though Esther and Lady Dedlock are happy to be reunited, Lady Dedlock tells Esther they must never acknowledge their connection again. Meanwhile Richard and Ada have secretly married, and Ada is pregnant. Esther has her own romance when Woodcourt returns to England, having survived a shipwreck, and continues to seek her company despite her disfigurement. Unfortunately, Esther has already agreed to marry her guardian, John Jarndyce, who sees Woodcourt is a better match for her and sets not only Woodcourt with good professional prospects and sets the two of them up for an engagement. Hortense and Tulkinghorn discover the truth about Lady Dedlock's past. After a confrontation with Tulkinghorn, Lady Dedlock flees her home, leaving a note apologizing for her conduct. Tulkinghorn dismisses Hortense, who is no longer of any use to him. Feeling abandoned and betrayed, Hortense kills Tulkinghorn and seeks to frame Lady Dedlock for his murder. Sir Leicester, discovering his lawyer's death and his wife's flight, suffers a catastrophic stroke, but he manages to communicate that he forgives his wife and wants her to return. Inspector Bucket, who has previously investigated several matters related to Jarndyce and Jarndyce, accepts Sir Leicester's commission to find first Tulkinghorn’s murderer and then Lady Dedlock. He quickly arrests Hortense but fails to find Lady Dedlock before she dies of exposure at the cemetery of her former lover, Captain Hawdon. A new will is found for Jarndyce and Jarndyce that benefits Richard and Ada, but the costs of litigation have entirely consumed the estate bring the case to an end. Richard collapses and Woodcourt diagnoses him as being in the last stages of tuberculosis and he dies before the birth of his namesake son. John Jarndyce takes in Ada and her child, a boy whom she names Richard. Esther and Woodcourt marry and live in a Yorkshire house which Jarndyce gives to them. The couple later raise two daughters.

The above synopsis only covers the main plot, but expertly woven throughout are two subplots surrounding Caddy Jellyby and Mr. George Rouncewell who interact with the main characters at various times throughout the novel. Dickens masterfully crafts the cast of characters and the plot in an engaging and intriguing serious of plots that make the book a complete whole thus showing why his work is considered among the greatest of literature. Yet Dickens is also a bit too wordy resulting in scenes taking longer than they should and making some readers like myself, to start skimming through places in the later half of the book when a character that likes to spout off begins having a soliloquy of some indeterminable length at the expense of missing something connected to the slowly culminating climax.

Bleak House turns out to show Charles Dickens at his best as well as showing off what might be his one little flaw. The interesting characters and multilayered narrative keep the reader engaged throughout the book even as they must sometimes endure Dickens wordiness that might drown them in unnecessary prose. Though over 900 pages, a reader should not feel intimidated given that many Dickens books are an extraordinary length and the reader keeps on being engaged throughout their reading experience so that length does not matter.

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Book Review: Discovering the City of Sodom by Steven Collins and Latayne C. Scott

Discovering the City of Sodom: The Fascinating, True Account of the Discovery of the Old Testament's Most Infamous City by Steven Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Genesis 18-19 account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah has become part of the Western cultural zeitgeist and its location a mystery ever since the beginning of Biblical archaeology. Discovering the City of Sodom: The Fascinating, True Account of the Old Testament’s Most Infamous City by Steven Collins and Latayne C. Scott goes into the decade-long excavation of a site in Jordan that Collins purposes the evidence points towards it being the location of the destroyed city.

Much of the book is written by Collins who first explores the everything around the account of Sodom in Genesis and denoting that it must be read “authentically” not “literally”. One of Collin’s most important points early on is looking at the actual Hebrew wording of the text and what important words actually mean, this factors into where Collins believes the Bible locates the city of Sodom not at what is the bottom of the southern Dead Sea or on its southeast coast but on the eastern side of the Jordan River opposite Jericho. After laying out what the Bible actually says about Sodom and the historical era the Bible describes it in—the Middle Bronze Age—Collins then goes into the what his numerous archaeological excavations at Tall el-Hammam have made him believes he’s found Biblical Sodom including the fact that after the large city that was located there was destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, nothing was rebuilt there until the Iron Age around 700 years later. Scott’s contribution was related Collin’s professional journey giving tours that located Sodom at the traditional southern Dead Sea location to his letting reading of the Bible lead him to look for a large prosperous city in the Jordan plain across from Jericho and the discoveries made at el-Hammam that made Collins realize he had found the city of Sodom.

Both Collins and Scott did a very good job with their respective parts of the book with Collins focused on the academic side and Scott doing a biographical look at Collins’ personal journey over several decades when connected to this subject. The biggest positive of the book is Collins’ balance of keeping to the authenticity of the Biblical account and dealing with facts found in the dirt, not only at el-Hammam but across the Levant. The biggest issue with the book is the same as another book by Collins’ and that is layout as the maps were placed in the back of the book and not nearer to the relevant text where they would be helpful. However, given that there were two authors the change of font style denoting when each author was writing was a very choice.

Discovering the City of Sodom is an enlightening read with Collins’ engaging writing that made what could have been dry academic details lively while Scott’s biographical sketches give a more personal touch. While the layout of the book is a bit of a mixed bag with differing fonts denoting which author was writing is a positive, the placing of maps in the back of the book instead of near the text that they illustrated is a negative. Whether you agree with Collins’ archaeological discoveries and research, this is a informative read about the era of the Middle Bronze Age in the Levant.

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Book Review: Zero Hour by Jerome Preisler

Zero Hour by Jerome Preisler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Precious stones, secret technology, and black-market deals plus New York City makes for an interesting combination that slowly finds UpLink getting involved via an unexpected source. Zero Hour is the seventh book of Tom Clancy’s Power Plays series written by Jerome Preisler who brings together secondary characters from previous books to join the main cast.

Patrick Sullivan leaves his mistress’ apartment to meet his buyer of artificially created sapphires as well as plans for a laser gun codenamed Dragonfly but is killed by his buyer and becomes a missing person. Sullivan’s employer, a Pakistani national who doesn’t know Sullivan stole the plan, is planning to use the laser gun for a massive terrorist attack by releasing a deadly acid vapor cloud over New York City as well as sell the other prototype to Muslim freedom fighters in Kashmir. Sullivan’s wife goes to an UpLink employee who was his last meeting and asked for Sword’s help—thanks to newspaper reporting on UpLink’s help to find the Russian conspirators who attacked Time’s Square—to find her husband. The employee goes around the local Sword leader to Roger Gordian to ask for the favor forcing the new UpLink CEO to send Tom Ricci to New York to investigate the matter. Ricci and the local Sword leader discuss her investigation into Sullivan’s employer on what to do with the Sullivan matter then Ricci goes to upstate New York to spy on Sullivan’s employer and sees men packing things into a U-Haul that he tails to a nearby motel and has a local Sword operative observe it while learning where it was rented. Unfortunately, one of the terrorists make the lookout and arrange an escape, but Ricci meets with Sullivan’s murderer and learns about the Dragonfly that he connects with where the U-Haul was rented. Ricci leads a Sword team that intercepts that van just before the laser gun was powered up.

Honestly the above synopsis is leaving out two subplots that at the end of the book amounted to just taking up space even though one was entertaining and had potential to add to the overall story but fizzled to nothing. Upon ending this book it wasn’t hard to rate this the worst book of the Power Plays series as nothing really came together and Preisler focused on characters who in the end amounted to nothing in the overall scheme of things while a character study on Ricci was underwhelming. And as one of the shortest books in the series it really tells and exposes one of the biggest weaknesses of Preisler’s writing.

Zero Hour is short and devoid of coherence in the various narrative threads while focusing on characters that in the end did not having anything to do with the endgame. Jerome Preisler has written some good installments of this series, but all the things he’s done wrong in the so-so installments were on display making for a disappointing book.

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