Robbery Under Law: The Mexican Object-Lesson – Evelyn Waugh, 1939 ★★

Taking Oil, Dumping God

Marxism is one of the most profound political movements in the history of mankind. Love it or hate it, the rise of the “workers’ revolution” has left few neutral observers in its wake.

Evelyn Waugh was one of the haters. He condemned Marxism for its negative impact on national economies, its removal of public liberties to serve a nebulous public good, and most especially its avowed atheism. In Mexico in the late 1930s, he called out this “object-lesson” for what he describes as its ruinous effects.

Waugh writes: “Just as the United States earned the gratitude of the world by ‘trying out’ prohibition, so the Mexicans may be said to be trying out Marxism.”

The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford, 1915 ★★★★★

A Different Kind of Mystery Novel

Reading The Good Soldier is like being trapped in a room with one of the windiest, endlessly digressive bores you can imagine. And then the penny drops and you realize you are in the middle of a rather fun mystery.

Who is this odd narrator, John Dowell, and why is he so in the thrall of a strange English couple, the Ashburnhams? What is the deal with Dowell’s wife? And why did Ford Madox Ford give this novel the title The Good Soldier, given there is nothing in it relating to the Great War then raging across Europe?

Another mystery less difficult to explain is the hold this elliptical book has had over generations of readers, only gaining stature in later critical surveys. The Good Soldier is a probing, devastating, subtly but persistently comedic examination of duty, religion, and so much else that falls under the heading of what one is brought up to believe.

The Cutie – Donald E. Westlake, 1960 ★★½

Even Bad Guys Get the Blues

Straightforward mystery or crime fiction? I go back and forth with this one. The plot centers on a murder, a series of them as it unfolds, with mysterious phone calls and lengthy interrogations that double as exposition. Your standard mystery, basically.

But what it really is about is the life of a criminal, a hoodlum who thinks he’s in the driver’s seat until things start going wrong. As a character study, The Cutie is involving, full-on crime fiction. Yet most of the way through, it is tied to this formulaic mystery that leaves too many holes.

Our protagonist, Clay, works as a top operative for Manhattan gang boss Ed Ganolese. One night, at home with his latest girlfriend, the doorbell rings. It’s Billy-Billy Cantell, a junkie who claims the police are after him for murdering a woman he swears he doesn’t know.

Lincoln’s Lieutenants – Stephen W. Sears, 2017 ★★★★

Epic Battles Led by Petty Minds

They were eventual victors in the highest-stakes battles their country ever fought, enduring gut-wrenching reversals and hellish casualties all the way. They also included enough whiny, bratty, narcissistic headcases to fill the cast of an ‘80s teen comedy.

With such leaders was the Union saved.

The main takeaway from this book, the first by Civil War historian Stephen Sears to cover the entire war rather than a specific campaign, is just how brutal a spectacle it was not just during specific battles but all the way through. Yet the prima donna aspect hits home, too.