“This final act will not only be one of history’s memorable museum thefts—and is not everything I do fit to historical measures?—it will also prove the most abject of my humiliations.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Claudia Real (MAY 14, 2009)

As a Latin American woman I read Empire of Humiliation hoping for a novel that I could relate to, and I wasn’t disappointed. I loved the descriptions of Mexico DF which made me feel like I was back there again. I mean the description of dinner plates at outdoor restaurants getting so coated by the oily air pollution that you can write on them with your finger, that’s exactly how terrible it is. So for anyone who wants a look at nitty-gritty Mexico, at least the cities, this fulfills. Maybe it’s one of those things where because the author is a foreigner living in Mexico, he actually sees and feels some parts better than we do who have lived there since we were young.

The main story is exciting and it’s going to be easy to get for anyone who knows about life outside the “States.” What really drives people crazy, and it drives me crazy too, is how we outsiders who were born in other countries complain about America but constantly find ourselves dressing that way and listening to the music and everything. It’s pretty brilliant in the book how that feeling gets hit and converted into a whole plot. Talk about pushing the buttons!

The plot turns out to be complicated in the end, and it’s definitely going to make some people mad, but it starts out as a simple story. Anderson and Marina are Americans who get set up as the culprits for a string of theater-like murders down in Mexico City. Their picture appears in the local newspapers and the entire affair becomes a kind of media sensation. Actually it’s kind of a sensation of outrage with Americans killing Mexicans and all the nationalistic-type anger people feel about this abuse. Obviously Anderson and Marina need to find out what’s going on, fast, before they get caught. But that’s just the beginning. From there things get more original as it turns out that each of the main characters has their own agenda, their own way of using this international violence and tension.

On the subject of character development, it is a little thin. You definitely get the idea that you’re supposed to fill in the blanks about who these people are. I would even say that except for the three main characters, everyone else comes through a bit like cardboard, like they’re just there to support the story. On the other hand this is a thriller kind of novel, so really they are just there to support the story.

The last point concerns the final chapters. This was one of the more surprising endings that I’ve read. For one thing, there’s a switch in the writing style from some anonymous storyteller telling you what is happening, to Anderson talking straight at the reader. It’s a great device and it really worked because the entire meaning of all that happened up until then also gets turned completely inside out, like a sock. You’re left wanting to go back and read it from the start to see how this hidden and different story gets built underneath the apparently main plot. (hint: The understory involves a museum robbery in Mexico, and is based on fact, by the way.)

Conclusion. For anyone wanting to read a book with an international setting and themes and background, and especially Mexico, this is a top grade thriller. It makes you think (or maybe get mad) about what’s going on in the world, and it makes you want to keep turning the pages.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 5 readers
PUBLISHER:	Overflow (August 1, 2008)
REVIEWER:	Claudia Real
AMAZON PAGE:	Empire of Humilation
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	James Jens Brusseau
EXTRAS:	Read the excerpt from the Amazon page.
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	If you like this… try: Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko The Uncomfortable Dead by Paco Ignacio Taibo Night of the Radishes by Sandra Benitez

Bibliography:

• Empire of Humiliation (August 2008)

“The two women and four men lifted scarves over their nostrils and breathed through their mouths as they steered their Zodiac ponderously between the mammoth corpses bloated with air. The heat from the dead whales released tiny red geysers of blood. More oozed from open harpoon wounds. Still more flooded from their bellies laid open by grenades. The rich, wet, fatty stench wafted up in a visible, nauseating pink mist. Jan stopped alongside the loosely flapping jaw of a cow. Her small teats dragged in a dense red sea. The explosion from a grenade-tipped harpoon had ripped a tunnel through her blubber, flesh and organs, all the way to an unborn calf. The fetus was horribly burned and the cow’s long vagina oozed a river of blood.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Kirstin Merrihew (MAY 08, 2009)

Jan Everett is First Lady of the United States. She is also a fiercely dedicated Save the Whales activist. But she doesn’t safely limit herself to office fundraising and the rubber chicken speech circuit. She brings the same total commitment to testifying before the International Whaling Commission on behalf of a total ban on whale hunts as she does to personally sailing with and even leading crews that confront, harry, and seek to sink the pelagic whaling fleets.

In Washington, the husband from whom Jan is gradually being distanced emotionally as well as geographically, President Carsten Everett, contends with an uphill reelection bid, the controlling schemes of his ruthless chief of staff, a fifteen trillion dollar U.S. debt to other countries that could tank the economy, and the consequences of his wife’s radical daring-do sea exploits (which spread fallout far and wide).

Meanwhile, re-energized powerhouse Japan, which holds a large percentage of outstanding U.S. Treasury bonds and is also an unrepentant whaling nation, has plans for both the Everetts. And a Norwegian whaling tycoon concocts his own means of neutralizing Jan….

Oh, and in the swirl of battling the bad guys, Jan encounters hardened captain Arlov Vesprhein, and these two tough, extreme people posture and clash, bound by somewhat stereotyped sexual tension as Save the Whales Please launches an amazing, techno-herded leviathan drive. 

Save the Whales Please mixes high-stakes whaling drama with quite sophisticated international plotting by players in Tokyo, Washington, the North Pacific, and Europe. The novel takes us into boardrooms and back rooms, onto ship bridges and bloody slaughter platforms, and into the midst of maneuvering politicians and vicious pirates (ripped from the headlines, no?). In fact, a number of events that have either already happened or could very possibly occur in the not too distant real world also sharpen this novel’s suspenseful edge. The difference between our reality and the novel’s though is that nearly everything in Save the Whales Please links to novel’s centerpieces: whaling…and its uncompromising opponents.

The novel whisks cinematically from one short scene to another like the action blockbuster prose “movie” it is. Its nail biting opening scenes make one wonder if the authors haven’t shot their biggest wad very prematurely. But not to worry. Konrad Karl Gatien and Sreescanda (who also write for the big and little screens) skillfully pepper the story with limited victories on the various sides, only to then pose new obstacles and dangers. The culmination crescendos, pulling numerous plot threads together and piling peril upon peril to surprise even the jaded reader with its audacity. 

Of course, no real First Lady would have the latitude Jan Everett does. Her handlers and protection detail would preempt the suicidal chances Jan takes, no matter how urgent the crusade. But one can adapt agreeably to this creative license. 

The novel’s myriad facts about whales (blue, Orca, minke, etc.)  –, their pods, their songs, their intelligence, their sonar, and their migration habits — enrich the reader’s knowledge. There is also an abundance of statistical, historical, and practical information about the nuts and bolts of whaling. Did you know, for instance, that underwater sonar blasts are suspected for causing deafness, brain bleeding, and beaching in whales and dolphins? Or that whales shed their skins much as lizards do? Did you know a whale is hunted and killed every ninety minutes? Does it stun you that grenades were and apparently continue to tear whales apart? Did you know whale meat is intensely prized in some cultures? Save the Whales Please acutely reminds us that these majestic and still mysterious creatures could still be hunted (or otherwise mortally wounded) to extinction. 

Save the Whales Please is formulaic, but in a brash, exhilarating, Clive Cusslerian manner. Especially for those who are intrigued by whales and the human struggle over them, this is an opportunity to be both educated and breathlessly entertained. 
 

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 5 readers
PUBLISHER:	Kunati Inc. (April 1, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Kirstin Merrihew
AMAZON PAGE:	Save the Whales Please
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Konrad Karl Gatien & Sreescanda
EXTRAS:	Kunati feature review
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More whale stories:      Fluke, Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore People of the Whale by Linda Hogan Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

Bibliography:

• Save the Whales Please (April 2009)

“Garrison’s eyes opened. He grinned. He was an American businessman on vacation, a real estate speculator who occasionally took a taxi to look at a piece of property. He stayed in a top hotel, ate at good restaurants, tipped a shade too heavily, drank a little too much, and didn’t speak a damned word of Spanish. Hardly an assassin, or a secret agent, or anything of the sort. They searched his room, of course, but this happened regularly in every Latin American country. It was a matter of form. Actually, it tended to reassure him, since they searched so clumsily that he knew they were not afraid of him. Otherwise, they would take pains to be more subtle.

He stood up, naked and hard-muscled, and walked to his window. He’d been careful to get a room with a window facing on the square. The square was the Plaza of the Republica, a small park surrounding the Palace of Justice. Parades with Fidel at their head made their way up a broad avenue to the plaza. Then Fidel would speak, orating wildly and magnificently from the steps of the palace. From the window Garrison could see those steps.

With the rifle properly mounted on the window ledge, he could place a bullet in Fidel’s open mouth….”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie (APR 30, 2009)

From the moment Fidel Castro made the choice to wage war against the dictatorial government of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista and to begin the Cuban Revolution, his life was in constant jeopardy. There were the perils of guerrilla warfare in the Sierra Maestra mountains, post revolution dangers from those he deposed, civilian and military, Cuban and US, plantation owners and crime bosses, who so profited under Batista. Then there were the numerous CIA attempts to kill Castro with poison pills, toxic cigars and exploding mollusks. Rumor has it that the dictator once even volunteered to kill himself. He was joking, of course. For nearly half a century, the CIA, Cuban exiles, and heaven knows who else, have been trying to devise ways to assassinate el Presidente.

However, Lawrence Block did not know this when he wrote Killing Castro. The book was originally published by Monarch in 1961 as “Fidel Castro Assassinated.” Block used the pseudonym Lee Duncan, a moniker adopted for this novel alone.

Killing Castro is as much about the journeys, literal and figurative, of five men, as it is about an assassination. Five Americans are offered twenty thousand dollars apiece to kill Castro. That was really a lot of money back in 1961. The loot is to be collected after the fact. Every one of the five has different reasons for slipping into Cuba and risking his life to kill a man relatively unknown to them, except for the media, stories from Cuban exiles, and government statements. It is, after all, only 1961, two years into the revolution and shortly before the Cuban missile crisis. Each man’s journey, his motivations and outcome, are what is really exciting and unexpected here. All of these characters are changed by this deadly adventure.

Then one wonders who or what entity is behind the operation? Impoverished Cuban refugees could hardly have scraped together one hundred thousand dollars. So, “who was financing the assassination? Tobacco and sugar planters? Oil refiners? Batista fascists hungry to regain power? Americans unwilling to tolerate a Communist nation ninety miles offshore?”

Interspersed between the narrative are italicized chapters which provide a historical perspective on Castro and the reasons he became involved in the politics of revolution. The history of the man, his years as a student and young revolutionary, are absolutely fascinating – especially as the changes which occur in him are contrasted with those which take place in his prospective killers. However, there are occasions when the author, through the voice of the omniscient observer, makes certain points and allegations which are way too subjective for omniscience and border on editorializing. I think Block would have been more credible had he used one of his characters to express these personal political views.

I really enjoyed Killing Castro, and although it is far from the author’s best work, it certainly makes for an entertaining read.

Kudos to Hard Case Crime for making this most rare of Lawrence Block’s thrillers available.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 15 readers
PUBLISHER:	Hard Case Crime; Reprint edition (December 30, 2008)
REVIEWER:	Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Lawrence Block
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our reviews of: Hope to Die (Matt Scudder series) Small Town The Burglar on the Prowl (Bernie Rhodenbarr series) Grifter’s Game (Hard Case Crime) All the Flowers are Dying (Matt Scudder series) Girl with the Long Green Heart (Hard Case Crime) Hit Parade (John Keller series) Lucky at Cards (Hard Case Crime) Hit and Run (John Keller series) A Diet of Treacle (Hard Case Crime) A Drop of the Hard Stuff (Matt Scudder series)

Bibliography:

• Coward’s Kiss (1961)
• You Could Call It Murder (Originally published as Markham) (1961)
• Deadly Honeymoon (1967)
• After the First Death (1969)
• Specialists (1969)
• Ronald Rabbit is A Dirty Old Man (1971)
• Ariel (1980)
• Code of Arms (1981)
• Random Walk (1988)
• Some Days You Get the Bear: Stories (1993)
• Ehrengraf for the Defense: Stories (1994)
• One-Night Stands: Early Stories (1999)
• Collected Mystery Stories (1999)
• The Lost Cases of Ed London (2001)
• Enough Rope: Collected Stories (2002)
• Small Town (January 2003)
• Cinderella Sims (March 2003)
• One Night Stands and Lost Weekends (November 2008)

Hard Case Crimes reprints:

• Mona (1961) (republished as Grifter’s Game in September 2004)
• The Girl with the Long Green Heart (1965; reprinted November 2005)
• Lucky at Cards (originally published 1964 under a pseudonym; January 2007)
• A Diet of Treacle (originally published 196? under a pseudonym; January 2008)
• Killing Castro (originally published 196? under a pseudonym; December 2008)
• Getting Off: A Novel of Sex and Violence (September 2011)

Matthew Scudder Mysteries

• The Sins of the Fathers (1976)
• Time to Murder and Create (1976)
• In the Midst of Death (1976)
• A Stab in the Dark (1981)
• Eight Million Ways to Die (1982)
• When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (1986)
• Out on the Cutting Edge (1989)
• A Ticket to the Boneyard (1990)
• A Dance At the Slaughterhouse (1991)
• A Walk Among the Tombstones (1992)
• The Devil Knows You’re Dead (1993)
• A Long Line of Dead Men (1994)
• Even the Wicked (1997)
• Everybody Dies (1998)
• Hope To Die (2001)
• All The Flowers are Dying (February 2005)
• A Drop of the Hard Stuff (May 2011)

Keller Series:

• Hit Man (1999)
• Hit List (2000)
• Hit Parade (2006)
• Hit and Run (June 2008)

Bernie Rhodenbarr Mysteries (reprinted 2006)

• Burglars Can’t Be Choosers (1977)
• The Burglar in the Closet (1978)
• The Burglar Who Like to Quote Kipling (1979)
• The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (1980)
• The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (1983)
• The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (1994)
• The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (1995)
• The Burglar in the Library (1997)
• The Burglar in the Rye (1999)
• The Burglar on the Prowl (March 2004)

Evan Tanner Mysteries (reprinted in 2007):

• The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep (1966)
• The Cancelled Czech (1966)
• Tanner’s Twelve Swingers (1967)
• Two for Tanner (1967)
• Here Comes A Hero (1968)
• Tanner’s Tiger (1968)
• Me Tanner, You Jane (1970)
• Tanner on Ice (1998)
• The Scoreless Thai (2000)
• Tanner’s Virgin (April 2006)

Writing as Paul Kavanagh

• Such Men are Dangerous (1969)
• The Triumph of Evil (1971)
• Not Comin’ Home to You (1974)

Nonfiction:

• Writing the Novel from Plot to Plot (1979)
• Telling Lies for Fun & Profit (1981)
• Write for Your Life (1986)
• Spider, Spin Me a Web (1987)
• Step by Step: A Pedestrian Memoir (May 2009)

Movies from Books:

• Nightmare Honeymoon (based on Deadly Honeymoon)
• Eight Million Ways to Die (1985)
• Burglar (loosely based on The Burglar in the Closet) (1987)
• Keller (based on Hit Man)
• A Walk Among the Tombstones