The Last 10 Books (I added to my Wish List) - January 2026 

I tend to go in splurges when I’m adding books (and other things) to my Wish List. Often if I’m reading something the author will reference a book or other author which will prompt some investigation. For example, I’ve been reading about the immediate post-war period recently, so I’ve become a little obsessed with the Cold War. Other things that might prompted a quick bit of splurging are YouTube videos or movies. So, here’s what I’ve added recently... 

The Two Hundred Years War: The Bloody Crowns of England and France, 1292–1492 by Michael Livingston 

The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War by Nicholas Thompson 

George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis 

The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught in Between by Michael Dobbs 

The Last Titans: Churchill and de Gaulle by Richard Vinen 

1945: The Reckoning: War, Empire and the Struggle for a New World by Phil Craig 

To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power by Sergey Radchenko 

The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991 by Vladislav Zubok 

No More Napoleons: How Britain Managed Europe from Waterloo to World War One by Andrew Lambert 

A Shellshocked Nation: Britain Between the Wars by Alwyn Turner 

Unsurprisingly, they’re all non-fiction and all history – but it's my ‘thing’. When (or even IF) I get around to reading these is anyone's guess, but that not an issue and never has been. I have to keep track of things SOMEHOW!

The SIZE difference between a B-29 and a B-36 is AMAZING!

An impressive overview I thought I'd share..........

Happy Birthday: Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939) was an American author. He is known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts; he idealized the American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book.

In addition to the success of his printed works, his books have second lives and continuing influence through adaptations for films and television. His novels and short stories were adapted into 112 films, two television episodes, and a television series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre.

Pearl Zane Grey was born January 31, 1872, in Zanesville, Ohio. His birth name may have originated from newspaper descriptions of Queen Victoria's mourning clothes as "pearl grey". He was the fourth of five children born to Alice "Allie" Josephine Zane, whose English Quaker immigrant ancestor Robert Zane came to the American colonies in 1673, and her husband, Lewis M. Gray, a dentist. His family changed the spelling of their last name to "Grey" after his birth. Grey later dropped "Pearl" and used "Zane" as his first name.

Grey was an avid reader of adventure stories such as Robinson Crusoe and the Leatherstocking Tales, as well as dime novels featuring Buffalo Bill and Deadwood Dick. He was enthralled by and crudely copied the great illustrators Howard Pyle and Frederic Remington. He was particularly impressed with Our Western Border, a history of the Ohio frontier that likely inspired his earliest novels. Grey wrote his first story, Jim of the Cave, when he was fifteen. His father tore it to shreds and beat him.

Because of the shame he felt as the result of a severe financial setback in 1889 due to a poor investment, Lewis Grey moved his family from Zanesville and started again in Columbus, Ohio. While his father struggled to re-establish his dental practice, Grey made rural house calls and performed basic extractions, which his father had taught him. The younger Grey practiced until the state board intervened. His brother Romer earned money by driving a delivery wagon. Grey also worked as a part-time usher in a theater and played summer baseball for the Columbus Capitols, with aspirations of becoming a major leaguer. Eventually, Grey was spotted by a baseball scout and received offers from many colleges. Romer also attracted scouts' attention and went on to have a professional baseball career.

Over the years, Grey spent part of his time traveling and the rest of the year writing novels and articles. Unlike writers who could write every day, Grey would have dry spells and then sudden bursts of energy, in which he could write as much as 100,000 words in a month. He wrote longhand in pencil with little punctuation and his first draft was the final one. Punctuation was added later by secretaries when they were preparing the manuscript for publication.

[I read Riders of the Purple Sage back in 2018 and found it interesting. I'm a LONG time fan of the Western movie so with luck and a bit more effort I might just read more of Zane and other Western authors. Its certainly something I aspire to!] 

Just Finished Reading: 1941 – The Year Germany Lost the War by Andrew Nagorski (FP: 2019) [305pp] 

I have long argued that Germany made three significant mistakes in 1941 which essentially lost them the war, so it was good to find an author (another journalist rather than a historian) that agreed with me. But although we were definitely on the same page the author of this excellent history was rather more nuanced than I was.  

The first, arguably less vital mistake, was not finishing off the British on their left flank after losing the Battle of Britain and indefinitely ‘postponing’ the invasion known as Operation Sealion. Hitler was, apparently, sure that Britain posed a low threat as she was under constant air attack and the vital Atlantic convoys were under constant pressure. Hitler assumed that she would eventually have to ask for an armistice before widespread starvation set in. He wasn’t completely off base but failed to take into account Churchill’s ‘bulldog’ spirit and Roosevelt's growing assistance in Britain's war effort. 

Oddly, Germany’s (or actually Hitler’s) second mistake was at least in part supposed to address his first. The planned invasion of the Soviet Union was supposed to take out a future potential ally of Britain (thereby making Britain's situation hopeless) and also discourage further American involvement in the European war. After the lightening victories in the West even the sceptical German army commanders started to believe that they could defeat Russia in a matter of 2-3 months. This was despite, or maybe because of, the lack of any adequate intelligence of Soviet capabilities or even decent maps of the region. The initial attack – aided immensely by the fact that Stalin had refused to believe that such an attack was coming despite mountains of evidence to support it – was a huge (indeed unexpected) success and seemed to validate Hitler’s belief that a simple door kick would be enough. Here’s were the authors nuance comes in... In the earliest days, as German forces advanced into Poland and the Ukraine, at least some of the locals saw the Wehrmacht as liberators rather than invaders (which is rather difficult to wrap your head around knowing what was coming). But this opportunity was very quickly thrown away as the advancing German forces were told to neither stop nor take prisoners. It wasn’t long before the ‘liberated’ became partisans – another fatal mistake. 

Belief trumped reality when, after months of conflict, frontline commanders sent back requests for winter clothing. As the Russians, who had been dying or surrendering in their millions at this point, were expected to collapse at any minute now such frivolous (indeed almost treasonous) requests were denied. Indeed, despite being within sight of the outskirts of Moscow itself, Wehrmacht commanders were ordered to swing south to finish off Ukraine before returning to take the Soviet capital and communication hub as the first snowflakes began to fall. Interestingly, as civilians and government officials began to leave Moscow, Stalin was just about to board his armoured train for the ride East when he suddenly changed his mind and returned to the Kremlin. From that moment anyone seen leaving or looting was shot on sight. By the time the Germans returned the cities defences had been enhanced and fresh units from the Far East had begun to arrive. 

Hitler was eager for his Far East Axis partner Japan to attack Russia in 1941, but Japan had other ideas. Not only was it committed to operations in China, but it was just about to launch its fateful attack in the Pacific. Spies inside the German embassy in Tokyo knew that no attack against Russia was forthcoming and Stalin, eventually, believed them and repositioned hardened winter trained troops west to defend Moscow. Three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Hitler made probably his biggest mistake of the war. With little advantage to himself he declared war on the USA in support of the Japanese attacks. His military commanders were appalled but Hitler believed that the Japanese would draw the majority of American forces against them – and hold them – and that the American economy couldn’t transform from peace to a war footing in time to prevent an Axis victory. He was, as we now know, wrong. 

This was a MUCH better read than my previous book on this fateful year. Part of that I think was the author's primary focus on Europe (especially Germany & Russia) although there was much too on American moves and attitudes to the war itself and the situation in China. Another thing which helped the narrative move along was the fact that the author didn’t need to repeatedly ‘change gears’ from a high to low level focus on the personalities involved. Here we (mostly) stayed at the policy/command level rather than literally in the trenches – though there was some of that sprinkled throughout. This was a very well written detailed account of a pivotal year in WW2 and goes a long way to explain exactly why Germany lost it. I’m looking forward to reading more by this author who certainly seems to know his stuff. Highly recommended.  

Just one more 1940’s focused history to come next before leaping to the 1960’s...  

Brilliant.....!

Just Finished Reading: Crimson Snow – Winter Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards (FP: 2016) [317pp] 

Despite the fact that (as usual) we haven’t had any snow, nor are we expecting any, I thought this collection from the British Library Crime Classics seemed seasonally appropriate. 

Containing 11 tales from 19th century period pieces such as The Ghost’s Touch by Fergus Hume (which to be honest was a fairly mediocre starting point!) to more modern stories this was, as is so often the case a mixed bag. However, that’s not to say that any of the stories were particularly poor – they weren't. In fact, many of them were more than satisfying. 

Early on I was impressed by The Chopham Affair by Edgar Wallace where a quick-thinking lawyer ends a blackmail scheme in a clever and rather permanent fashion. Then we had a tale of theft and attempted insurance fraud – aided by Santa no less! - thwarted by the most able detective Albert Campion in The Man with the Sack by Margery Allingham. 

In the middle of the volume, we had the rather long but ultimately clever Death in December by Victor Gunn where a police detective and his sergeant are snowed in during the Christmas festivities and are on hand to unravel two intersecting mysteries involving a locked room and a vanishing ghost. I particularly liked Murder at Christmas by Christopher Bush where a visiting detective (I was thinking at this point that it might be a bad idea to invite anyone associated with the police to a party as they seem to attract crime!) uncovers the details to a revenge killing in a nearby village. I did enjoy the tight plotting and the clever ending.  

Despite the lack of actual snow outside I did enjoy its presence between these pages. Its impressive just how much crime happens over the holidays – but then again it IS a peak period for arguments, suicides, murders and divorces so we should expect a plethora of crime stories based during the season! I’ll certainly be looking out for more seasonal reading for next Christmas. As always such a collection is a great way to dip into new authors and some will, no doubt, be showing up in longer formats in the future. Reasonable. 

Classics Questions 

This list (somewhat modified here) has been showing up a LOT lately, and although I’m not partaking in any Classic Club challenges I thought I’d throw some answers out there. So... 

If you could explore one author’s literary career from first publication to last, who would you explore? 

There’s a few I’m intending to do this with – George Orwell (both fiction and non-fiction), Agatha Christie (one I finish the Miss Marple series I’ll start on the others) and Virginia Woolf (probably). I WAS going to say the Maigret series by George Simenon, but there are 77 of them and I’m not sure I’m going to be around long enough to finish ALL of them even if they tend to be rather short! Oh, and I forgot Graham Greene!  

First classic you ever read? 

1984 by George Orwell around age 14. It was given to me (to borrow) by my High School English teacher. She had no idea how it would affect me.   

Favourite children’s classic? 

Surprisingly I didn’t read much as a child so missed out on the standard children's classics. I did, however, start reading some of them recently and have been honestly impressed. I think my favourites are probably Peter Pan by J M Barrie (which was intriguing – for a host of reasons – rather than enjoyable), The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (mostly for the tale of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson which I thought was very good.  

Which classic is your most memorable classic to date? Why? 

‘Memorable’ is a multi-faceted word so... I think one of the earliest classics to have a significant impact on me was The War of the Worlds by H G Wells. It's a great story that still resonates. Despite being my 2nd favourite by the author, I still love Persuasion by Jane Austen. One other is Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. I’m still amazed that such an iconic work could have been written by a teenager – even one oddly educated and surrounded by the greats of the age.  

Least favourite classic? Why? 

I have a few that might surprise people. My most well-known (I suspect) is The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. I think it’s HIGHLY overrated. Another is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte which I do struggle with the idea that this is a ROMANTIC classic. I was not impressed!   

Favourite movie or TV adaption of a classic? 

Probably the 2005 movie version of Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley. But I first fell in love with the story (and Elizabeth Bennett) during the 1995 BBC version, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.  

Favourite classic author in translation?  

Hans Fallada, Hermann Hesse, Albert Camus and Georges Simenon. 

Do you have a favourite classic poet/poem, playwright/play? Why do you love it? 

Poetry really isn’t my ‘thing’, but I am quite partial to a bit of Shakespeare. I’ve only seen most of his plays by their movie versions but did see Romeo & Juliet on stage which I thought was amazing.  

Favourite edition (or series) of a classic you own, or wished you owned, if any? 

My favourite edition of a classic I own is an old hardback of Pride & Prejudice I picked up from a second-hand bookshop sometime in the deep past. On the face of things it doesn’t look like much, but not only did I fall in love with the story (and author) on reading it it’s also a small piece of history in that it was printed in the aftermath of WW2 and is printed on VERY thing paper to save resources. Part of its beauty (and value to me personally) is how delicate it is. My favourite classic series is the ever-growing number of books in the British Library Crime Classics. The Imperial War Museum Classics are a close second.   

Which classic character most reminds you of yourself? Which classic character do you most wish you could be like? 

Not my thing I’m afraid. There’s no one quite like me! 

What is the oldest classic you have read or plan to read? Why? 

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (1531). Why? I’m interested in politics and it hardly gets more classic than this. Although thinking about it The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius is MUCH older!  

Do you reread classics? Why, or why not? 

I don’t re-read much, but I have read several classics more than once. I THINK I’ve read 1984 three times so far and Brave New World at least twice... Classics are so for a reason. You can often get something new out of them every time you read them.

Has there been a classic title you simply could not finish? 

I’ve DNF’d several classics over the years. Most recently they are Erewhon by Samuel Butler, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Hard Times by Charles Dickens and The Purple Cloud by M P Shiel. 

Has there been a classic title you expected to dislike and ended up loving? 

Well, I would never start a book I was EXPECTING to dislike – life is far too short for that kind of thing – but there have been a few (not already mentioned) that ended up impressing me a great deal. They are A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, The Plague by Albert Camus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kessey, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene, A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and The End of the Affair by Graham Greene,  

If you’ve ever participated in a read along on a classic, tell us about the experience? 

Yes. I MUCH enjoyed ‘buddy-(re) reading all of the Sherlock Holmes books with Marian H a while back. It was really good both the revisit some of my favourite stories and to discuss them with someone who has also just re-read them.  

Damn you INTERNET! 

Happy Birthday: Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 56.5 million records in the US alone, making him one of the best-selling musicians in history.

Diamond has written and recorded ten singles that reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: "Cracklin' Rosie", "Song Sung Blue", "Longfellow Serenade", "I've Been This Way Before", "If You Know What I Mean", "Desirée", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (which he co-wrote with Marilyn Bergman and performed with Barbra Streisand), "America", "Yesterday's Songs", and "Heartlight (co-written with Carole Bayer Sager and Burt Bacharach). Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have reached the top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, including "Sweet Caroline". He has also acted in films, making his screen debut in the 1980 musical drama film The Jazz Singer.

Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. He received a Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Just Finished Reading: Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell (1945) [52pp] 

As is usually the case with these Penguin booklets, this contains three short extracts from a larger work – in this case the cunningly named collection Essays. I’ll circle back to the larger title piece but first I want to mention the two others. 

First (or actually second) we have Antisemitism in Britain (1945) which discusses the rise in this prejudice during WW2 and at around the time of its end (at least in Europe). It's certainly a subject I don’t know a whole lot about, so I was a little surprised to find that antisemitic beliefs increased both when Jewish refugees were fleeing an increasingly dangerous Europe and even after the discovery of the concentration camps was starting to filter through. It seems like an amazing example of blaming the victim. 

Lastly, was a short piece, The Sporting Sprit (1945), on Football (that’s soccer for my American readers) and specifically about the visit of the Russian team Moscow Dynamo at the end of the war on a good-will set of games. Apparent this did not go down well for some reason. I only mention it here because of the interesting throw-away idea that the growth in global sports – Football, Rugby & Cricket (and no doubt others) only really took off in concert with the emergence and growth of Nationalism. That might be an interesting idea to pursue further... 

The first and main text was the main titled Notes on Nationalism (1945) which impressed me, as Orwell often does, with its insight and modern feel. Some passages might have been published in the better newspapers and magazines in the last few weeks rather than 80 years ago. For example:  

“The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also – since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself – unshakably certain of being in the right.” 

You can see why I like Orwell SO much. Needless to say, I enjoyed this thought provoking little booklet and will be acquiring the larger Essays collection (and his other non-fiction) as soon as I can.     

There's actually Nuremberg, Pennsylvania (Pop 434 as of 2010) which would be *perfect* for a large modern courthouse. It'd certainly put the place on the world map.... and what a tourist attraction - both during & after. 

Just Finished Reading: Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov (FP: 1996) [228pp] 

Post-Soviet Kiev, Ukraine. Viktor Zolotaryov always wanted to be an author, but earning a living especially now wasn’t exactly easy. But he was determined to try and spent his days dropping off short stories to local newspapers in the capital. He was both pleased, if somewhat surprised, to receive a call back from an editor who liked his style. The pleasure soon turned to confusion once Viktor learned about the job offer. His task was to write obituaries for the still living. Initially reluctant to undertake this rather bizarre assignment he relented once he discovered his rather generous salary offer. Anyway, he had another mouth to feed apart from his own. He’d picked up Misha, an Emperor penguin, from the local zoo after they advertised for those willing to take on looking after some of their collection due to lack of resources. Suffering from depression and a heart condition it was the least Viktor could do to feed Misha as well and as often as he could. When an obituary was published some weeks later Viktor was both pleased and saddened that this was his first time in print. When another followed weeks later Viktor began to worry. But when his editor started to direct who he should write about and how swiftly their deaths followed the worry began to morph into something darker. Was Viktor involved in something much bigger than simply extoling the virtues of the dead? Dare he even ask the question? Or would HIS name appear in a future copy of the newspaper... 

I picked this book up some months ago because it looked ‘quirky’. It was most certainly that! Pitched as a ‘dark comedy’ I found the first half of the book frankly hilarious – probably because of the level of absurdity that none of the characters seemed to notice or comment on. One thing that made me chuckle throughout – amongst many things – was the fact that a member of the local mafia shared the penguin's name and was referred throughout as ‘Misha - non penguin’. I’m smiling now just thinking about it. I found the second half less funny mostly, I think, because I had become used to the absurdity and had simply accepted the bizarre goings on as ‘normal’. This did not, in the least, reduce my enjoyment though. This remains one of the highlights of the year (so far) and I intend to read far more from this author (or at least as much has been translated into English). The atmosphere of post-Soviet Ukraine was very palpable, and it was fascinating just to ‘be there’ in the aftermath of the soviet collapse. The many characters throughout were excellent from Viktor, the gangster Misha non-penguin, his young daughter Sophie, Sergey the local policeman and, of course, the brilliant if silent Misha (the penguin).  

This was certainly a strange read – not least of which because of the cultural divide. But one of the many things I liked about it was the ability of the author to get the reader to identify with people that, if handled badly, could feel rather strange and ‘other’. At the end of the final page not only did it feel like you got to know the characters and like them (even most of the ‘baddies’) but you missed them once you’d finished. Definitely recommended for a ‘different’ and often very funny reading experience. More to come! 

Translated from the Russian by George Bird.  

Happy Winnie the Pooh Day....!

Reading Through Trump 2.0 in 2025. 

Those who are semi-regulars here will be aware that one of my major reading themes (or ‘steams’ as I’ve labelled them) is the attempt to understand the weirdness that is the USA. I have entitled this USA: WTF which seems more than appropriate. With the most recent political ‘events’ over there – most especially the re-election of Trump despite knowing what he did last time, knowing what he is capable of and knowing what he had planned. So, as a ‘side quest’ or maybe a tributary to my original knowledge stream, I’ll going to be exploring why such a thing could happen there and just why so many people still support it. Here’s what I read about that in 2025 (a few books were reviewed in 2024 but after the election results had been announced so I’m going to count them). 

Our Own Worst Enemy – The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy by Tom Nichols 

The American Revolution – A Very Short Introduction by Robert J Allison 

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell 

Surveillance – A Very Short Introduction by David Lyon 

The Shortest History of Democracy by John Kean 

How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them by Barbara F Walter 

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine – A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance by Rashid Khalidi 

How the Right Lost Its Mind by Charles J Sykes 

1923 – The Crisis that Led to Hitler’s Coup by Mark Jones 

Whilst somewhat ‘unfocused’ at this point I don’t think this was a terrible start. I’m hoping/expecting my reading within this ‘side-quest’ to be a little more on point once I’ve finished with my present 20th century history read. With luck I’ll even start to clue into just WTF is going on over there!  

Happy Birthday: Nevil Shute Norway (17 January 1899 – 12 January 1960) was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name to protect his engineering career from inferences by his employers (Vickers) or from fellow engineers that he was "not a serious person" or from potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels, which included On the Beach and A Town Like Alice.

An aeronautical engineer as well as a pilot, Shute began his engineering career with the de Havilland Aircraft Company. Dissatisfied with the lack of opportunities for advancement, he took a position in 1924 with Vickers Ltd., where he was involved with the development of airships, working as Chief Calculator (stress engineer) on the R100 airship project for the Vickers subsidiary Airship Guarantee Company. In 1929, he was promoted to deputy chief engineer of the R100 project under Barnes Wallis. When Wallis left the project, Shute became the chief engineer.

Twenty-four of his novels and novellas have been published. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, including Lonely Road in 1936; Landfall: A Channel Story in 1949; Pied Piper in 1942 and again in 1959, and also as Crossing to Freedom, a CBS made-for-television movie, in 1990; On the Beach in 1959 and again in 2000 as a two-part miniseries; and No Highway in 1951. A Town Like Alice was adapted into a film in 1956, serialised for Australian television in 1981, and also broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 1997 starring Jason Connery, Becky Hindley, Bernard Hepton and Virginia McKenna. Shute's 1952 novel The Far Country was filmed for television as six one-hour episodes in 1972, and as a two-part miniseries in 1987. Vintage Books reprinted all 23 of his books in 2009.

The public library in Alice Springs, Northern Territory is the Nevil Shute Memorial Library.

[I've only read two of his books (so far) and enjoyed both of them. I'm definitely intending to read more - if not them all.]

Just Finished Reading: 1941 – Armageddon by Richard Collier (FP: 1981) [316pp] 

1941 was a bad year for the Allies. Despite success in the Battle of Britain, England was still being regularly bombed. In North Africa Rommel was recovering land given up by the Italians and gaining more by the day. Allied forces had been ejected from Greece and Crete (which was the graveyard of the German airborne forces) that couldn’t help but be compared to Dunkirk. In America President Roosevelt still struggled against isolationist forces in his desire to become the arsenal of Democracy. Meanwhile, in the East, the Japanese began moving against the European outposts taking one after another with apparent ease. There was, briefly, some good news – or at least good mixed in with the bad. Despite losing HMS Hood the Royal Navy had struck both a tactical and propaganda victory with the sinking of Germany’s flagship Bismarck. It was little enough to celebrate but it was something in those dark times. In the summer of that year things changed. In June of 1941 Germany attacked Russia in Operation Barbarossa. It was a HUGE gamble which turned out to be a huge mistake (actually Axis forces made at least 3 fundamental errors in 1941 which would, ultimately, loose them the war – but more on that later). Despite a constant stream of warnings, the Russians were taken completely by surprise and thrown back in disarray. It would take them months to recover. Finally, as the year approached its end, the Japanese navy launched its sneak attack on the US navy base at Pearl Harbor (again despite significant warnings that it was about to happen - more later on that too). America was now fully in the conflict. 

I found this to be somewhat better that the authors previous work on 1940. Partially it might be that I had become used to his ‘style’ but I think he did actually improve his writing in the intervening years. There was a great deal of doom & gloom here and rightly so. It was THE bad year for the Allies and it's easy to imagine, as many did, that the Axis powers were going to be triumphant. Only in hindsight could many see the seeds of Axis defeat (Churchill was one of them who was delighted in the German attack on Russia and equally convinced that the war was now effectively won – by the Allies – once the US was fully committed to the cause). But 1942 was the year when the dynamic changed and the Axis lost the initiative and never regained it after the battles of Midway (4–7 June 1942), El Alamein (23 October – 11 November 1942) and Stalingrad (17 July 1942 – 2 February 1943). 

This was a reasonable overview of a very difficult and deadly year. As before we had the rather annoying and honestly clunky change of gears from big events to small ones. Again, I can see why he chose to do this, but I don’t think it was handled particularly well. I’m certain that there are better books out there on this year (one coming up actually!) so if you have limited time or limited interest, I might suggest that you pass on this one.  

Just Finished Reading: The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter (FP: 1981) [302pp] 

Morse thought it was his lucky day. The most attractive woman at a boring party wanted to spend her time with him. Not only was she attractive but smart too, well read, well educated. But then he saw her wedding ring and she said yes, she was in fact married. Morse considered his options and decided that a relationship with a married woman was just too much work, even if his rather prickly conscience would let him even try. Weeks later he saw her again in very different circumstances – in the morgue. Detective Inspector Morse was informed that she had committed suicide and that she was pregnant. Saddened in more ways than one he decided to investigate further despite it not being his case and having occurred outside a strict interpretation of his jurisdiction. It wasn’t long before the list of questions started to outpace the answers and it wasn’t much longer before the Assistant Commissioner called him in for a ‘chat’. Morse didn’t know what surprised him more, the fact that his private investigation was known about or that it was about to become official. But now he could start answering the big questions: who was the father and did she really kill herself... 

I was (and still am) a HUGE fan of the long running TV series (33 episodes) starring John Thaw as Morse and Kevin Whatley as his long-suffering side kick Detective Sergeant Lewis. Despite that, this is my first Morse novel which is the 5th in the series. Morse is mostly the same here – irascible, short tempered, fond of his beer and classical music. In the book he also smoked (I can’t remember him smoking in the TV adaptation) and drove a Lancier rather than his iconic Jag.  

The story here is nicely complex without being TOO complicated. As usual with these things there are a number of possible suspects (and indeed crimes) with a scattering of red herrings. Both Morse and the readers are led done a garden path and I was totally suckered in, so it was quite fun when that particular rug was pulled from under my feet (honestly the smell of fish should have given it away). I won’t give anything away by laying out too much detail here, but this is a clever tale revolving around infidelity, blackmail, teenage obsession, and independent publishing. I don’t have any other Morse books (having picked this up with a bunch of other books with ‘dead’ in the title) and, despite enjoying it, don’t intend to actively look out for any more of them. It’s not that I don’t want to dig more into the original works, it’s that I have SO much more to read that I don’t really want to start yet another series. A fun read and recommended to all Morse fans who have yet to enjoy him in print.