Military Bookshelf: The Books of Summer

Military.com - Tom Miller

Jun 02, 2008

It's summertime and the living's easy. The reading should be too. This is no time for serious literature or scholarly monographs. There'll be plenty of time for that when the days grow shorter than Mariah Carey's skirts. Summer is the time for guilty pleasures of all sorts, including literary. Here are some titles to consider.   

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The Spies of Warsaw: A Novel, by Alan Furst. Random House, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6602-5

An acknowledged master of the historical spy novel, Furst (The Foreign Correspondent) sets his latest in the tense days of the late 1930s in Warsaw. With Hitler ramping up the rhetoric and tension, the Poles and their putative allies have every reason to be concerned. It's small wonder that Warsaw is a hotbed of spies.   

One of those putative allies, France, has its own problems - including a long border with Germany and a debilitating sense of denial. In thrall to Marshall Philippe Petain's concept of static defense - and its embodiment in the Maginot Line - the French establishment seems compelled to ignore any evidence that contradicts their theories.

Some French officers, notably Colonel Charles deGaulle, fear that the Germans are planning a very different war than WWI - a war of maneuver using large armor formations. They expect the Germans to flank the elaborate fortifications of the Maginot Line and attack France through the Ardennes Forest.

The author's main character, Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, is ostensibly the French military attaché in Warsaw but in reality is a spy. Mercier not only shares the fears of officers like deGaulle but also is seeking intelligence that will open the eyes of the French military establishment to the danger. When he is approached by a senior German military intelligence officer who despises the Nazis, Mercier comes up with a dangerous plan to steal important evidence of German armaments and likely intentions from under their noses.

Mercier also finds time to rescue one of his agents, a German national, from the SS; spy on German tank maneuvers in the Black Forest; save a husband-wife team of Soviet spies from Stalin's purge; and fall in love with a beautiful League of Nations' lawyer. Whether his covert mission into Germany to purloin Nazi documents will prove as successful is another story.

Furst convincingly recreates the chilling sense of foreboding that colored everything as Europe slouched toward war in 1937 and 1938. And even though you know that the story turns out badly for the Poles and the French, you still root for Colonel Mercier to succeed.

For fans of history and espionage, Furst has crafted an atmospheric and sobering story of bureaucratic arrogance and wishful thinking.  

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The Dirty Secrets Club, by Meg Gardiner. Dutton, $24.95 (355p) ISBN 978-0-525-95066-0

Gardiner, a California native and former lawyer, lives and writes in London. After years of publishing her mysteries in England, she makes her U.S. debut with this atmospheric novel featuring San Francisco forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett. Publisher Dutton notes that it's the first in a new series. If so, Gardiner's off to an auspicious start.

Beckett is called in to assist the cops when Assistant U.S. Attorney Callie Harding dies in an apparent murder-suicide - the third such high-profile case in the past week in the Bay Area. Dubbed the "princess of autoerotic mortality," Beckett is summoned because Harding was found with the word "Dirty" written in lipstick on her thigh.

With people dying every forty-eight hours, Beckett and police Lieutenant Amy Tang team up to find the link among the murders and to stop the murderer. Thus begins a frantic race against time that gets more and more bizarre by the hour and ends with a terrifying chase through the darkened streets of San Fran following a Halloween earthquake.   

There's a lot to like here. Gardiner's sharp prose, frenetic plotting, and surprising twists keep readers guessing and turning pages. Main character Beckett is intriguing - professionally and personally - and promises lots of interesting storylines in the future. And, as an extra bonus, Gardiner takes readers on a guided tour of San Francisco reminiscent of Hitchcock in "Vertigo. " 

That's not to say all is well. The whole thing is highly improbable for starters. And, too many questions rate too easy answers.  But, if you're willing to accept the premise - and it is fiction after all - you're in for a wild and enjoyable ride.

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Command of Honor: General Lucian Truscott's Path to Victory in World War II, by H. Paul Jeffers. NAL Caliber, $24.95 (326p) ISBN 978-0-451-22402-6

Hold on. I know this column is advertised as summer reading, but that doesn't mean that everything has to be fiction. Doesn't a popular biography that reads like fiction deserve a place - especially for Type A personalities who feel guilty reading thrillers and mysteries?  I think so, and Military.com is a big tent. Surely, it has room for the first biography of one of World War II's most successful, but often overlooked, commanders.

Ask anyone to name a World War II general and you'll likely hear in response lots of Eisenhower and Patton and some Bradley. Lucian Truscott?  Not so much. In fact, only serious students of history are likely to mention Truscott.

Part of Truscott's relative anonymity comes from the fact that he labored on forgotten fronts and in overlooked campaigns: Italy and the invasion of southern France. Another part is that biographers have bypassed the quietly efficient Truscott for other more flamboyant commanders.

Now, along comes prolific author H. Paul Jeffers (Onward We Charge: The Heroic Story of Darby's Rangers in World War II) to tell Truscott's remarkable story in this first biography.

Born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma, Truscott joined the Army during World War I, was assigned to the cavalry, and spent the war on the Mexican border. In the skeleton force of the interwar decades, he was one of "the prime movers in the . . . campaign to transform the horse cavalry into a mechanized force. "

Following Pearl Harbor, Truscott was sent to England to set up a U.S. commando force. The result was the establishment of the First Ranger Battalion. He served as Patton's deputy for the North Africa landing, commanded the Third Infantry Division for the invasions of Sicily and Anzio, and later commanded Seventh Army and Fifth Army. He retired in 1947 after thirty years of service.

A modest man - "unpretentious, self-effacing" - Truscott was admired and respected by his soldiers and fellow officers. He also was one of the war's most effective combat commanders.

Jeffers' solidly researched and crisply written biography of an overlooked hero is a welcome addition to World War II literature.

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Copyright 2008 by Tom Miller