Anatomy of a Song - Marc Myers

   2016; 323 pages.  Full Title: Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits that Changed Rock, R&B, and Pop.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Music History; Reference; Pop Culture; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

   The title says it all – 45 songs spanning 41 years and chronicling the development of the modern music era, focusing on Rock, Pop, and R&B, but also touching on associated genres such as folk, reggae, punk, country, alt-rock, and others.

 

    The first song – Lawdy Miss Clawdy - sung by Lloyd Price can arguably be viewed as the birth of music's modern era, as it introduced the “45” record, something receptive to teenage ears and wallets.  The last song – Losing My Religion – by R.E.M. provides the cut-off year for this book, as the author asserts that a song has to be around for 25 years or more to be able to be called “Iconic”.

 

    The book is actually a compilation of entries from a monthly Wall Street Journal column that author Marc Myers has been writing since June 2010.  There's a goodly proportion of black groups and music , and I liked that.  The 45 chapters are all short, averaging about 7 pages each, one of which is always a picture of the artist(s).  The structure each chapter is the same:

 

    a.) An overview, telling the song’s backstory, how it fared on the Billboard charts and how it impacted the music scene,

    b.) a list of people, including their professions, whom the author sought out and interviewed to research the song, and

    c.) excerpts from those interviews, explaining how each song evolved.

    Want to learn how to make a hit tune?  Here are 45 examples.

 

What’s To Like...

    Anatomy of a Song hammered home a couple points about making hit songs.  The first thing to know is that it requires the input of a lot of people: songwriters, producers, lead singers, back-up singers, bandmates, arrangers, engineers/mixers, and session musicians.  I was surprised to learn that the “radio versions” of a majority of the 45 songs were done by session musicians, who were available courtesy of whichever studio a band or singer was contractually associated with.  You want the best musicians playing the version that the radio will play; hopefully the actual band members can then learn it by the time they go on tour.

 

    The producer, mixer, and arranger, and sometimes even the singer and/or band members, then take the raw song and add things such as horns-or-strings, overdubs, upbeats, a light reggae bass line, power chords, distortion, and layering.  Isolation booths can be used, particularly for the lead singer’s part, and in order to keep each track separate and pure.  Then comes the mixing, which is a work of art.  Finally, demo tapes are made and distributed to all associated for added input and tweaking.

 

    The book is a music trivia buff’s delight.  John Kay of Steppenwolf is completely color-blind.  Bette Midler used to work as a coat-check girl.  The Marvelettes originally called themselves “The Cansinyets” a slightly garbled version of “Can’t Sing Yet”.  Early on, Aerosmith was “heavily into funk and soul”.  Dion was supposed to be on the plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper.  He gave up his seat because he didn’t want to pay the $36 that Buddy Holly was charging for a seat.

 

    The mention of the Led Zeppelin tour in late 1969  brought back personal memories.  I was at their Phoenix concert, having snuck in via some way that I’ve long since forgotten.  Alas, Led Zeppelin quit after 30 minutes or so, announcing that lead singer Robert Plant was sick as a dog, with the evidence being that he was singing everything an octave below his normal voice range.

 

    Two additional other things stood out to me.  One was the professionalism of all the bands and singers showcased.  These are not a bunch of wide-eyed, zonked-out amateurs doing whatever they please; they are musicians/artists constantly studying their trade and trying out new things.  The second was that the constant pressure to compose new material, then rehearsing, recording, promoting, touring, making TV appearances, and trying to maintain some sort of private life, while also somehow putting out one or two albums every year is a surefire way to get totally burnt out.  The daily life of a successful rock-n-roll band lost a lot of its glamour in this book.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Achromatopsia (n.) : a condition characterized by a partial or total absence of color vision.  People with it see only black, white, and shades of gray.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 217 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.74/5 based on 1,078 ratings and 205 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    When MTV began broadcasting in August 1981, hip-hop was virtually ignored, with the cable channel focusing instead on major rock and pop acts whose labels provided MTV with music videos.  Many of those acts also happened to be white.  As MTV’s popularity and influence grew with the increasing number of cable subscribers, a rift widened between hip-hop and rock over rap’s exclusion.  Rappers viewed rockers as little more than video actors, and rockers viewed rappers as glorified disc jockeys and music thieves, not bona fide artists or musicians.  (pg. 237)

 

    “The song’s success was a complete fluke.  None of us thought that ‘Losing My Religion’ had much potential.  There’s no traditional chorus, and the lead instrument was a mandolin.  The video was unusual and groundbreaking – super-pop, super-homoerotic, and hypercharged.  In the video, I lip-synched for the first time.  But it all connected, and fans responded to the song’s realness and emotional urgency.”  (Michael Stipe, pg. 323)

 

“’White Rabbit’ is a very good song.  I’m not a genius but I don’t suck.  My only complaint is that the lyrics could have been stronger.  More people should have been annoyed.”  (Grace Slick, pg. 99)

    There are some things to quibble about, the major one, unsurprisingly, being the song-selection.  The are zero entries for the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, Elton John, and Bruce Springsteen.  Elvis gets one, but it’s from 1969 in the twilight of his career, not the 1950s when he dominated the music scene.  But I don't think these glaring omissions are due to any poor judgment on the part of Marc Myers; most likely he simply didn't have any interviews involving these artists.

 

     Also, the final decade in the book’s 40-year timespan, 1982-1991, is a bit sparsely represented – only three songs.  And while I enjoyed the many references to bands beyond these 45 – such as Lindisfarne, The Incredible String Band, and Stephen Stills – it would have been nice have an index of every act that gets mentioned.

 

    There’s a small amount of cussing, but it was always from direct quotes by the people Marc Myers was interviewing.  Hey, if they say it, and he quotes it, the cusswords have to be included.

 

    But let's be clear – I found Anatomy of a Song to be a fantastic book, bringing back a flood of old music memories, as well as enlightening me about just how much drudgery there is to being a music idol.  No wonder so many of them, regardless of genre, sought relief via booze and/or drugs.

 

    8½ Stars.  For the record, I was familiar with 40 of the 45 artists spotlighted here, and 35 of the songs.  Most of the unfamiliar artists were from the 1950s, which is before my time.  Your "hits" will probably be different f rom mine.

Dancing Aztecs - Donald E. Westlake

   1976; 350 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Crime Fiction; Comedic Mystery.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    It's a brilliant scam.  A New York City museum is willing to pay a million dollars for the famous “Dancing Aztec Priest”, an ancient figurine made of solid gold with emeralds for eyes (see the book cover image).

 

    Unfortunately, it presently resides in the dirt-poor South American nation called Descalzo, where the people revere it, pray to it, and are unlikely to give it up for any price.  But couldn't a skilled sculptor create a cheap plaster lookalike, and switch it out?  The only challenge then would be getting it through customs when shipping it into the United States.  And that’s where the brilliancy comes in.

 

    Why not make a bunch of lookalikes, put them in crates bound to NYC, mark the crate that has the real Dancing Aztec in it, and pay some airport hustler with access to the JFK airport tarmac to steal the designated crate before it goes through customs inspection?

 

    Finding such a hustler is easy, it’s our protagonist, Jerry Manelli, who's already doing a profitable business stealing small amounts of baggage on a regular basis at JFK.  Just have someone call him from Descalzo when the plane leaves there and tell him the million-dollar figurine is in “Crate E”.

 

    Funny thing though.  The first five letters of the Spanish alphabet are pronounced “ah”, “bay”, “say”, “day”, “ay”.  So when the native Descalzan tells the Jerry to swipe “Box ay”, guess which one he grabs?  Oopsie.  Someone else is going to get the real statuette, not realizing how much it’s really worth.

 

What’s To Like...

    Dancing Aztecs chronicles the madcap antics that ensue after the scammers become aware of the mix-up described above.  As luck would have it, the rest of the Dancing Aztecs, sixteen in all, were then all given out as “thank-you mementos” at an awards banquet given by a group called the Open Sports Committee.  That means the sixteen trophies went sixteen separate ways to people scattered all over the greater New York City area.  Good luck finding the right Aztec.

 

    Things rapidly get more complicated.  The bad guys go chasing the statues.  Our hustler-hero figures out why the baddies wanted him to hijack the special crate and he forms his own team to track down the statues.  Some of the sixteen recipients also wise up and work together to do the same, including one who even teams up with his wife’s paramour.  The baddies in Descalzo start their own caper and they have the added challenge of hijacking an airplane to get to the US, then somehow evading arrest.

 

    All this probably sounds confusing, but somehow Donald E. Westlake’s storytelling makes everything easy to follow.  It helps that he includes a handy Cast-of-Characters at the very beginning, warns you any time the storyline goes non-linear (which happens a lot), and keeps the settings limited to the NYC area, Descalzo, and a brief side trip to Pennsylvania.

 

    Weirdly, the book doesn’t have chapters, Westlake simply adds a brief header (such as: “in the beginning…”, “prior to which…”, that night…”, some time earlier…”) which lets you know you’re heading into a new section of the tale.

 

    I chuckled at the national drink of Descalzo: something called “gluppe”, which is made by fermenting rotting yam skins and lima-bean stalks.  Westlake gives us a nice “feel” for the various boroughs of NYC, and it’s a treat anytime the Olmecs get mentioned.  The book was published in 1976, and there were some neat nods to long-forgotten people from back then, including Sonny Jurgensen, Alex Karras, Shirley Chisholm, and Stokely Carmichael, the latter getting a local Squash Court & Snack Bar named after him.  There’s also a very slight “is it natural or supernatural” aspect to the tale, and I always like that.

 

     The ending is skillfully done, with a couple well-timed twists and a neat “six months later” epilogue.  Everyone lives happily ever after, or, at least no unhappier than they were before all this craziness transpired.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Agley (adj.) : awry; askew; wrong.  (a Scottishism).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 42 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.00/5 based on 513 ratings and 60 reviews.

 

Kindle Details…

    Dancing Aztecs currently sells for $7.99 at Amazon.  Donald E. Westlake has several dozen other e-books at Amazon, ranging in price from $1.99 to $14.99, the latter being for the most recent release in his acclaimed “Dortmunder” series.

 

Excerpts...

    The state trooper was driving a Fury II.  State troopers love Fury IIs.  State troopers will go on driving Fury IIs until some car company puts out a car called Kill.  Then state troopers will drive Kills.  State troopers get their self-image from Marvel Comics.  (loc. 2106)

 

    The Dancing Aztec Priest.  Three children were making fun of it, as usual; giggling at it, prancing before it, trying to imitate its stance.

    It looked so real (…)  And it gave just as much enjoyment to these disrespectful brats as had its predecessor.  What do children care whether their plaything is gold or gilt, the original or a copy, priceless or valueless?  In any event, the true original Priest long ago was flesh, and long since dead, that flesh ages ago converted to yams by the wonder of the natural order.  And we eat the yams, and we are all the Dancing Aztec Priest.  (loc. 6306)

 

Where he walks tombstones grow, and where he sits the sun never shines.  (loc. 2531 )

    There are a couple of nits to pick, mostly about things that were the norm back in the 70s or which Donald Westlake, who passed away in 2008, has no control over.

 

    For starters, there were a ton of typos.  My impression was that the publisher digitalized Dancing Aztecs by scanning the pages and converting them to “.doc” format.  Okay fine, I’ve used that sort of program before, and you still have to proofread the Word document.  They didn’t, and it shows via all sorts of annoying misprints: wife/with, sate/sale, m/in, worm/worth, well/we’ll (3 times!!), Watty/Wally, scoffing/scarfing, and many, many more.  If someone was paid to proofread this manuscript, they should be shot.

 

    There are at least a half dozen ethnic and sexual slurs, some of them done multiple times.  I cringed each time one popped up, but reminded myself that back in 1976, such language was acceptable.  Similarly, a couple of the sections are written in what might be called “jive” or “ebonics”, and for me they fell flat.  And for those who get offended by cusswords, I counted 30 instances in the first 25%.

 

    Despite all that, I thoroughly enjoyed Dancing Aztecs.  I’m in awe that the author could juggle so many separate storylines and not leave the reader in a befuddled fog.  This book is not part of his famous “Dortmunder” series, but I found it just as charming and entertaining. If you’ve never read a Donald Westlake novel, this is as good a place to start as any.

 

    9½ Stars.  It’s not a spoiler to say that the whereabouts of the missing Dancing Aztec Priest is revealed at the end of the book.  Just for fun then, try to figure out, alongside the book’s various characters, who has it.  I'm confidently betting that you’ll be wrong.

Warrior of the Altaii - Robert Jordan

   2019; 352 pages.  New Author? : No.  Military Fantasy, Action & Adventure; Sword & Sorcery.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Meet Wulfgar, the book’s titular "Warrior of the Altaii".  Actually, it would be more apt to call him an Altaii warlord, since he commands one of the tribal raiding hordes.  He answers directly to the present Altaii king, Bohemund, and is a close friend of Bohemund’s son Harald, who leads another Altaii force.

 

    The rulers of the great city of Lanta would add still another title to Wulfgar: barbarian.  Then again, they’d apply that to any Altaii, and for that matter, to any of the tribes that roam the great plains, where water is scarce and death is always close at hand.  Only the very strong survive out there and those that do always pose a threat to the cities along the edge of the Plain.  Including Lanta.

 

    The Morassa are another barbarian tribe of the Plain, and rivals of the Altaii.  Perhaps the rulers of Lanta can talk them into joining them in a war against the Altaii.  Two against one, so to speak.  To be even more sure of victory though, it would be prudent to take Wulfgar out of the action.  Let's see if he can be lured into Lanta and taken captive.  It’s risky but well worth the gamble.

 

    If it doesn't work, it's safe to say that Wulfgar will be very displeased with everyone involved.

 

What’s To Like...

    Warrior of the Altaii is an early effort by the late, great Robert Jordan, who reportedly (per Wikipedia) wrote it in just 13 days back in 1978, a full 12 years before the first book of his fabulous Wheel of Time series was published.

 

     The tale is told in the first-person POV (Wulfgar’s) and chronicles the  fighting and intrigue of Wulfgar and his band of Altaii against the Lantans and the Morassa.  There’s lots of action, lots of skullduggery, lots of bloodshed, and lots of magic.  There’s also a fair amount of nudity, at least one instance of aphrodisiac usage, and a little bit of B&D, although all of it is tastefully done.  This is first a foremost a sword-&-sorcery fantasy novel, with a hint of multiverses thrown in to give it a unique slant.  Those prospective parallel dimensions don't figure in to any major extent.  Yet.

 

    I liked crossing paths with the Wanderers and not crossing paths with the Runners.  There is gender equality here – both men and women can “own” personal slaves of either sex for the sake of work or entertainment, and something called “Women’s Justice” overrides “Men’s Law”.

 

    My book was the hardcover version, and included a full-color map on the inside of both the front and back covers, plus a simple-but-relevant vignette at the start of each of the 34 chapters.  The geographic place names were a curious mixture of made-up and historically real ones, the latter included Hyksos, Asmara, and Varangia.

 

    There's a five-page Foreword by Robert Jordan’s widow at the very beginning, giving the backstory of his writing and marketing this novel.  I found it interesting that the manuscript was twice picked up by publishing agencies in the early going, yet both times failing to make it into print.

 

    The ending is very WoT-ish, with a protracted action-packed battle (actually, three successive-but-separate battles), and our heroes overcoming desperate odds to win the day.  Or did they?  The final chapter is an evocative epilogue, and sets up further adventures for Wulfgar in a sequel which, sadly, was never written.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Chivvied (v.) : encouraged someone to do something they do not want to do.

Others: Spavined (adj.)

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 232 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.70/5 based on 1,582 ratings and 252 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “This girl, Talva.  I want to buy her.  How much?”

    “Buy me!” Elspeth interrupted.

    She cast an eye over Elspeth, ignoring the outburst, and pursed her lips.  “One hundred imperials,” she said finally.  “Gold imperials.”

    “One hundred-?  Does she look like a graduate of the training pens of Asmara?”

    “I’m right here,” said Elspeth, but we continued to negotiate over her voice.  (pg. 71)

 

    “Don’t look surprised, my barbarian.  It’s the way Sayene taught me when I was a child.  Punish hard when your orders are disobeyed, even in the slightest detail.  In that way, you ensure that your orders will always be obeyed to the letter.  Punish twice as hard when the wishes you haven’t expressed aren’t carried out.  In that way everyone will constantly search for ways to please you.”  (pg. 127)

 

“Fare you well, warrior.  We will drink together in the Lands of the Dead.  We will eat lamb in the Tents of Death.”  (pg. 90 )

    There are a couple nits to pick, but most of them are simply due to this book never being developed into a series.

 

    For instance there are a bunch of loose ends that are never tied up: a.) who are the Wanderers and how do they fit in?; b.) who’s  destroying the waterholes?; c.) will the Altaii become soft and weak (Wulfgar fears this) as they inevitably begin to become more civilized?; and d.) what does the future hold for Wulfgar and Elspeth?  I’m sure Robert Jordan intended to address all of these in subsequent books.

 

    Despite all the thrills and spills, the plot development is somewhat slow.  Up until the lengthy final battle (and I mean that in a positive way), most of the fighting seemed like it was “action for the sake of action”.  Finally, and most nitpicky, while the map was masterfully done, it appears one of the cities on it was misnamed.  Cerdu somehow became Cidra.  Wowza, first time I’ve seen that type of typo.

 

    8 Stars.  I hear you wondering: how does Warrior of the Altaii compare to the Wheel of Time?  Unsurprisingly, the latter is more polished, more epic, more complex, and obviously a lot longer.  That’s to be expected.  I think I’d have been bummed if this book had turned out to be better than WoT.

 

    But this doesn't mean that Warrior of the Altaii book was in any way a disappointment.  It’s entertaining throughout, each character is unique and interesting, and there's ample action and intrigue.  In short, it's a fine first effort by one of the best epic fantasy writers ever.  What would be really great now is for Robert Jordan’s estate to commission someone to develop this into a series.  Maybe Brandon Sanderson is available to be rehired.

Grumpy Old Wizards - John O'Riley

   2013; 350 pages.  Book 1 (out of 7) in the “Grumpy Old Wizards” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Paranormal and Urban Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 4*/10.

 

    It isn’t easy being a Category Six Wizard.  The world loves and hates your powers, both at the same time.

 

    On one hand, your magical affinity for recent thoughts and residual strands of spells makes you a valuable tool for detectives at a crime scene.  On the other hand, ordinary people fear your otherworldly abilities, so they force you to wear a ring which acts kind of like a house-arrest anklet: if you start to radiate too much magical energy, it knocks you out.

 

    That’s the situation 84-year-old Josephine O’Connor finds herself in.  She’s on call as a consultant to the local Siesta Key (Florida) police department.  They use her services a lot, but except for her 28-year-old grandson and detective Jake, nobody else on the force is comfortable having her around.

 

    Maybe it’s her looks.  One advantage of being a Category Six Wizard is that you age very slowly.  Josephine looks like a 30-year-old.  Or maybe they’re scared of her ability to perform telekinesis.  I’d would be too if I knew someone could pick me up and move me around without physically touching me.

 

    Well, everybody better kiss and make up, because there’s a serial killer loose in Siesta Key, and his magic appears to be every bit as powerful as Josephine’s, if not stronger.  If she can’t overcome his spells and bring him in, who can?

 

What’s To Like...

    I liked the backstory premise in Grumpy Old Wizards – that some years back something called “the Disaster” happened, releasing a bunch of psychometric energy which imbued some, but not all, humans with varying degrees of wizardly powers.  Those powers are rated in categories  ranging from one to six, with six being the highest.  Any wizard can get a temporary bump in their power level, a “fix” if you will, by tapping into something called a power vortex, but this is against the law, as it scares the "normal", magic-less humans.

 

    There are only three power vortexes in the United States.  Two of them are in Sarasota, Florida and Seattle, Washington, convenient placements for the book's storyline.  But the third location – Sedona, Arizona -  made me chuckle, since I live in Arizona.  Sedona really is claimed by New Agers to be a mystic power mecca, with lots of psychic festivals held there throughout the year.

 

    There is no gender bias in John O’Riley’s wizard system – they can be male or female and have equal power potential.  The magic in the story is introduced immediately: Josephine is summoned to a murder-by-spellcasting crime scene to lend a psychic hand in the investigation.  Things quickly get deadly between the killer and Josephine, and she's also hampered by a growing addiction to the power vortex along with the threat of incarceration if the police become aware of her “feedings”.

 

    The ending is so-so.  The evil wizard is revealed, and the expected spellcasting duel ensues.  There aren’t really any twists to the final battle, and I felt the outcome was kind of arbitrary.  I found the book’s title to be quite clever and “catchy”, but if it had any tie-in to the story, I missed it.

 

    There are 21 chapters covering 350 pages, including an neat epilogue which isn't listed in the Table of Contents.  The story ends at 91% Kindle, with a bunch of extras in the last 9% including an "Author’s Note" and a sneak peek at the next book in the series, Corruption.  The book comes pretty close to being a "cozy"; I counted only 5 cusswords in the first quarter of the e-book; plus one instance of brief nudity later on that would hardly qualify as R-rated.

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, Grumpy Old Wizards sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The other six books in the series go for $3.99 apiece.  John O’Riley offers another half dozen or so books for your Kindle, all priced in the $3.94-$3.99 range.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 3.5*/5, based on 504 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.30*/5, based on 1,397 ratings and 198 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I enjoyed your visit to the crime scene this morning.  Did you do anything else interesting today?”

    “I ran into Spot while grocery shopping,” Josephine told him.

    “What happened?”  Jake’s brown eyes twinkled with anticipation and amusement.

    “I made his pants fall down.”  (loc. 158)

 

    “Robert and I have an understanding.  We’ve decided not to antagonize each other anymore,” Josephine said.

    “Really?” Alice said.  “I’m surprised to hear that.  You sounded like you weren’t going to take him up on his offer of a truce the last time you talked about him.”

    “My life is too complicated without making new enemies.  I have a serial killer to catch and an enforcer breathing down my neck,” Josephine said.  “I’d like to kick Morgan’s ass and shove him down a flight of stairs.”

    “You’re awful violent today,” Alice teased.  “I think you need to drink less coffee.”  (loc. 2344)

 

 

“I don’t think I like my subconscious very much.”  (loc. 1757)

    Unfortunately, as many other reviewers at Amazon and Goodreads have noted (leading to the low ratings listed above), Grumpy Old Wizards has some significant weaknesses.

 

    In brief, the writing is weak, especially the dialogue portions.  The showing/telling issues are quite distracting.  The storytelling meanders.  The plotline starts out with a serial killer murders investigation, but rapidly get bogged down in the inventing and casting of all sorts of spells.  Worst of all, the characters, whether they be good, bad, or secondary, are simply boring.  If you compare, say, this book’s characters of Josephine, Helen, Alice, and Detective Morgan with Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, Lula, Grandma Mazur, and Detective Joe Morelli, the contrast is striking.

 

    I have to wonder how much time was spent on polishing the manuscript, and whether any beta readers, editors, and/or proofreaders were used in the writing of Grumpy Old Wizards.  If so, their collective job performance leaves a lot to be desired.  Don’t take my word for all these gripes; go read the Amazon and Goodreads reviews for yourself.

 

    4 Stars.  Grumpy Old Wizards has the potential to be a fascinating Urban Fantasy novel, but is in need of some serious polishing and revising, perhaps with even a ghostwriter/editor brought in.  It’s possible the writing improves as the series progresses, but I doubt many readers will take the gamble.

The Secret War - Max Hastings

   2015; 557 pages.  Full Title: The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : History; Espionage; World War 2; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    During a war, how much is the knowledge about what the enemy’s up to worth?  Before you answer, keep in mind that money is precious when waging war: armies are expensive, and so are the weapons, transportation, and food needed to properly equip them.

 

    Besides the money, you also need to decide how many people to devote to gathering enemy intel.  After all, they could instead be carrying a gun and stationed on the front lines.  Even when you decide on a number, then you have to figure out what they’re going to focus on.

 

    Some should work on breaking the enemy’s secret codes, but who knows, maybe the whole war will pass by before they succeed at that.  Others should spend their time eavesdropping on the enemy’s communications, which in World War 2, was mostly radio transmissions.  Perhaps we ought to also drop some commandos behind enemy lines, equipped with binoculars and a transmitter, to give us firsthand observations of where the enemy squadrons, ships, fuel depots, etc. are located.  I wonder how’d we get anyone to volunteer for that job.

 

    Naturally, we should expect our foes to do this same kind of skullduggery to us, so we’d also need a counterintelligence department.

 

    Which means we'll need even more money and personnel.  It better be worth it.

 

What’s To Like...

    In The Secret War Max Hastings takes an in-depth look at how each of the major combatants in World War 2 approached the task of developing intel on their opponents, and in some cases, on their allies as well; the latter being especially true when England, the USA, and Russia were forced to into an uncomfortable alliance against Nazi Germany.

 

    I liked the book’s structure: 21 sections in more or less chronological order, starting with the pre-war setups and continuing through the post-war “Nuclear bomb technology” spying, capped off with a great final chapter in a “what ever happened to so-and-so” forma, which was one of my favorite sections, along with #15, “Blunderhead”, which chronicles the escapades of one Ronald Seth, in theory an English spy, who certainly knew how to milk the system.

 

    Given that espionage is by nature a secret profession, I was amazed how many agents afterward went on to have very successful and public careers.  Graham Greene became a famous novelist.  Alan Turing became famous for his work in developing the computer.  Ian Fleming is known to all for writing the series featuring the superspy James Bond.  Freeman Dyson was a pioneer in quantum physics; the “Dyson sphere” (say what?) is named after him in honor of his theoretical essays about it.  Hugh Alexander and Stuart Milner-Barry both became top-tier chess players for England after the war.  Sterling Hayden became a famous Hollywood movie star.  All played key roles in the intel effort against Nazi Germany.

 

    Max Hastings gives an impressively balanced view of each country’s intelligence departments, including those of Japan and Germany.  They each had some significant intel successes; they each had some significant intel missed opportunities.  In fairness, it was always difficult to “sort the wheat from the chaff”.  How do you tell if the “Japan is going to attack Pearl Harbor” intercepted message is more valid than the “Japan is going to invade South America” one?

 

    I admired Max Hastings' objectivity about the impact, or lack thereof, that intel had on the outcome of the war.  Even if you gain important knowledge, such as “Russia is about to launch an offensive”, there’s not much you can do about it if your army is no longer a match for theirs.  And a message like “the enemy is going to attack tomorrow” does little good if it takes a week to forward it to your frontline generals.  The validity of any message of great importance also has to be evaluated.  Did your spy send it, or did an enemy agent?  For that matter, is your spy a double- or triple-agent?   And let’s not even discuss generals who ignore good intel in favor of their “gut feelings”, or intel which starts out true but becomes false because some leader, such as Hitler, simply changes his mind.

 

    Like any book about the military, there are a ton of acronyms to get acquainted with.  My favorite here was “Huff Duff”, which stands for “High-Frequency Direction-Finding” radio signals.   As with any reference book, there are a slew of extra sections in the back of the book: Notes-&-Sources, Index, Bibliography, etc.  I found the “Photographs” section particularly fascinating.  Last and probably least, be aware that Max Hastings is a British author, so this book is written in “English”, not “American”.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Pusillanimity (n.) : lack of courage or determination; timidity.

Others: Pibroch (n.); Sclerotic (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.1/5 based on 773 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.84/5 based on 1,666 ratings and 198 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Do we know, or am I just not being told, what the Japanese intentions are in Burma, bearing in mind that they upset the whole of our offensive-defensive plans earlier this year and that a good deal of their movement passed unnoticed?”  (…)

    “If we do not know, then if I were the Army Group commander I should be very unhappy to go into battle with an enemy disposed I know not how, and of whose full intentions I am equally ignorant.  No doubt there is a limit to what the Japanese can do today with the land forces available to them in Burma, but past experience has shown that it is both inconvenient and decidedly unpleasant when they do the unexpected.  You will remember my saying the other day that it was never wise to assume that the Japanese will not do a thing because it seems stupid to us.”  (loc. 10266)

 

    When the first Soviet bomb was exploded in 1949, it proved to be an exact copy of the 1945 Alamogordo test device.  Apologists for Moscow’s informants have ever since made two points: first, that with or without the traitors, the Soviet Union would have built its own bomb soon enough, because that is how science and technology evolve around the world; second, that the NKVD’s informants performed a service to the cause of peace, because they ensured the creation of a balance of terror, making it impossible for America’s right-wing fanatics credibly to advocate a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union.  Both arguments merit consideration.  (loc. 19535)

 

“Diplomats and intelligence agents, in my experience, are even bigger liars than journalists.”  (loc. 496)

    A word to the wise: If I had to describe The Secret War in one word it would be “comprehensive”.  This is a deeply-researched effort, and that means you have a ton of people, acronyms, and Intel Group names to keep straight in your head.  Good luck with that. 

 

    Probably because of this, I found the book to be a challenging and slow read, yet without being the least bit boring.  The depth of the details is astounding.  This is a book for history buffs, especially those who love to read about World War 2, and I found The Secret War incredibly enlightening.  I came away with a better understanding of things like:

    a.) why Germany and Russia were initially partners, then deadly enemies.

    b.) why Japan would start a war-to-the-death against the United States

    c.) why the US didn’t believe Japan would dare attack them at Pearl Harbor or anyplace else.

    d.) why Stalin didn’t believe Hitler would invade Russia in 1941

 

    If you enjoy musing about such things, this is definitely the book for you.  If you have a book report due tomorrow, and you haven’t even started reading one yet, this is definitely not the book for you.

 

    9 Stars.  A personal note.  Several years ago, while riding the local light rail to a downtown concert, I sat across the aisle from a curious-looking, foppish man who was reading a book while completely oblivious to the crowded conditions around him.  Naturally I was fascinated.  I just had to know what book he was so absorbed in.

 

   After lots of glances, I finally determined its title was The Secret War.  I google-imaged it when I got home, and found “hits” that showed somebody named Max Hastings was the author.  I was resigned to looking for it at my local library; the Amazon price was way above my budget and searching for a particular non-fiction history tome at any used-book store is always a hopeless task.  Then lo and behold!, a couple weeks later, Amazon offered the e-book version for a paltry $1.99!  Serendipity strikes again!

 

    The rest is history.  Pun intended.