paleoutlaw

THE ALMOST NEARLY PERFECT PEOPLE by MICHAEL BOOTH a review

April 6, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in Book Reviews

THE ALMOST NEARLY PERFECT PEOPLE
The Truth about the Nordic Miracle

MICHAEL BOOTH
JONATHAN CAPE 406 PAGES €18.60

Think Finland and chances are you’ll think “ Nokia.” Think Sweden and it’s “IKEA.” Norway? Oil . Think Nordic? Five countries, advanced, prosperous, peaceful, tolerant, egalitarian, progressive and educated. From whom Ireland can possibly learn a lot. In this book, English travel and food writer Michael Booth takes an affectionate and perceptive look at all five.

The picture which emerges is more nuanced. Much to admire, certainly, but with darker corners and significant flaws. Yes there are lessons for Ireland. The main one is that we beat up on ourselves too much. The second that there is no simple Nordic template we can lift and apply here. Each of the Nordics comes with its own baggage and we can learn best by studying these less than nearly perfect societies.

With the exception of Norway, with its oil, the other Nordics in recent years have all experienced severe economic downturns, similar to Ireland’s. We are all familiar with the banking collapse in Iceland, where the three main banks borrowed ten times the country’s GDP before total collapse. We are less familiar with the Finnish economic collapse of the early 1990s, when a property bubble burst, GDP declined by 13% and unemployment rose from 3% to 18%. This in Finland, a country often held up as an example for Ireland to follow.

Sweden had a major banking crisis and recession in the early 90s also , after ITS building bubble burst, though it has successfully, and painfully, restructured since. Denmark’s household debt, at 310%, is the world’s highest, well above Ireland’s, following the 2008 collapse of a property boom fuelled by cheap credit and the introduction of interest only mortgages in 2003 ( sound familiar?). Indebtedness and negative equity are rampant, particularly among those aged thirty to forty, a generation the author describes as “screwed.”

Finland has recovered, and today is one of the EU’s most prosperous states, boasts very significant gender equality and has a superb free state education system, a world leader. Finland has Nokia, a native manufacturing industry and more electronics besides, though critics fear the country is over reliant on this sector (again, sound familiar?). Finland has the fewest immigrants, but also has the highest murder rate in Western Europe, consumes anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs in large quantities, and has a major problem with binge drinking.

Denmark has a comprehensive welfare state but also punitive tax rates. These exist in tandem with a massive black economy, which is tolerated semi – officially as part of an unvirtuous circle under which the private sector is sustained by the black economy, enabling it to fund, in taxes, the cost of the public sector and welfare benefits. Denmark tops the world cancer rates and has a significant carbon footprint, wind energy notwithstanding. Denmark’s third largest party, with 12% of votes and seats, espouses an anti –immigration platform.

Sweden, the Jewel in the Crown of the Nordics, has the largest economy and population, is front runner in gender and class equality, and is renowned for a comprehensive cradle to grave welfare state. Sweden boasts native multinational giants like IKEA, H&M, Tetra Pak, Eriksson and Volvo. It is, moreover, at the cutting edge of a huge multicultural experiment – 15% of the population was born elsewhere and with their children comprise almost one third of the population ( though, curiously, relatively few migrated from the new EU states after 2004).

Sweden was never conquered and has long pursued a policy of neutrality. It actually prospered during World War Two, supplying vital strategic materials to Germany until quite late in the war. The Swedish economy and society developed steadily during the Twentieth Century, thanks largely to a unique social partnership between big business, the Social Democrats and the unions. Yet in this Stepford Wife of a country, youth unemployment is pushing 30%, despite its neutrality Sweden is the world’s eighth largest arms exporter and it also faces rising anti-immigration sentiment.

Norway has oil in abundance, and continues to discover more. The Dubai of the North, it pumps it out at pace, belying its clean, green image. The revenues have been invested wisely, but cracks are starting to show, with Norway having proportionately the highest number of welfare claimants in Europe and a worsening trend in educational standards. Norway also has a worrying strain of right wing extremism, epitomised not only by Anders Breivik, but also by the rising support for the anti-immigrant Progress Party (16% in last year’s election). Not surprisingly the integration of non-Western immigrants has become the current major challenge facing the Nordic democracies.

Despite these and other “fissures and flaws” Booth (a Denmark resident) is an unashamed admirer of the Nordics. He points up the countries’ shared positive aspects, the trust and social cohesion, the economic and gender equality, the well balanced political and economic systems, the enduring high levels of social mobility. For him the alternative to the rampant capitalism which has ravaged the West in recent years, is not Brazil, Russia, or China. “ The Nordic countries have the answer Even when they get it wrong, they soon figure out how to get it right without any blood being spilled.” Another lesson here.

A satisfying and informative book.

March 3 2014

BANANA SKINS? 1404 LXII

April 6, 2014April 6, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in TIME CAPSULE

BANANA SKINS?

Year Four of the Government and several recent developments, none catastrophic individually but taken together having the potential to do serious political damage, have begun to cast ripples on the domestic political scene as the Coalition enters its penultimate year.

The general assumption up to now has been that Fine Gael will remain as the largest political party after the next election and will probably form the next government. It’s a measure of how far – and fast – we have travelled since the Troika Era that, at a time when the corner appears to have been turned economically, with the latest indicators all now firmly positive and the government loudly claiming all the credit, the first sprouting of political doubts about this scenario have appeared.

Fine Gael is still the firm favourite and speculation has been and remains whether it will achieve an absolute majority (unlikely), continue in coalition with a much smaller Labour party (most likely), or, in the event of significant reductions in support for both parties, form part of some wider, rainbow-style coalition. With eight fewer seats next time round, and given the likelihood of some pendulum swing, it’s going to be a lot tighter in any event.

The role of independents could become a factor here. With “ Don’t Knows” and undecided polling consistently above 20% since the 2011 election, the actual number of independent deputies was boosted significantly when a group of T.D.s who opposed last year’s abortion legislation were expelled from Fine Gael. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has eschewed the common practice of allowing the dissidents back before the next general election by making clear that the dissidents are out – period. There have been rumours and media speculation that the dissidents might join with others to form a new political party but nothing concrete has emerged – hardly surprising given the fate of most Irish splinter or dissident parties.

Recently the odds on a new party may have shortened slightly. The clear election tactics of both government parties next time round– whether they contest individually or in tandem – will be to claim to have saved the nation economically, combining this with a few careful sweeteners in the next two budgets and promises of more to come. A cautionary note: as several previous governments have learned to their cost, campaigning on a platform of having taken tough resolute action “ in the national interest” can backfire, particularly if the actions taken have hit the electorate hard in their pockets, certainly the case this time round.

The other clear if unstated tactic should be to avoid banana skins. 2014 has already seen this particular aspiration fail several times. Albert Reynolds’ wry observation that the small hurdles trip politicians up may well get another airing. The latest of several banana skins, involving the Rehab charity, is potentially the most harmful to Fine Gael, not just because of the effect on the party’s image, but also because Fine Gael’s most important political strategist, Frank Flannery, the Karl Rove of Irish politics, has become a political casualty.

Flannery, whose Fine Gael roots go back to the 1980s, when, with Garret Fitzgerald, he sought to instil professionalism into the party, is credited with rescuing and reorganising Fine Gael after the debacle in 2002. He was the party’s Director of Elections, a Trustee and a close adviser to Taoiseach Enda Kenny. On March 10 he resigned his posts. He also resigned from the board of Rehab, the organisation of which he had been chief executive for twenty five years until 2006.

The Rehab affair has been simmering away since late last year. The Dail Public Accounts Committee (PAC), tasked with scrutinising how taxpayers money is spent, revealed before Christmas that a number of high profile charities, most notably the largely state – funded Central Remedial Clinic, had been drawing on accumulated reserves to top up significantly the salaries and pensions of their already well paid leading executives. In the case of the CRC the top up more than doubled the Chief Executive’s $150,000 salary. There was public outrage at the thought that charitable donations and taxpayers’ money were involved. Public donations to many charities plummeted and attention focussed on top salary levels throughout the voluntary sector.

Most chief executives published their incomes but the chief executive of the Rehab group demurred, on the grounds that Rehab, though in receipt of considerable state funding, had a significant commercial arm as well and that her salary had been paid from commercially generated income rather than by the taxpayer. Predictably this did not wash with the public, and eventually Rehab disclosed that its chief executive was paid roughly $330,000, more than the Taoiseach ( and Barack Obama!). Rehab further revealed that eleven of her colleagues are paid over $130,000 each.

Exchanges between the PAC and Rehab continue. The only head to roll thus far has been that of Frank Flannery, who built up the Rehab group from relatively small beginnings to a charitable business with annual turnover of $250 million. The details of his successor’s salary, his continued involvement as a director, and revelations of his lobbying activities on Rehabs behalf, proved too much political baggage for Enda Kenny, prompting Flannery’s resignation. The Taoiseach’s ruthlessness has been noted, but the general verdict has been that, politically, Flannery will be very difficult to replace. Astute move or tactical error? Time will tell.

The Flannery affair came hard on the heels of several other banana skins – enmeshed controversies which also simmer on and which could yet bring down Justice Minister Alan Shatter and /or Garda Commissioner Callinan. First up were allegations that the offices of the Garda Ombudsman ( which investigates all complaints about the Gardai) had been bugged with suggestions that the bugging could only have been done by some major or official agency. It was not long before rumours began and accusations were bandied about. Minister and Commissioner were adamant in denying that the Gardai had anything to do with bugging. A retired high court judge is to investigate and report before Easter.

Then came the Garda Whistle-blower controversy and the reigniting of the so-called penalty points for drivers issue ( points are cumulative and can lead to loss of licence). Allegations surfaced last year that the Gardai’s discretionary powers to review and cancel points had, in a small percentage of cases, been abused. The recent recommendations made by the Garda Inspectorate, to eliminate any possible abuse, have been fully accepted by the Government. However, the suspicion that in some cases at least the rules could or might be bent without due cause has left a sour taste with the public and has done nothing for the reputation of the Gardai as a whole.

The penalty point revelations were part of the material made public by two Garda whistle-blowers, one still in the force. Whatever about whistle blowing in the private sector, it is a different matter when the national police force is involved. The controversy rumbles on with Minister and Commissioner eye-balling the two whistle blowers. More sour taste. More heads to roll?

Normal politics is back – with a vengeance.

DREARY STEEPLES ? 1403 LXI

March 14, 2014March 14, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in TIME CAPSULE

DREARY STEEPLES?

A visiting Estonian journalist asked me recently to quantify what had changed in Ireland as a result of the Troika Bail Out Programme and whether the programme – and Ireland’s performance – offered an example to the other PIGS in bailout.

Good questions, but who domestically is asking them? Already the Time of the Troika has been banished to the past – rather like a bad dream – though sure to be resurrected again as a stick to beat Fianna Fail with as the next election approaches. With most of the economic indicators suggesting the worst is over and recovery has begun, sentiments of doom and gloom are definitely out. And, as with a bad dream or unpleasant experience , the dominant sentiment is “out of sight, out of mind.”

Any analysis and stock-taking has been as a footnote to “ normal” politics. There’s been much to occupy the media and the politicians. The first of the bankers have gone on what promises to be a lengthy trial. There has been sustained public outrage at recent revelations that a number of Ireland’s leading charities, all in receipt of taxpayers’ money, have been using funds to top up the pay of already well paid senior executives. The “Voluntary Sector” has taken a hammering in consequence, with charitable receipts from the normally generous public showing significant falls. Then there’s the weather, with Ireland battered by a succession of storms in January and February.

Politically, with a general election less than two years away, and European elections imminent, electioneering has already begun. No talk of hair shirt now. The cautious trial balloon floated by Finance Minister Noonan in December regarding possible tax cuts in the next budget has been seized and run with. The Taoiseach has declared that the threshold at which taxpayers hit punitive rates is too low. There is now talk of half a billion euro available as the cost of water shifts from the state to the consumer next year. Elections have been won with far less.

So how much HAS changed? Park for the moment the freshly unemployed and those in mortgage arrears, where change has happened and definitely for the worse. The short answer is – Not Much. Remember Churchill’s comment after the First World War, that “ as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again.”

In politics the Ship of State is unaltered. Indeed two attempts to effect significant change in the Constitution – by abolishing the Senate and by giving real investigative powers to Dail Committees – were rejected in referendums. The much vaunted project to amend and update the Constitution has been restricted to shadow boxing with “ issues” such as blasphemy, reducing the length of term of the (non-executive) President and reducing the voting age to 17.

Politically the Captain and indeed the deck officers have been replaced. Fine Gael have replaced Fianna Fail as the largest party and have hung on to that position despite austerity, the cuts and increased taxes. The probability is that this situation will last at least through the next election, making the case for Fine Gael becoming the new “natural party of government.” This has come about largely through luck. Whatever party was in power when the tsunami struck was destined to get the boot , its successor handed a gold wrapped gift : all the blame for the nasty, necessary, remedial regime could be dumped on those who governed before ( or the Troika – and look who brought them in!).

In the broad economy, it will be a long time, if ever, before the construction industry regains its Celtic Tiger heights. The crash legacy is roughly 200,000 unemployed, half the country’s total, requiring retraining, redeployment and new employment possibilities. A formidable task. Factor in the collateral damage – to those relying on the building industry, and the massive hole in consumer spending when ten per cent of the workforce disappears – and a lasting footprint has been left in this area.

The rest of the economy has survived largely intact. It has had, metaphorically, a cold shower, with a world recession to deal with on top of the domestic meltdown. But apart from some high profile collapses, the private sector has emerged, slimmed down, certainly, but more productive, more competitive than for some years past. Much fat has gone, but in the big bad world this was probably necessary.

In the public sector there have been economies, wage cuts and moderately successful attempts to prune the numbers. These, however, have been largely confined to the core civil service, the Gardai and teachers, where the Department of Finance can assert direct control. Elsewhere entrenched bureaucracies and powerful public sector unions have successfully protected their interests.

In the HSE, the country’s single biggest employer, top heavy with administrators and seriously deficient in the numbers of specialist consultants, the total employed shows no signs of diminishing despite official posturing about cutting the enormous health budget. Separately the electricity unions have faced down the Government and the ESB over pension reform, setting the bar for other public sector unions.

Promised reforms aimed at reducing the number of quangos and overhauling the system of (political) public appointments to state boards have proceeded at a snail’s pace. The number of state bodies has seen some closures and amalgamations, but to minimal effect, certainly nothing like the root and branch reform promised. And lucrative appointments to the boards of public bodies have gone on pretty much as before with numerous appointees serving on several boards.

On the plus side, the public finances have been restored. Not into balance, of course, but at least stable and steering the deficit towards the magical 3% Eurozone borrowing target. This has been achieved through new and increased taxation and some cuts in welfare spending. The new taxes and hikes do not “broaden” the tax base – a misnomer – but rather increase the burden on the middle classes. The cumulative squeeze on disposable income continues to be reflected in sluggish sales tax returns, hence the noises about tax cuts to woo or appease the “coping classes.”

The generous welfare system has also survived largely intact. The politically sensitive big trio of benefits were treated with kid gloves. Child Benefit was cut and trimmed but not means tested and remains, at $175 per child per month, a very generous tax free payment. Ditto with Jobseeker’s Benefit, cut by ten percent, but still nearly $250 per week. The sacred cow of the Old Age Pension, roughly $300 per week for a single person (almost double for a couple), was not touched.

There have been other welfare cuts and adjustments, of course. Here, in earnest, the devil is in the detail. A cascade of small cuts and adjustments over the last two Troika budgets has affected a wide range of existing benefits and has hit disproportionately the old, the sick and the handicapped. For many of those, certainly, things also have changed – and not for the better.

The journalist had one final question. Could the fiasco of 2008 happen again? Well, could it?

Lessons for the PIGs? Next time, maybe.
..

THE FARM by TOM ROB SMITH a review

March 14, 2014March 14, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in Book Reviews

THE FARM
TOM ROB SMITH
SIMON SCHUSTER 351pp €14.99; e book €11.30

Tom Rob Smith burst on the scene in 2008 with his debut novel, Child 44. The book, the first of three set in the 1950s Soviet Union, featured the hunt for a serial killer and was loosely based on the real life mass murderer Andrei Chikatilo, the Rostov Ripper. It was a publishing sensation, won several prestigious awards and is now being filmed.

There are no Rippers in his latest book, a taut and atmospheric psychological thriller which keeps the reader guessing until the very end. With “The Farm,” Rob Smith breaks new ground, geographically and stylistically. The Soviet Union is abandoned to the rubbish bin of history. The setting here is present day rural Sweden.

Anyone acquainted with Swedish and Scandinavian Noir will recognise many familiar elements : the hauntingly beautiful but bleak landscape and climate, rural isolation, the dour religious beliefs and biblical references, the social taboos. Rob Smith writes of it all with assurance – his mother is Swedish.

The narrator, Daniel, in London, is phoned from Sweden by his distraught father to be told his mother, Tilde, is ill, committed after a psychotic episode. As he prepares to fly to Sweden he is contacted by Tilde, released and en route to London. She claims everything his father has said is a lie, denies she’s insane and asks that he meets her. She arrives, agitated but coherent , and demanding a hearing.

A major theme in the novel is trust in a family. Daniel is gay, something he has kept from his parents. His secret becomes an irrelevancy as he realises how little he actually knows about them. For Tilde has secrets also and Daniel is presented immediately with the dilemma of which parent to believe or trust.

Much of the novel is a monologue, Tilde’s chilling account of what she claims happened to her since arriving in Sweden. Her dream of an idyllic retirement to a farm in the country of her birth soon falls apart. She is an outsider and feels ostracised by the locals. There are hints of incest, of trafficking , of sinister crimes and conspiracy by a rural community closing ranks. Worse, Daniel’s British father appears to collude and fall under the malign influence of a wealthy and powerful neighbour.

Tilde is committed but escapes and turns to Daniel for help. Her story is plausible, but totally circumstantial and could be viewed very differently. Daniel becomes unwilling judge and jury.
The story is compelling, well-crafted and gripping . Daniel in turn believes, then doubts, his mother’s story. There are several twists and sub plots, with the suspense maintained up to the surprise ending.

An excellent and unusual thriller. It will do well .

THE SECOND DEADLY SIN by ASA LARSSON a review

January 25, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in Book Reviews

THE SECOND DEADLY SIN
ASA LARSSON
MACKLEHOSE PRESS pp 395 £18.99

A wounded bear is pursued through the forest wilderness of Northern Sweden. When finally cornered and shot by an expert marksman, its stomach contents are found to include human remains. Some months later, in a village in the same area, a woman is murdered in a frenzied attack, her young grandson missing. This is the tense and gripping opening of Asa Larsson’s novel, which won the 2012 Best Swedish Crime Novel award.

Scandinavian crime fiction has become immensely popular internationally over the past two decades, spearheaded by the cerebral Wallender books of Henning Mankell and the gritty Norwegian novels of Jo Nesbo , before the mega-success of Stieg Larsson’s “ Dragon Tattoo” trilogy, which first appeared in 2005. Yet these are only the first among many equals of what has become a formidable genre of writing and which has now spread to the small screen via quality TV dramas, including, in addition to Wallender, “ The Killing” and “ The Bridge.”

Both sexes are well represented. Sweden alone has produced a number of first rate female crime writers including, in addition to Asa Larsson, Camilla Lackberg , Kerstin Ekman, Inger Frimansson, and Lisa Marklund. Norway can point to Karin Fossum and Anne Holt, Finland to Sofi Oxanen, Iceland to Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Denmark to Agnete Friis and Lena Kaaberbol. All well worth reading.

Various theories have been advanced to explain this popularity. Mankell suggested recently that in part it was because the outside world had put Scandinavian society on a pedestal because of its affluence, its comprehensive welfare systems and its progressive and liberal views and was fascinated therefore at novels and incidents that revealed a seamier side of this society ( If they can’t get it right, who can?). Others have pointed to the stark contrast the books present between the pristine and clean environment and the tawdry nature of the crimes, many with sexual , religious or racial undertones.

Asa Larsson, the “Other Larsson,” as she wryly comments in an extensive and revealing interview on YouTube, suggests that it was rejection in the 70s of the classical Anglo-Saxon stereotype of the middle class affluent detective portrayed by Agatha Christie among others, that led to the emergence of uniquely Swedish detective writing, very much tied to real life and this has been well received everywhere. Some writers, her namesake being one, have also clearly had a political agenda to expose various unsavoury aspects of Swedish society including right wing extremism, the behaviour of big business and misogyny.

Her own writing is distinctive. “ The Second Deadly Sin” is her fifth novel featuring prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson, all based in or around Kiruna, the most Northerly city in Sweden, where she grew up. Her first novel, “The Savage Altar,” won best debut prize, while the sequel, “ The Blood Spilt” won Best Swedish Crime Novel in 2004, before any of Stieg’s books had appeared. Another Martinsson novel is planned, after which she will move on (she is in her late forties). Judging by this one it would be a pity to let the series lapse.
The series setting is fascinating. Kiruna, population 20,000, lies in Norbotten County, within the Arctic Circle close to where the borders of Sweden Norway and Finland come together. Norbotten is bigger than the island of Ireland but has only 250, 000 inhabitants ( Sweden itself is six times larger than Ireland, with a population of 9,500,000). Finnish and Sami are as widely spoken as Swedish and the populace have retained their own customs and culture. The area is rich in natural resources, with Kiruna famous for its iron ore. There is some local resentment at what is perceived as economic exploitation by the south, particularly Stockholm.
Martinsson, like her creator originally a successful tax attorney, has returned to her roots from Stockholm, leaving her mystified partner behind and has acquired a reputation for lateral thinking sometimes at odds with the locals. In this novel she is the first to sense a connection between the recent murder and the remains devoured by the bear. She gradually unravels a complex plot with at its centre a formidable and painstaking serial killer. She uncovers a link also to a love story and a murder of a century before, the historical episodes treated with just the correct level of pathos. The pace and the tension increase to a dramatic climax.
The writing is of the highest quality. The confrontations with the bear are electrifying. Later there is a sympathetic and credible treatment of a traumatised child. The other characters, including the several tragic figures, are also well drawn, the overall effect being to create a lasting and believable scenario long after finishing the book. Her descriptions of the dogs and their interaction with her humans is especially memorable. A worthy winner of the Award and eminently suitable for a film or a T.V. series.
Asa Larsson has no need of horrendous detail, or ritual killings, nor indeed of a single tattoo. She is simply a very good writer. There is no doubt in my mind who is the “other Larsson.”

January 13 2014

COCKROACHES by JO NESBO a review

January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in Book Reviews

COCKROACHES
AUTHOR: JO NESBO
HARVILL SECKER 374 pages €15.99

Another Jo Nesbo, though not a new novel. As with many other Scandinavian crime writers recently popular in English, this is an earlier work. First published in 1998, and now available in translation, Cockroaches is the second in Jo Nesbo’s popular Harry Hole series, all ten of which are now available in English.

For those who haven’t encountered him, Nesbo is known for his gritty thrillers featuring his take on the stereotype of the dyspeptic alcoholic and quirky detective. His strength is in exposing the seamy side of life in Norway, whether present day Nazi sympathisers extolling racist ideology – some of the dialogue in Redbreast (2006) could have been lifted from the pronouncements of Anders Breivik – or the heroin plague on the streets of Oslo outlined in Phantom (2012). He is by now arguably the most popular Scandinavian crime writer, with hero Harry Hole rivalling Henning Mankell’s Wallender.

Nesbo’s books tend to be unsettling. Cockroaches is no exception. The setting is Thailand, where the Norwegian ambassador – and friend of the Prime Minister – has been found murdered in a seedy motel. Harry, fresh from his success in Australia ( The Bat, which launched the series) is grappling with his alcoholism when he is handpicked to investigate and to minimise the scandal.

Harry arrives in Bangkok and quickly discovers the situation is more complex than it had appeared. He soon realises that he was sent in the expectation that his liking for drink would mean the investigation would not get very far. Some of the local Norwegian expat community, from the Ambassador and his family on down, have secrets and few are willing to talk. There is clearly a cover –up, but to what end, and who to talk to, who to trust? Harry refuses to give up and slowly, after a number of hair raising experiences, he unravels the mystery.

Nesbo picked on Bangkok as an exotic location with which most readers would not be familiar and where literally anything can happen. The cockroaches of the title are symbolic of the different issues not immediately apparent which Harry encounters – where there is one cockroach you can expect to find a hundred. This against the background of a city notorious for its sex industry, catering for every taste and a lodestone for foreign paedophiles. There is the startling assertion that the Norwegian police abandoned an attempt to set up a database on Norwegian paedophiles in Thailand because it lacked the resources to keep up with the numbers!

Nesbo spent several months in Bangkok, where he was well received by the local Norwegian community, who introduced him to the highs, and some of the lows, of the Thailand scene. The result is another excellent thriller, the most popular among his earlier novels and one which casts a cold eye on the reality of expatriate life of some Europeans in Asia.

December 8 2013

THE CITY OF STRANGERS by MICHAEL RUSSELL a review

January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in Book Reviews

THE CITY OF STRANGERS
AUTHOR: MICHAEL RUSSELL
AVON 486 pages £7.99

Michael Russell has done it again. A year after “City of Shadows,” he has produced a second excellent historical thriller featuring his Irish police hero Stefan Gillespie.

After a chilling introduction, an atrocity committed during Ireland’s civil war, the story fast forwards to the spring of 1939, as the world slides towards war. Stephan, a young widower and station sergeant in Baltinglass, is recalled to Headquarters to handle a sensitive issue.

A woman has been murdered, brutally. There is evidence that she had been embezzling money from the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes – an earlier version of the Lotto and of near iconic significance among the Irish American community, which bought most of the tickets. The sweepstakes, moreover, are politically connected. The chief suspect, her son, a young, gay, wannabe actor, has travelled to New York by boat with the Gate Theatre Company.

After agreeing at first to return voluntarily to Ireland, the suspect flees. With the New York World’s Fair set to open, in which Ireland has an important showcase pavilion, the instructions to Stefan are clear – to repatriate the suspect with minimum fuss.

This proves easier said than done. Stefan travels to New York on one of the first flying boat flights from Foynes. On the flight he encounters a wealthy Irish American, who proves to be the US head of Clan na Gael ( the IRA front organisation) . Later he encounters an old Irish army friend , attached to the Irish World Fair pavilion, as well as another femme fatale, intent on rescuing her sister from a psychiatric hospital.

As his search for the murder suspect continues the plot becomes more complicated , with a mysterious death and Stephan’s realisation that he is being drawn into a complex conspiracy involving Nazi agents, IRA sympathisers and elements of the New York underworld. The pace is hectic, the body count mounts, the civil war past is revisited as Stefan finds surprising allies and grapples with issues where the stakes are high, not just for him but for Ireland.

As before, Russell captures the time and the mood superbly, from the novel and exhilarating experience of flying transatlantic, then, to the atmosphere in the USA as war beckons . It is a period when the USA, and New York in particular, harbours tens of thousands of Old IRA and many more exiles and sympathisers opposed to De Valera’s Ireland and all it stands for.

As pro-IRA, pro-German and isolationist groups increase pressure for the USA to remain neutral in any conflict, the World’s Fair itself is dominated physically by the rival pavilions of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both offering different and unappetising visions of the future. The sense of Ireland, as a small and vulnerable nation, alone in this situation, is very well conveyed.
An excellent and thoughtful window on the past. Highly recommended.

November 24 2013

A CRUEL AND SHOCKING ACT by PHILIP SHENON a review

January 25, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in Book Reviews

A CRUEL AND SHOCKING ACT
PHILIP SHENON
LITTLE, BROWN 625pp €20.99

There is no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy in Dallas on 22 November 1963. The doubts since are whether Oswald acted alone or was front man for a conspiracy, whether there was another gunman, and whether the Warren Commission, set up by President Johnson to investigate the assassination, discovered the whole truth of what happened. Additionally, could the assassination have been prevented?

In 2008 Philip Shenon, a veteran investigative journalist, published an expose critical of the report of the Commission set up to investigate Nine Eleven. Soon after he was approached by a former staff investigator on the Warren Commission, now an eminent lawyer, who urged Shenon to tell the story of the Warren Commission investigation “ to explain what really happened.” Five years of dogged and painstaking research followed.

What was to have been an inside history of the Warren Commission evolved into an account of how much had not been told about the assassination and how much of the evidence failed to reach the Commission, some covered up, some destroyed. What emerges overall is a picture of various agencies and individuals acting in their own self-interest, shifting blame and suppressing information. The Warren Commission was flawed from the beginning, hurried, understaffed, under resourced, politically manipulated, deceived and misled by the CIA and the FBI, both of which conducted extensive cover-ups.

The approach taken by Commission Chairman Chief Justice Earl Warren compounded matters. Warren, convinced from the outset that Oswald had acted alone, was keen to wrap up the report as quickly as possible, certainly before the 1964 Presidential campaign started, and aimed to minimise any further distress to the Kennedy family. He originally envisaged the Commission holding few hearings, having no power to compel witnesses to testify, conducting no independent investigations and doing no more than reviewing the evidence already gathered by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies.

The other Commission members baulked at this and the mandate was broadened, but the auspices were not good. The junior staffers, who did the work, including some brilliant lawyers, dubbed Warren as “Grumpy” or “Dopey” among the “Seven Dwarfs” of the Commissioners (Marina Oswald was Snow White!). Warren took shortcuts which left the field open for later conspiracy theories. To achieve consensus he insisted on language in the report which left open the possibility, contradicting the physical evidence, that a separate additional bullet had wounded Governor Connolly. When the Commission was wrapped up he even favoured destroying its internal files.

From the outset there were rumours of a cover up. The naval surgeon who presided at JFK’s autopsy destroyed his original notes – stained with the President’s blood – lest they became grisly souvenirs. He had already bowed to pressure from the Kennedys to suppress evidence that JFK suffered from Addison’s Disease. Later, Warren refused to allow anyone else view the autopsy photos and X-rays, provoking a near rebellion among the Commission staff.

The FBI, with J. Edgar Hoover bent on damage limitation, suppressed or destroyed vital evidence, while leaking material in attempts to steer the investigation. The night Oswald was shot, the FBI Dallas office, which had been monitoring him for months, destroyed a threatening note which Oswald had hand delivered several weeks earlier. They also failed to place Oswald’s name on the Internal Security Index provided to the Secret Service prior to the President’s visit. Hoover, while publicly denying FBI failures, sometimes under oath, secretly authorised disciplinary action against several dozen agents for dereliction of duty.

The CIA tried to bury the full story of Oswald’s five day visit to Mexico City from 27 September – of critical importance to investigating any possible conspiracy or Cuban connection to the assassination. While there he visited both the Cuban and Soviet Embassies, ostensibly to apply for visas. Attempts to investigate claims that Oswald was seen receiving $6500 from a Cuban agent during his visit were frustrated or glossed over by the CIA, as was another story that Oswald had a brief affair with an embassy employee who introduced him to Cuban agents.

Kennedy after all was dead. The CIA seems to have been at pains to keep secret the widespread and comprehensive surveillance operations it was conducting on the Soviet and Cuban embassies and staff in Mexico City. The damage limitation, orchestrated by the CIA’s eminence grise, James Jesus Angleton, worked. The Commission was heavily dependent on the CIA for information and its final report was far less critical of the CIA than the other agencies involved.

Bizarrely, the FBI learned later from Fidel Castro, indirectly through a double agent that, while in the Cuban Embassy, Oswald made threats to several agents to kill Kennedy . A top secret memo from Hoover to the Commission on the incident ,written in June 1964, never arrive, though decades later a copy was found at the CIA. Another cover – up?

More bizarrely, Castro, clearly anxious to distance Cuba from Oswald, met secretly with a representative of the Warren Commission , denying strenuously any Cuban involvement in the assassination, remarking that he actually admired JFK!

What motivated Oswald? The Commission sat on some of its own records regarding suspicions about Oswald’s sexuality. Later, Commission member Gerry Ford thought him emotionally immature and desperately craving for attention. He suggested a possible sexual explanation, with Marina’s mocking of his impotence eventually pushing him over the edge.

Fifty years on, there are still no definitive answers. The “what ifs” remain. What if the Irish born driver of the Presidential car had accelerated immediately after the first bullet hit, which was not fatal, making JFK less of an easy target? Crucially, what if Oswald had been picked up, as he should have been, prior to the visit? For the sad postscript is the conclusion of Hoover’s successor, Clarence Kelley, that if the FBI office in Dallas had been aware of what was known elsewhere in the FBI and CIA about Oswald, “ without doubt JFK would not have died in Dallas” and “history would have taken a different turn.”

November 11 2013

BAD BLOOD by ARNE DAHL a review

January 25, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in Book Reviews

BAD BLOOD
ARNE DAHL

Arne Dahl, the pen name of Jan Arnald, a Swedish novelist and literary critic, born in 1963, is one of the latest Swedish crime writers to hit Britain. He has won several awards for his crime novels and is particularly popular in Germany.

BBC Four screened ten episodes, based on Dahl’s first five novels about an elite Swedish police task force, the Intercrime Group, from April to June this year – I missed them – and an English translation of Bad Blood, the second book in the series, was launched in mid- June, presumably to coincide. The book was written in 1998 and indeed the first five novels were all written over a decade ago.

This tendency to back-publish, which is occurring with increasing frequency as “ new” writers enter into vogue, can sometimes backfire, as it does slightly with this book. The opening chapters describe the attempts of the police team to apprehend a suspected serial killer believed to be travelling to Sweden on a flight from the USA. There’s a rather unsatisfactory keystone cops- like event at the airport, but beyond this is the sheer implausibility of the episode – even pre Nine Eleven.
Essentially an intending passenger cancels – by phone – his reservation seventy five minutes before a scheduled departure from Newark and five minutes later the vacant seat is bought at the airport by a walk-up passenger with no baggage.

Post Nine Eleven this would be impossible. Homeland Security and the Airline, for a start, would not allow anyone to embark at such short notice. But even before 2001 the possibility of someone, particularly a non-citizen, gaining access to a transatlantic flight by a European carrier at seventy minutes’ notice was remote. The novel also shows its age elsewhere in terms of how e-mail and the Internet are treated – silent testimony to the incredible developments in mass communications since the book was written.

This, however, is a minor point. Bad Blood is the first of Dahl’s novels I have read. It’s certainly a page-turner with a lively plot concerning the hunt for a particularly sadistic serial killer who has migrated from the USA to Sweden. The gruesome details of the killer’s method of murdering his many victims are piled on to appal or entertain or both. The pace, the action, the twists and turns maintain the reader’s attention.

Some of the team travel to the USA to collaborate with the FBI in the hunt for someone who has suddenly recommenced killing after a fifteen year gap. Was he in jail? Was he somewhere else? Is this a copycat killer? Are there links with the Vietnam War? Is there even an old Cold War aspect to the killings? And, most importantly, why has the killer now arrived in Sweden?

The book seems eminently suited for screening as part of a TV series a la “The Killing” or “ The Bridge” and I’m looking forward to watching the repeats. I want also to read Dahl’s other novel available in English, “The Blinded Man,” since some of the action – and extreme violence – takes place in Tallinn, a city I know well.

Like several other Swedish crime writers Dahl also criticises and offers some brief comments and analysis on the way Swedish society, which on paper presents such a positive face, has changed since the 1980s. Some of the social criticism, and the violence, are echoed in the later Dragon Tattoo (2005) and other works by Stieg Larsson. Henning Mankel, through Wallender, paints up the same themes of corruption, violence and racism – I am currently re-reading “One Step Behind,” written about the same time as Bad Blood.

I don’t know enough about Swedish society to comment, but in a number of interviews, including a recent one in the Irish Times, Henning Mankel has made the point that outsiders have tended to idealise Swedish society, which in fact has much the same social problems, strains and disaffections as other countries, as witness the riots in Stockholm several months ago. Ditto with regard to Norway and Anders Breivik. Perhaps some of the international popularity of Scandinavian Noir is because we outsiders are fascinated by stories of crime in what appear, from our perspective, near idyllic societies.

A final point. Most thrillers and crime novels feature one or two central characters. This book, and the series, are about the activities of the Intercrime elite police unit, a group numbering anywhere from six to ten. It is unusual to feature a large group like this and extremely difficult to handle adequately this number of “heroes” or characters, fully fleshed out. Normally one or two are given star billing, as for example, Steve Carella in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct stories, with the others given supporting roles. While the book’s blurb appears to designate Paul Hjelm as chief hero, the others all have significant roles to play. I’m not sure this works all that well, but perhaps the author resolves this in later books.

October 23 2013

ONE SUMMER : AMERICA 1927 by BILL BRYSON a review

January 25, 2014 by paleoutlaw, posted in Book Reviews

ONE SUMMER: AMERICA 1927
BILL BRYSON
DOUBLEDAY 557 pages €22.99

Bill Bryson’s latest is another winner, a witty and engrossing snapshot of the USA in the summer of 1927.

It is above all a tribute to one of the signature events of the Twentieth Century, Charles Lindburgh’s successful solo transatlantic flight in May. Bryson thought at first of devoting the book to Lindburgh’s achievement, but broadened it , though throughout Lindburgh crops up, whether the flight itself, the amazing public reaction and adulation that followed or his extraordinary triumphal tour of the USA and abroad during that summer.

Other events made headlines that summer. The book’s secondary theme is Babe Ruth’s progress towards a new record (60) for baseball home runs, finally achieved on the last day of the season. It was also the summer of the “long count” during the Tunney – Dempsey title fight in Chicago, and, less pleasantly, the controversial execution of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti in August.

For Bryson the year was a watershed in other ways, at a time when America was beginning to outstrip Europe and assert itself globally. The Jazz Singer was made, heralding the arrival of talking films. “Television was created. Radio came of age.” A Supreme Court Judgement paved the way for the indictment of Al Capone for tax evasion. In July the world’s leading central bankers took a fateful decision to lower interest rates, fuelling a share price bubble that, when it burst in 1929, precipitated the Great Depression. There were unprecedented floods in Mississippi. Work began on the Mount Rushmore sculptures.

But above all, the year was one in which “ a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before.” Bryson portrays brilliantly Lindburgh’s achievement. At twenty five, he had worked for two years as an airmail pilot and was by 1927 an experienced and proficient flyer; flying, indeed, was the one thing he did well. With a tiny budget, he negotiated with a small company in San Diego, Ryan Airlines, to build a plane for $6,000 plus the engine cost.

The plane was rudimentary in the extreme. Lindburgh was unable to see out the front, as the fuel tank, for safety reasons, was placed up front behind the engine ( he banked sideways to see where he was!) . It had no fuel gauge; he computed his fuel use manually. It had no brakes and was made of cotton stretched over wood and tubular steel.

Yet Lindburgh managed to fly it over 3500 miles in 33 hours, finding his way unerringly by dead reckoning, calculating on his lap in an unstable plane. He passed Dingle as one of his reference points and circled the Eiffel Tower before landing in Paris on 21 May to a hero’s welcome. He ate only sandwiches, and used a bucket as a toilet – twice, as he confided to King George V. Bryson describes him as “unquestionably a candidate for the greatest pilot of his age if not all ages.”

September 25 2013