Jun 8, 2024 | #authorlife, #truestory
I rarely discuss hot potato topics, but this week it became painfully clear that the CIA I joined in 1985 is not the CIA of today.
the nonpartisan rule
I entered on duty the day after Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration. At that time, it was made crystal clear to me that the CIA was staunchly apolitical and any deviation from that standard was an ethics violation. As far as I knew, this expectation covered all employees and was non-negotiable.
My mother once asked what people were saying at work about an upcoming US presidential election. I replied that no one ever talked about domestic politics. The CIA mission is external to the US and that’s where our attention was. We talked about elections around the world—Russia, Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea, anywhere voting takes place. But never the US.
It didn’t matter. Our national security mission was unaffected by US politics.
first crack in the dike
I still remember the collective discomfort in 2008 when an officer came into a meeting with a big Hilary Clinton button pinned to her purse. How could this officer be so clueless? It didn’t matter who the officer supported. Overt displays of political support were persona non grata.
The lapse was especially concerning to me because I’d spent so much time in Mexico where the intel services legally sway with the wind. It’s normal for the country’s intel apparatus to be used to target domestic political figures and/or parties.
51 letter-signing rule breakers
So imagine my shock when on the eve of the 2020 US presidential election, 51 former senior intel officers, including some I knew and worked for, signed a public letter suggesting that a laptop reportedly belonging to Hunter Biden, son of the then-candidate for president Joe Biden, was a Russian operation to discredit the Bidens.
Couched in the careful language of an intel report, the letter noted that the laptop “has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” and that “We do not know if the emails . . . are genuine or not.”
According to the Politico story below, Former DCIA John Brennan’s aide carried the doubtful letter to the news outlet.
what happened next
Many of you probably know the rest of the story.
Politico used a clickbait headline that went viral: Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276
The letter became the authoritative view, used to substantiate subsequent reporting of the laptop as a Russian hoax. The experts said so!
The fallout ranged from social media censorship to legal action.
Some time later, it came out that the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board assisted in recruiting at least one signatory. https://nypost.com/2023/05/09/cia-fast-tracked-letter-that-falsely-suggested-hunter-biden-laptop-was-russia-op/
In 2023, former acting director Mike Morell testified to the House Judiciary Committee that he wanted the letter approved by the board in time to be released before a presidential debate to give Biden a boost. https://www.newsweek.com/biden-team-sparked-effort-kill-hunter-laptop-story-ex-cia-boss-1795950
exhibit no. 16
Almost 4 years later, Hunter Biden is on trial in Delaware for falsifying information on an application to purchase a handgun. His much ballyhooed laptop is Exhibit No. 16.
FBI agent Erika Jensen testified under oath that “the laptop was obtained by the FBI in 2019 with a subpoena from The Mac Shop in Wilmington.”
From the dates, this was obviously known well before the letter was signed by the 51 former intel officers.
Did any of them know? Doesn’t say much for their intel skills if they didn’t and says everything about their intentions if they did.
Going further, Jensen testified that FBI “investigators corroborated content on the laptop with Hunter’s iCloud that they obtained from Apple with a subpoena.” https://nypost.com/2024/06/04/opinion/hunter-bidens-laptop-from-hell-serving-as-evidence-in-his-trial-is-pure-poetic-justice/
Verifying the laptop’s content as authored by owner Hunter Biden and not introduced into the machine by Russian spies, is egg on the face of all 51 signatories. But their letter did its job as intended. They have nothing to gain by refuting it now.
my take
Morrell and the other former intel officials who signed that letter crossed a longstanding ethics line. They had not examined the laptop nor had any way to assess its provenance.
What they did know was that their reputations would carry weight. They knew their words and the timing would aid a US presidential candidate facing fallout from the salacious content on his son’s computer.
They also knew they were still influential within the CIA and would embolden those who might use an Agency position for political purposes.
Sure, you can argue that they were “former” officials. But being a CIA officer, especially for those who rise to high position, is a lifetime commitment.
Such retirees are forever associated with the Agency. They often get contracts to do work for the CIA. They have security clearances because of their association with the CIA.
By publicly flouting the CIA’s ethical standards and in such a high profile way, the signers of the October 2020 letter opened a Pandora’s Box in the form of political partisanship and activism within the intelligence community.
That’s not the CIA I knew. I mourn its passing.
Jun 4, 2024 | #authorlife, #newsroom, #truestory
You saw it here first. I’m finally writing a spy thriller.
Well, part of one.
Spy-sourced thriller
I’ve been invited to contribute a chapter to a spy thriller that tackles Havana Syndrome. Different chapters will be written by former CIA officers, many of whom like me have overseas experience.
The working title is MOSCOW SYNDROME.
I’ll write Chapter 2, which will introduce Celine Macy, a savvy female operations officer. She gets a critical scrap of information as reports of Havana Syndrome start rolling in.
Tackling Havana Syndrome
In case you aren’t familiar with the term Havana Syndrome, it’s a brain injury with an unknown cause experienced first by US intel officers in Havana, Cuba in 2016, then by US and Canadian officials in numerous locations including inside the US.
By 2021 there were around 200 victims. They experienced a variety of lingering symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, vision and hearing difficulties, memory loss, and headaches.
According to a Harvard report, “Many said they felt something pressing or vibrating around them or heard noises just before the symptoms appeared, leading some to suspect they had been exposed to a high-intensity burst of energy or sound waves.” https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/10/havana-syndrome-sees-uptick-in-cases-concerns-and-questions/
Medecinenet.com gives a good overview of the phenomenon:
Havana syndrome is a series of debilitating symptoms that first affected U.S. intelligence officers and embassy staffers stationed in Havana, Cuba, in late 2016. In the following year, American diplomats in different parts of the world reported similar symptoms.”
Researchers investigating the condition have stated that Havana syndrome, which was initially dismissed as mass hysteria or a reaction caused by psychosomatic causes such as stress, may be a result of microwave weaponry. Symptoms are similar to those of a concussion or mild head injury and have mostly been reported by diplomats, intelligence officers, military personnel, and their family members deployed on foreign soil. https://www.medicinenet.com/what_is_havana_syndrome/article.htm
What’s going on?
In February 2022, a panel of US intel experts concluded that “a high-tech device shooting pulsed electromagnetic energy or ultrasound waves could be causing at least some of the cases of “Havana Syndrome,” the battery of mysterious and debilitating medical symptoms sickening U.S. spies and diplomats working overseas.The finding, made by a panel of intelligence community experts, is consistent with at least one hypothesis given by U.S. officials in recent years that Russia, China or some other nation-state adversary is targeting unwitting Americans with some kind of weapon.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/02/02/us-spies-likely-targeted-energy-waves-some-havana-syndrome-cases/9317517002/
Dr. David Relman of Stanford University noted in 2022 that his study “Found what we thought [was] clear evidence of an injury to the auditory and vestibular system of the brain. Everything starting with the inner ear where humans perceive sound and sense balance, and then translate those perceptions into brain electrical signals . . . directed pulsed (radio frequency) energy…appears to be the most plausible mechanism…” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-culprit-investigation-new-evidence-60-minutes-transcript/
By March 2023, however, “five different intelligence agencies, including the CIA and FBI, concluded that ‘Havana Syndrome’ was a myth—an imaginary condition consisting of an array of pre-existing health conditions and anxiety reactions—and was not caused by a secret weapon or an inadvertent exposure of an energy source from a foreign adversary.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/its-catching/202303/dont-be-misled-by-the-new-havana-syndrome-claims
As recently reported by CNN. the official conclusion is that there is no credible evidence that a foreign adversary has a weapon that targeted the victims. Brain scans of victims show few abnormalities as compared to a control group. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/health/havana-syndrome-studies/index.html
Government cover up or a strange mass psychological event?
What the victims say
The Harvard article includes a first-hand account from Marc Polymeropoulos, counterterrorism specialist and the former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia. In 2017 he was on a trip to Moscow when he woke up in the hotel with the room spinning, his ears ringing and with a blinding headache. He lost his long-distance vision and had a host of other issues that eventually led him to be diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.
Another victim is an FBI agent who was at home in Florida in 2021 when she was hit by a crippling shockwave effect. As recounted to CBS, “And bam, inside my right ear, it was like a dentist drilling on steroids. That feeling when it gets too close to your eardrum? It’s like that, you know, times ten. It was like a high pitched, metallic drilling noise, and it knocked me forward at, like, a 45 degree angle.”
At the same time, the battery in her cell phone swelled, bursting the phone case.
CBS documented numerous victims’ experiences. Intense ear pain was the most common inciting event, followed by disorientation and the persistently debilitating symptoms listed above.
Who is behind it?
Interestingly, like Polymeropoulos and the FBI agents, many of the victims have some connection to Russia. Just a few months ago, Greg Edgreen, a now-retired Army lieutenant colonel who ran the Pentagon investigation told CBS’s 60 Minutes program that “Consistently there was a Russia nexus. There was some angle where they had worked against Russia, focused on Russia, and done extremely well.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-russia-evidence-60-minutes/
A joint investigation by media outlets The Insider, Der Spiegel and 60 Minutes raised the notion of an elite Russian military unit being responsible. “The fresh media investigation alleges that members of a specific Russian military intelligence unit – known as 29155 – may have targeted the brains of US diplomats with “directed energy” weapons.It says there is evidence that places members of the unit in cities around the world at times when US personnel reported incidents.The secretive unit undertakes foreign operations and has been linked to incidents including the attempted poisoning in the UK in 2018 of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy. As part of the investigation, The Insider – a Russia-focused site – reported that an officer in the 29155 unit had been rewarded for their work related to the development of “non-lethal acoustic weapons”. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68706317
Fiction time
Now it’s up to this band of former CIA officers to put together an espionage thriller based on what we know about Havana Syndrome. We’ll create a cast of characters, from victims to truth seekers to villains.
Will we stumble on the truth as we go?
Maybe, but the odds are that we’ll never know.
May 28, 2024 | #authorlife
“Come back in 15 minutes.”
When we lived in Mexico, I hated this phrase.
The words weren’t meant to be taken literally. Nothing would change in 15 minutes and everyone knew it.
No, it was a semi-polite brush-off. It really means “Go away. Get out of my face.”
The most frustrating time I was ever on the receiving end of the phrase became a pivotal scene in THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY. Our heroine, Luz de Maria is standing in line to cash a check—payment for a painting she’s sold–when an obviously wealthy man cuts into line ahead of her. When she expresses her chagrin, the bank teller retaliates by invalidating her check. Luz de Maria is sent off with “Come back in 15 minutes” ringing in her ears.
This actually happened to me in a bank in Mexico City. Not the part about the painting, but all the rest.
15 minute mods
When I was in high school, the day was organized into 15 minute modules or “mods” as we all called it. Three mods for physics class, two for French, and so on. Those of us with a random mod between classes could hang out in the library and watch a certain senior with advanced ventriloquism skills trick Sister Rose into thinking she was being called to the principal’s office over the intercom.
The schedule sounds chaotic but it worked. Years later as a mechanical engineer, my cousin Celine told me that she still thought of time management as maximizing 15 minute increments.
Before there were mods
In THE PIONEERS, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough introduces us to Samuel Hildreth, who set up a medical practice in the frontier town of Marietta, Ohio in 1808. Over his long lifetime, Dr. Hildreth was an accomplished writer, naturalist, artist, historian, politician and anthropologist, all while practicing medicine in a rugged rural environment that he traversed on horseback.
As McCullough records, “Asked how it was that he could do so much and accomplish so much, [Hildreth] said, “I’ve learned to use every one of all the odds and ends of time.”
The mod challenge
I know that I have “odds and ends of time” every day and I bet you do, too. Most of them are at least 15 minutes—one mod—long. Right now that time literally slips through my fingers as I mindlessly scroll social media or check news headlines on my phone.
Sometimes I use a note-taking app to capture ideas, but not often enough. I should use the extra time to edit or even outline a scene.
The challenge to both you and me is to find hidden 15 minute mods during our day and do something that feels like progress during that time. Organize the junk drawer, scribble a snippet of dialogue, make a stress-relieving list, edit two pages, sketch a picture.
You can crush this challenge. Don’t aim to make a masterpiece, but to use an otherwise lost chunk of time to create accomplishment.
If anyone asks what you’re doing just say, “I’ll be back in 15 minutes.”
May 1, 2024 | #reviews
Clear your schedule! Coming at you fast and low is a top-notch espionage military thriller with an eye-opening lesson in how China projects power around the world today.
Don Riley is the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) at the CIA, in charge of all HUMINT operations. The DO is also the entity tasked with covert operations, which means that the role of the US government is not “apparent or acknowledged publicly.” Covert operations are only authorized by a Presidential Finding, which outlines scope and purpose. (true)
Don’s eye is on the former Soviet “stans” in Central Asia where China is completing a railroad as part of the huge infrastructure project known as the Belt and Road initiative.
The project is rocked by terror attacks, supposedly from a home-grown group. In Beijing, a military hero is tapped for a new assignment: Get the railroad finished on time or else.
Meanwhile, the new Russian president is shut out of economic exchanges with Central Asian leaders, one of Don’s officers is combing the region for a missing US contractor, and a charismatic doctor is becoming the face of a new Central Asia cultural unity movement.
Basically, he’s the Ghandi of the stans, boosted by a female journalist who sees a big story as well as a potential love interest.
Believing the doctor can be an effective counterweight to Chinese influence, a Presidential Finding establishes a covert operation to support him. The job falls to Don, who finds it almost too easy . . .
There are many moving parts and a full score of characters. But you never get confused because Bruns and Olson have a knack of telling a character’s backstory in a very short amount of literary real estate and making it unforgettable, too. The prose is crisp, fast-moving and despite the complexity, the storyline is easy to follow.
COVERT ACTION is Book 5 in the Command and Control series by Bruns and Olson but reads like a standalone.
Highly recommended.
P.S. I’m starting to think that Bruns and Olson are a bellwether of sorts. Their fiction is a harbinger of real developments in the military/espionage/global conflict space.
For example, they described smart drones on the battlefield before those infernal devices became news stories. Now they give us China’s influential construction projects in not-so-sexy parts of the world. Expect to see Belt and Road issues in the news starting . . . soon.
Apr 18, 2024 | #reviews
THE SPY COAST by Tess Gerritsen
This excellent thriller, with a cast of characters to root for and deft plotting, is one in a recent string of bestsellers built on the trope of retired spies called back into action because of an operation in the distant past that went sideways and must finally be put to rest in the present time.
Like SLOUGH HOUSE by Mick Herron and A LEGACY OF SPIES by John Le Carré to name the most well known, THE SPY COAST offers multiple points of view and timelines, as well as a hefty helping of authentic spycraft.
As a retired CIA officer myself, however, I’m happy that these tales are all fiction.
Now retired to Purity, Maine, Maggie Bird was a CIA operations officer who lived a nonofficial cover job as a logistics officer for a shipping company, specializing in textiles. Her off-the-radar life as a chicken farmer is disrupted when a woman appears at her door to ask for help finding a long-ago colleague named Diana Ward.
Maggie adamantly refuses—obviously there is bad blood between her and Diana. Shortly thereafter, the messenger’s dead body is dumped on Maggie’s driveway and a sniper narrowly misses Maggie as she feeds her chickens.
Acting chief of police Jo Thibideau is baffled by both crimes, as well as by the lack of background information on Maggie and her small circle of friends who have dubbed themselves the Martini Club.
Those friends are all Agency retirees, of course, with analytic and research skills and a global network that Jo will never have and there’s a great tug-of-war between the retirees and the cop, similar to the Richard Osmen THURSDAY MURDER CLUB books. Yet the real diamonds in this book are Maggie’s chapters in which she recounts Operation Cyrano, a murky CIA effort to capture a Russian mole inside the highest reaches of the British government by using Maggie’s unwitting husband.
Sixteen years ago, he was a doctor who worked for an upscale medical concierge service. His most important patient was a notorious British gunrunner and money launderer with epilepsy. Maggie’s assignment was to use her husband to gather intel on the man because the Russian mole was a business associate.
Diana Ward was Maggie’s control officer during the operation.
Now someone has stolen the Operation Cyrano files and is going after those involved.
Unlike so many spy novels featuring Russian evildoers, the plot did not take 12 sheets of graph paper charts to understand. The smooth yet brisk writing style made it a true page-turner.
THE SPY COAST is supposedly the start of a new series featuring Maggie and her circle of retired spies. I can’t wait for the next!
Find THE SPY COAST on Amazon
Apr 11, 2024 | #authorlife
Spring has become the season of loss. Four years ago we lost my first cousin Celine. This year we lost Uncle Joe.
My mother’s younger brother, Joseph N. Sestito passed at age 91 after leading a “storied and adventurous life,” as my son so accurately phrased it.
A Catholic priest and a decorated Navy veteran, he inspired the priest in my political thriller, THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY, who tells Luz de Maria that he cannot give her absolution if she wishes to commit the same sin all over again.
My grandfather always called him “Sonny,” which led to the character of Sonny Zambrano in the Galliano Club historical fiction series. In REVENGE AT THE GALLIANO CLUB, Sonny recites “The Cask of Amontillado” for a speaking contest, the same as my uncle did in the real 1949 Slingerland Speaking Contest. 73 years later, he could still recite Poe’s classic from memory.
Uncle Joe was ordained a priest in 1959. It should have been earlier but, ever the jokester, he was booted out of his first seminary for rolling a bowling ball down the hall of his dorm and hitting a teacher’s door.
After a few years as a parish priest with the Ogdensburg diocese in upstate New York, he joined the US Navy as a chaplain. Uncle Joe served with the Marines in Vietnam, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star with V for valor. Among other duty stations, he served in the Aleutians and aboard the nuclear-powered USS Bainbridge.
After retiring, he resumed parish duties in upstate New York and jumped into high-end woodworking. We all have furniture, lamps and trays that he made. Everything is finished in the same mid-tone stain with quirks reflecting the maker’s impatience. For example, my gorgeous reeded buffet lamps have plugs but no switches.
Uncle Joe was a never-ending font of genuinely funny jokes, magic tricks, and tall tales. His vocabulary was prodigious, he was annoyed by sloppy diction, and he knew the basics of at least a dozen languages. He played the piano and the saxophone, delivered a mean sermon, and was a terrible driver who named all his cars.
He was the wonderful and funny Uncle Joe to me, my siblings and my cousins, and how rich our lives have been because of him.
Uncle Joe playing the piano with my son (who is now 31.)
Apr 6, 2024 | #booknews
If you are traveling to Oneida, NY, as I did last month, your choices for places to stay are fairly limited.
- The $$$$$ Turning Stone casino
- Chain hotels like the Hampton Inn
- A bed-and-breakfast situation at the Oneida Community Mansion House.
I chose option #3 because it was closest to the hospital nursing facility where my 95-year-old mother is now a full time resident.
That decision saved my sanity while keeping me on track to finish the WIP
The Oneida Story
Growing up 20 miles away in Rome, I knew that Oneida was the home of Oneida Limited, the silverware manufacturer. The company was famous for flatware, silver plated trays and tea services and of course the iconic Revere bowls.
In upstate New York, a gift of Oneida silver was the norm for every life milestone. Baptisms meant baby loving cups and rattles. Small Revere bowls made perfect hostess gifts. Sets of flatware, salt and pepper shakers, sugar and creamers, trays, and candy bowls were go-to wedding gifts.
I never knew that the manufacturer of these tableware essentials was the direct descendant of an 1800's commune with usual sex practices.
The Oneida Community was a commune started in 1848 by Vermonter and disgraced Protestant pastor John Humphrey Noyes. He claimed to have achieved spiritual perfection and his followers called themselves Perfectionists. The commune rejected traditional marriage and roles for women. Committees were set up to keep things organized and encourage education for all ages.
What really set the commune apart, however, was that men and women were discouraged from pairing off at all. Adults lived separately in small rooms, while children lived in a separate children's dormitory. A program of selective breeding was carried out for about 10 years which produced nearly 60 children. Noyes himself had 13 children by different women--a gallant effort to walk the talk.
Adults worked in the companies that supported the commune. They made traps for animals--at a time when wild animal pelts were in high demand--plus silk thread spun from imported raw silk, and flatware. The factories were so successful that the commune, which never numbered more than 300 people, became one of the biggest employers in the region.
But after 30 years, the locals had had enough of the commune's scandalous practices. Noyes was run out of town. The commune couldn't survive and eventually re-established itself as the joint-stock company Oneida Community Ltd.
The Mansion House
The nucleus of the commune was a sprawling Italianate house. Built in stages between 1861 and 1914, the Oneida Community Mansion House is now a National Historic Landmark. According to the brochure: "The 93,000 square foot, three-story brick structure houses a museum, 35 apartments, 9 guestrooms, a dining room, and a 300-seat theatre called the Big Hall."
The place is so big it has its own mini post office inside a lounge the size of a football field.
My guest room had 20-foot ceilings, a Stickley king-sized bed, a leather wing back chair, original windows, and a huge modern en suite bathroom. I could explore the the museum and exhibits on my own, plus I enjoyed a free guided tour where I got the inside scoop on founder Noyes.
But what drew me every evening after stressful afternoons spent in the hospital's extended care facility with my mother, who in 10 days only recognized me once, was the library.
A private oasis of books
The library at the Mansion House is full of treasures. The main room is lined with shelves painted pale blue and stocked with rare first editions, collections of authors from the turn of the last century, and even a few more modern volumes. A desk or two, comfortably worn upholstered seating, newspapers and magazines invite you to both sit and explore.
Every evening, two huge lamps on the central library table were turned on, their soft glow replacing the bright light from huge skylights that keeps the space full of natural light during the daytime.
I spent all my free time there, coming across incredibly rare first editions of memoirs of polar explorers and Russian novelists, as well as books on music theory, poetry and art, just to name a few. This was a library for serious thinkers, a collection designed to inform and educate rather than to entertain.
A corridor runs behind this large central library room which is lined with more blue shelves holding children's books, including first editions of books by Louisa May Alcott and her contemporaries.
Beyond that is another library that reminded me of the Long Room at Trinity College in Dublin. This was more like a museum than a working library. Stunning wooden bookcases kept some books behind glass, while others were in large, deep niches. The commune's original study table with a double slanted top for easy reading dominated the center of the room.
The gallery
As I said, I spent my free time in the library. In that quiet place, surrounded by rare books, I churned out about 20,000 worth of words, all longhand, seated in a corner next to stacks of atlases.
If you ever have the chance to go to the Oneida Community Mansion House, take it. Take the time to sit in the library and accept its gifts.
The main reading room has huge skylights and blue shelves.
The blue shelves wrap around all 4 walls of the main reading room and are filled with books collected by the Perfectionists.
As a National Historic Landmark, the library's collection continues to grow and there is a full-time librarian.
This series of Tolstoy novels features Cyrillic lettering but was published in the US.
More first editions--The collected works of Joseph Conrad.
The study room features bound periodicals from the late 1800's and early 1900's, plus rare books and the original table used for adult education by the Perfectionists.
Rare books reside behind glass. There's a partial numbering system at the top of some shelves, but no one knew what the Roman numerals represent.
Deep niches are full of bound periodicals and reference books.
The children's section is full of treasures.
First editions by Louisa May Alcott including Jo's Boys, the sequel to Little Men, which is the sequel to Little Women.
Mar 7, 2024 | #reviews
THE BONE RECORDS by Rich Zahradnik is a wonderfully edgy “everyman” thriller but don’t expect a Clark Kent action story. THE BONE RECORDS gives us a down-on-his-luck drama with a compelling sense of place and villains who are still fighting the Cold War.
Raised by his father, Griff Orlov grew up surrounded by the Russian diaspora on the rim of New York City. As the book opens, his father is missing and no one can provide any clue as to what happened. Griff has no choice but to sell the house where he grew up.
In the house for the very last night, Griff is shocked to see his father make a surreptitious entrance. Rushed and agitated, the father advises Griff to seek out a former girlfriend before they are interrupted by a stranger.
Griff’s father flees. Griff gives chase over the rooftops, only to see the stranger murder his father and disappear into the night.
Talk about an inciting incident!
When no one else seems to care about his missing-now-murdered father, Griff sets out to find the truth for himself. There’s a whiff of The Fugitive here, although instead of being a doctor, Griff is a lowly government clerk with zero money, a boss who is cheating the system and an ex-girlfriend who doesn’t want anything to do with him.
But Griff has few options other than to keep digging, which lead him to “bone records.”
These are Cold War-era X-rays that have been etched with music banned in the Soviet Union. Under Stalin and Beria, comrades found with Western music could expect a one-way trip to the gulag. Finding albums on the black market was nearly impossible.
But it was possible to record songs on the film used to make X-rays, if anyone could get it, making images of broken bones and skull fractures the base material for new recordings. Single songs were etched onto these makeshift vinyl album blanks for underground Soviet music lovers who risked everything just to hear a Beatles tune.
His father’s disappearance is connected to those youthful listeners, many of whom made their way to the United States. There are more twists and turns in the book than you can count, with multiple shades of gray painted on every character. My heart stopped a few times, sure that Griff was going to become a different sort of bone record himself!
This is a standalone, but I’d love to see Griff make a comeback as he unravels more Cold War era mysteries.
Find THE BONE RECORDS on Amazon.
Feb 29, 2024 | #booknews
New!
Large print has arrived at the Galliano Club, where trouble is always on tap.
Large print editions of all 4 of the Galliano Club historical fiction thrillers are now available for all 4 books in the series! I’m so pleased to be able to offer this additional format.
Sometimes it’s nice to have a paperback that is easy on the eye, especially when Murder, Blackmail and Revenge are going on!
Look for the red notice on the cover.
Find all large print paperback editions of the Galliano Club series on Amazon:
ROAD TO THE GALLIANO CLUB
MURDER AT THE GALLIANO CLUB
BLACKMAIL AT THE GALLIANO CLUB
REVENGE AT THE GALLIANO CLUB
Feb 22, 2024 | #reviews
The Secret Hours by Mick Herron is a must-read spy vs spy thriller.
Like John le Carré’s A LEGACY OF SPIES, which tells the backstory of his iconic spy thriller THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, this tale of espionage cross and double-cross reveals past lives of those who populate Mick Herron’s Slough House series about misfit British spies.
Also like the le Carré thriller, the action swings between London and Berlin, with spy organizations looking to the past to solve today’s threats to their very existence.
Related review: A LEGACY OF SPIES
THE SECRET HOURS starts with heart-pounding action as Max, a retired academic living in the country, narrowly escapes a midnight home invasion. We get few clues about Max before the story moves to London.
There, a seemingly mundane government investigation called Monochrome. The purpose is to look at possible wrongdoing by the security service referred to as Regent’s Park, its address in London.
The two minimally successful civil servants assigned to run the admin side of Monochrome have little leverage and zero political power. The wily head of Regent’s Park maneuvers to keep official files out of Monochrome’s way.
This means that Monochrome is a paper exercise set up by the last Prime Minister that will stutter on until it can be closed down with a minimum of press coverage.
Except that an eye-popping stray file finds its way to Monochrome’s minders. A real witness is called to testify.
Through her testimony, we’re whisked to Berlin and tossed into a murky operation conducted by a larger-than-life British intel officer. After the fall of the wall, the witness, then a 20-something, was sent to the embassy in Berlin to keep an eye on him. She finds out that he is running an unauthorized operation to catch an East German Stasi officer who killed his agent, helped by her brother, a black market fixer.
The descriptions of a newly restored Berlin are fabulous. East meets West in the black market, seedy nightclubs, and crumbling buildings.
Besides the lush vocabulary and wry undertone, I really appreciated the sense of anticipation Herron creates; the certainty that you know something but you’re not sure what it is. The construction is flawless, including subtle verb tense changes to move the reader from the present into the past.
No one is who they say they are but if you’re read any of the Slough House books, go ahead and make an educated guess.
It’s what all the best spies do.
Get THE SECRET HOURS on Amazon
Feb 15, 2024 | #booknews
The audiobook version of the Detective Emilia Cruz novella, THE LISTMAKER OF ACAPULCO was just released on Audible. This is a “Virtual Voice” audiobook from Amazon.
It sounds surprisingly lifelike but the voice is not a human narrator.
If you have listened to any of the Detective Emilia Cruz audiobooks narrated by Johanna Parker that are available on Audible through Tantor Media (CLIFF DIVER, HAT DANCE, DIABLO NIGHTS, KING PESO) you may be able to tell the difference.
An Audie and Earphone Award winner, Johanna has also narrated the young adult Mediator series by Meg Cabot, Jana DeLeon’s Ghost-in-Law series, and Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire books.
LISTMAKER is a standalone novella that takes place after the events in NARCO NOIR, the most recent novel in the series.
A notebook full of lists of names appears to be a record of bribes paid to dirty cops, but only a cartel killer Emilia put in the hospital knows the truth. When Emilia finds out, the notebook becomes her key to take down a ruthless gang leader. If only she could do the same to the head of the police union, who once again is threatening to upend her personal life.
4.7/5 stars! Reviewer Bruce U. wrote “Her smarts, fortitude, and compassion all come through in this story — and the big reveal took me by surprise, too.”
If you give the new audiobook a listen, I’d love to hear if you think this technology should be made available for more audiobooks.
Find the Kindle and Audible audiobook editions on Amazon
Feb 9, 2024 | #reviews
Molly Gray is the crime-solving Head Maid at London’s Regency Grand Hotel in THE MYSTERY GUEST the second book in the adorable and bestselling Molly the Maid series. Socially challenged, Molly has an eye for details that others miss.
The Regency Grand is thrilled to host famous mystery author J. D. Grimthorpe for a Big Announcement about his bestselling novels, many of which feature poisons. Reporters and mystery fans pack the hotel’s new Tea Room in anticipation. But before he can finish his speech and share the big reveal, Grimthorpe keels over dead.
Suddenly, Molly and her quiet maid-in-training are suspected of murder. The trainee was the last person to give Grimthorpe a cup of tea. Soon it’s revealed that the hot beverage was laced with car antifreeze.
Moreover, we soon learn that Molly met Grimthorpe years ago under difficult circumstances.
Molly narrates both her backstory and current events. The dual timelines are easy to follow, with backstory chapters starting with “Before.” Those intervals reveal how Molly’s mother was a drug addict—possibly accounting for Molly’s peculiarities–and left her child to be raised by her own mother.
Molly’s “Gran” was a maid working for the Grimthorpe family. When Molly is held back a grade because of her socially awkward ways, Gran takes her out of school and brings her to work at the mansion, where Molly meets Grimthorpe’s gorgon of a wife. The child is allowed to polish the silver and access the vast library next to her husband’s office.
All is fine for a few weeks, until Grimthorpe presses himself on Gran and Molly contrives to get her grandmother fired.
Once we know the backstory between Molly and the dead writer, the murder investigation takes on heightened tension. Suspicion is thrown on the hotel doorman, Grimthorpe’s fans, his personal assistant and other quirky characters. But it’s Molly, with her way of noticing what no one else does, who ultimately breaks the case wide open.
I absolutely loved Molly’s narration, from her way of referring to her boyfriend as “beloved Juan Manuel” to her clever rhyming cleaning mantras. Some might call this a cozy mystery but I’d say that the Molly the Maid books are in a class of their own.
Highly Recommended.
See THE MYSTERY GUEST on AMAZON here.
