Jack’s Books Blog: Fall Is Slightly In The Air

Usually, the turning of the calendar page to September around here signifies…not much.

Up north, fall engages like the return on a manual typewriter: ka-CHUNK and DING and the temps are cool. Usually, we just keep on doing summer.

I’ll be darned though: this weekend actually did feel slightly autumnal. Or maybe it’s just football being back. Either way, I’ll take it. Here’s hoping “fall” continues to be a season, and not a description of Western Civilization.

Here’s what I’ve been reading in recent days:

“Advent of The Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings 1941-44” by Father Alfred Delp (ed. 2006) Father Delp is one of the underappreciated heroes of the 20th century: a young German Jesuit and member of the Kreisau Circle (a Hitler resistance cell) who died in the camps. This is a collection of his final Advent homilies, grouped by each of the weeks of that season that we mark on the candle-decked altar wreath. While they are all exceptional, it’s haunting, and touching, to see his message change from the 1941 or ’42 reflections, when he’s free, versus the 1944 ones where he is scrawling them, while handcuffed,  on scraps of paper smuggled out of his cell. Powerful and inspiring.

“Eye of the Needle” by Ken Follett (1978) (re-read) One of the greatest WW2 era spy novels ever written, about a fictional but plausible Nazi superspy who uncovers the non-fictional ruse of a fake Allied army assembled in England to throw off Hitler’s expectations of where the D-Day invasion would occur. Story is told from both the perspective of the spy, trying to escape with his photographic evidence, and everyday Brits who are in life-risking pursuit.

“A Spy in The Ointment” by Donald Westlake (1966) Even for a satirical humorist like Westlake, this is a nutty plot: a harmless pacifist group being surveilled by the feds is sort of deputized to infiltrate and help stop a dangerous terrorist plot. The tension comes mainly from the irony of asking a guy who doesn’t like or trust his own government to help said government. Will he? Can he?

“Little Scarlet” by Walter Mosley (2004) Even when Walter Mosley is not at his best, his stuff is at the pinnacle of modern American writing. This one is in his “Easy Rawlins” series: Easy is going through the Watts riots of ’65.

“The Devil’s Hand” by Jack Carr (2021) From the “Terminal List” series, this one has our man James Reece acting under the direct command of a hypothetical POTUS who is an Afghanistan War vet—and a Democrat—and reveals a deeply personal reason for seeking the presidency; meanwhile, the country is plunged into a new health crisis that makes COVID-19 look like a walk in the park.

“The Case of The Haunted Husband” by Erle Stanley Gardner (1941) When the “Perry Mason” show made this an episode, they not only changed and consolidated the story, but actually make a better story! I still enjoyed the plot of a girl hitchhiking from SF to LA and winding up in a car wreck, which leads to murder charges. The crucial clue: let’s just say a true friend will “give you the shirt off his back”. Read it and see.

“Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman” by Robert O’Connell (2014) Sherman is one of my favorite historical figures, and a greatly misunderstood and maligned one. A Renaissance man, ahead of his time on many social and military issues, deep sense of honor—this author captures him well, and tells the story in a breezy, somewhat conversational way.

As always, tell me if you try any of these books, or if you have recommendations of titles: [email protected]