I recently finished reading Russell Bourne’s excellent non-fiction work, Cradle of Violence: How Boston’s Waterfront Mobs Ignited The American Revolution. The premise is that the waterfront rowdies and bottom-rung laborers of Boston acted as the tinder and spark which ignited the American Revolution. The commonly accepted rabblerousers such as Sam Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock were more the tenders of the fire, rather than the fuel. They were the users, guiding and cajoling and coercing hard drinking ruffians like Ebenezer Mackintosh into doing “the dirty work.” And well they might, for these tough guys of Boston had more than a century of experience exercising their combined muscle to get what they wanted. But now, more than 200 years later, who remembers Ebenezer Mackintosh? Who knows the names of those hooligans who tossed tea into Boston Harbor? And while the names of the “victims” of the Boston Massacre may be better known, how many people know who those men really were, what they did in their lives before becoming American martyrs? Russell Bourne knows. And his book is not only a fascinating history lesson, it is a very apt and timely modern lesson as well; don’t forget who does the real work, the dirty work, the dangerous work. It’s the little guy.

One of my favorite authors is Alan Furst. He writes stories about espionage and partisans and resistance fighters and such. His works span the years just before and just into World War II. There is usually one protagonist who is more or less corralled and herded into a dangerous and unheralded assignment, yet carries out the assignment professionally. The suspense and danger is often palpable, and his ability to develop characters who are just average everday Joes put in a tough spot is a welcome departure from the typical James Bond/Jack Ryan super guy with no fear and a beautiful wife who just happens to be a Nobel Prize winning surgeon and Mother-of-the-Year all rolled into one.

But what Furst does better than anyone else is to tie each of his stories together in some small fashion. Each of his works is exceptional by itself and you need not read them in any particular order. The plot lines do not depend on one another, but there is always some small item in each book which is recognizable from another of his works. The more of his stuff you read, the more of these little bread crumbs you’ll find. The end result is that he paints a huge mural about the war, yet uses each book to focus in on a small piece of it for further study. Art lovers will study paintings endlessly just so they can examine and interpret each little nuance and detail. Music lovers listen to classic works over and over for just the same reason. Furst’s stories are the nuances and details in themselves. Reading his work makes one feel like God watching the whole thing from above while missing none of the small details. Truly exceptional writing.

I finally got around to reading it. My wife’s library got a bunch of the paperbacks in, so she grabbed one for me. Pretty good yarn, although I wasn’t thrilled with Brown’s writing style. Too many of his very short chapters ended in a mini-cliffhanger. That got old. And his name dropping of Zimmerman and Schneier as crytpographers of historical note was a bit far-fetched and may even have been an inside joke. But it is his book and he can do want he wants.

All in all I’d say it was a good story, but seeing as the book is a work of fiction and was meant to be so, I don’t understand all the hubbub surrounding it. The world didn’t end and the Catholic Church is doing a fine job of destroying its own reputation with no help at all from this book. At least part of the success of this book is owed to the attempt at negative publicity by people who should have had much bigger things to worry about.

Just finished reading Sparrowhawk V by Edward Cline. This is the fifth of six books in the Sparrowhawk series. The series is an outstanding account of the years leading to the American Revolution as experienced by two British expatriots from very different backgrounds. The writing is superb and the author manages to take a sometimes dry subject (Stamp Tax) and make it interesting. Historically accurate, yet told on a personal level. Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in the human side of the run up to the American Revolution.