Peachy Reads

It is always rewarding to revisit Bernie Gunther, the independent-minded cynical Berlin police detective who tries to pursue his profession and stay alive in a dangerous world where the rules of justice and civil order have been turned upside down. In this installment he takes instructions from Joseph Goebbels who has taken a shine to a film starlet who goes by the name of Dalia Dresner.  Gunther's task is to track down Dresner's father in Croatia, a land where a barbaric internecine conflict is taking place that in some regards rivals the brutalities of the Nazi killing machine.  Gunther's wanderings also take him to Switzerland, which in contrast to the Balkans seems to represent an oasis of tranquility and a glimpse of what life used to be like in prewar Europe. The characters are wonderfully drawn and the plot gripping.  There is an unforgettable scene where Gunther turns the tables on two Gestapo agents in a fiery defense, and a clever strategy involving a tes...

I recently saw the Amazon series based on this 1962 novel and was taken by it.  It’s  set in 1962 in an America that is partitioned between the victors of World War II-- the Japanese and the Germans. There were some plot twists and scenes from the television series that I thought needed a bit more explication, so I decided to read the novel and see if it shed additional insight. Well, it didn’t.  The novel was the inspiration for the dramatic series, but other than the historical premise and some of the characters, the book and the television production diverge significantly. That’s not to say that the book isn’t good.  It’s just different.  I like alternate histories of World War II and this one is a good one. Readalikes:   Fatherland by Robert Harris, The Afrika Reich by Guy Saville

The summer of 1927 was a momentous one in America.  It was a year that saw the United States on the cusp of greatness.  Charles Lindbergh’s historic trans Atlantic flight helped to make the US the undisputed leader in aviation (whereas previously it was just trying to play catch-up with Europe).  Movie palaces were being built with a luxury to rival Versailles, newspapers boasted record subscriptions, but radio was quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with, and the earliest primitive experiments with television were being conducted.  Babe Ruth was creating a legend in the sports world, and Al Capone was becoming a legend of a different kind in prohibition-era crime-fueled Chicago.  Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in a controversial case, highlighting anarchist and anti-immigrant tendencies in the country at large.  Henry Ford abruptly ceased production of the Model T without having another replacement model in production, almost bankrupting the Ford...