Book note: Death of an Ambassador, by Manning Coles

Manning Coles wrote some of my favorite spy novels (along with a few less worthy ones, such as Without Lawful Authority, which I wouldn't recommend even though it has its moments).

Recently, somebody traded in one I hadn't seen before: Death of an Ambassador, copyright 1957. So of course I read it before setting it out for sale. I rank it toward the top of the Tommy Hambledon novels. My husband, who read it after I did, ranks it near the middle, but on the bottom end. But we both enjoyed it overall.

Much of the action takes place in Paris, with Hambledon trying to keep up with the energetic Letord of the Sûreté, and vice versa (the two of them make quite a team). There is action aplenty, and the inventive plot twists for which Coles is famous, but what I really enjoyed were the sly observations of life in the thinly veneered world of diplomacy, and commentary on international relations and on society and human beings in general. Like many of the early books - particularly the World War II books - in the Hambledon series, I thought this one hoped to leave the reader perhaps slightly less gullible, as well as entertained. But mostly it's a rollicking adventure story.

Manning Coles is a pseudonym for the team of Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891-1959) and Cyril Henry Coles (1899-1965). Death of an Ambassador came out about the same time they were turning out ghost story novels under the Francis Gaite pseudonym which are also long on observations about life and society. The ghost novels have also been published under the Manning Coles byline.

Previous related post: Good Book: No Entry, by Manning Coles

Link likes: On the Square, at First Things

The bloggers over at the On The Square blog are turning out some thoughtful and thought-provoking posts, on the whole. (They usually do, in my experience.)

For instance: The Red Planet, by Joseph Bottom, which manages to combine discussions of science fiction and biotechnology, but not in a way you'd probably assume. It comes with a good dash of philosophy, too, and some history. For those of you in the pro-life movement who are concerned about the human rights abuses of some branches of biotech, you might want to consider his statement: "We make a mistake, I think, when we call the worst claims of modern biotechnology a revivified form of the old eugenics." Follow the link if you want to know why he says that, and what he thinks we should call it instead.

For instance: Stork Economics, by James Kerian, in which zero-sum economics is likened to the idea many children have that storks bring babies. It's a cute way of taking on the idea that wealth isn't created, but can only be transferred. It has some practical applications, too, I think.

For instance: The Giving Society, by Michael Novak, in which it is argued that many of the obvious differences between the United States and Europe aren't due to Americans being "Individualists" quite as much as to the fact that Americans are far more prone to give of their time and their money to personally help others.

For instance: The Human Experience, by Amanda Shaw, which tells of a soon-to-released documentary which focuses on the strength of spirit of physically, mentally, and spiritually battered individuals. It's a heart-rending read, but inspiring, too.

For instance: Understanding the Third Reich and Other Great Evils, by Richard John Neuhaus, which happens to be the post I was going back to reread when I got sidetracked by the others linked above... He uses some books on the Holocaust as a jumping off place, and has some interesting observations. Jumping in midstream, and leaving off before the end, there's this:

During the Third Reich, ordinary Germans “had many more things on their minds.” That’s a chilling phrase. We might easily say, and many do all too easily say, that during the era of slavery or during current horrors such as the genocide in Sudan or the daily killing of thousands of unborn children in the abortuaries around the country, most ordinary Americans “had many more things on their minds.” That’s a moralistic cheap shot. The truth is that we all have many more things on our minds, and necessarily so. Such as families, jobs, dealing with sickness, and warding off despair. Not to mention, for many, the distinctly unnecessary hours every day spent surfing and chatting on the blogosphere.

The Third Reich is rightly viewed as an icon of evil. This does not mean, as Ian Kershaw reminds us, that the ordinary Germans of the time are the icon of moral indifference or complicity in great evil. Then it was the Jews, the Slavs, and the gypsies. At other times, it is another class of human beings. Given the requisite mix of circumstances, which is not beyond imagination, it is an idle conceit to think that ordinary Americans would behave more nobly than did the Germans of Hitler’s day. Among any people of any time, moral courage is the exception and not the rule. There are heroes and heroines who contend against the great evils of their time, but even they must be selective. You may be devoting your life to helping the people of Sudan, but what are you doing to help prisoners of conscience in China, or to stop international sex trafficking, or to feed the hungry of Zimbabwe, or to relieve the loneliness of old people in the nursing home within an easy drive from your home? The list goes on and on.

Book note: MIA: Missing in Atlanta, by Debby Giusti

Author Debby Giusti grew up as an "Army brat," and then became an Army wife, and then became an Army mom. So it's probably no surprise that the hero of her third book, MIA: Missing in Atlanta, is an Army captain home from a tour in the Middle East.

I finished reading the book yesterday. It's a page turner. It's grittier than you might expect for something labeled inspirational romance. It shows Christians walking the walk in some very tough circumstances: rescuing teen girls from pimps, helping the homeless and other poor people, and dealing with drug addicts and alcoholics, that sort of thing. It deals, in other words, with some very bad situations and subjects - but it does so with compassion and without resorting to language I don't allow under my roof, but without getting sugary.

In short, Captain Jude Walker met a young woman while stateside for leave, and they hit it off. But when he went back overseas, their correspondence became strained, and then she sends a strange warning and is heard from no more. And so, the next time he gets stateside with time to call his own he goes looking for her. The trail doesn't go at all where he expects it to - whereupon he finds out that a tour of duty in a combat zone hasn't prepared him for the mean streets of the bad parts of Atlanta. He throws in with people working at a teen shelter, who are veterans of this battleground, and things get lively from there, let us say. Except where they get deadly.

It's a fast read, with some good twists along the way, and Jude comes across as decidedly human instead of impossibly heroic. But he is definitely a warrior, and gutsy.

The book is dedicated to (among others) the soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and "all the brave men and women in uniform who defend our nation."

Giusti is one of the bloggers at Craftie Ladies of Suspense, which is where I found out about the book.

She also has a "Looking Back" post at The Seekers, in which she shares with wannabe authors some of what she wished she'd known earlier in her writing career.