The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Preston writes a compelling non-fiction work about infectious disease, his second. The book begins with a description of the mysterious anthrax bioterrorism attacks of 2001. The victims were some politicians, their staff, mail handling personnel, and one random woman believed to have contracted the disease from her own mail which had been sorted in proximity to a contaminated letter full of anthrax spores. I thought it would be a cracking good real crime story detailing how the FBI and the scientists who helped them cracked the case. Much of the book is about that case, but the case was not solved by the time the book was published and the book does not identify any individual to be the perpetrator. Most of the book focuses on smallpox, specifically the weaponization of smallpox. The history of smallpox as a disease and then as a weapon is fascinating and well depicted. The author humanizes it by describing the laboratory procedures various scientists use to deal with samples or treatment of patients, and he provides the back stories, i.e. brief bios, of the scientists and doctors along the way.

There’s a lot of good science in the book and some tense moments that demonstrate how easily a smallpox epidemic could start that would wipe out forty percent of humanity. Still, a lot is unknown about whether there is a credible bioterror threat. Scientists disagree. The author comes just short of pointing the finger at a particular scientist as the perpetrator of the anthrax attack, but that person turned out not to be person the FBI eventually identified. The book quotes several scientists as stating with great certainty that Saddam Hussein definitely has a stock of weapons of mass destruction, i.e. biological weapons, but one year after the book was published, the U.S. invaded Iraq and found no evidence of such weapons. The book may be relegated to irrelevance as it is over twenty years old now, but the Covid pandemic showed how relevant it still is. A global pandemic is a genuine threat whether occurring naturally, accidentally, or intentionally. The difficulties involved in defending against it, both in the labs and in the outside world are made evident in the book. Smallpox is supposed to exist solely in two closely guarded facilities in the world, one in the U.S., one in Russia, but the book shows how that belief is probably a pipe dream. The development of antiviral medicines against AIDS and HIV give us hope that something similar could be done with smallpox, but the death toll would probably be devastating in any event.

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Donald Trump just installed two new overly tall flagpoles in the White House residence, the first on the South Lawn. I just submitted the following anagram to the Anagram Times to honor it:

Trump installs new White House flagpoles = Oh, swell – powerful male penis status thing

I also decided to try to find an appropriate What3Words triplet for the installation site. The best I could find is : flags.slug.secret. That’s very close to the site.

Slug’s secret flags would have been more appropriate, but I don’t assign word combos. Don’t get me wrong: I like flying the American flag and have no objection to that. It’s just the idea that Trump has to have even bigger poles that the ones that existed that I’m ridiculing. Pardon the male penis redundancy.

Camino Island by John Grisham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thieves steal valuable manuscripts from the Princeton Library. Some of the crooks get caught, but others don’t. The loot disappears. An insurance company hires a team of investigators to track them down since it would be on the hook for hundreds of millions. They suspect Bruce Cable, a book dealer in resort town Camino Island, to be the fence and enlist an attractive young author, Mercer, to work undercover and ingratiate herself with Bruce. There’s plenty of book business gossip and hanky panky going on throughout the book. Eventually a ransom demand is made on Princeton for the return and the action starts.

This is light fluff but amusing enough to pass the time. I suspect Grisham was having fun skewering the publishing business, although most readers probably don’t share his inside knowledge or interest in that industry. Rare book collectors would probably get a kick out of it.

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Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story is told from multiple perspectives. It begins with a narration by Ansel, the condemned man, facing impending execution for murder. The author made an odd choice to have all his narration done in the second person, as if he’s talking to himself (“You remember the Blue House. You …”). All the other characters’ viewpoints are told in the third person. Strange, but at least in his case, you can tell who it is “talking.”

The title removes any suspense about what’s going to happen – e.g. escape, pardon, suicide, a ‘real killer’ twist. I don’t understand the reviewers or blurbers who extol the suspense since there is none. The back story that led up to this point is then told by and about various people including his ex-wife, her sister, the detective who was trying to solve the murders (there are several), Ansel’s mother, and perhaps one or two more. Unfortunately this book follows the current trend of jumping back and forth in time repeatedly throughout the book, even within a chapter. I wish someone would write a novel that takes place in chronological order, at least for each narrator’s viewpoint if there are more than one.

The story line raises issues of abusive parents and abandonment, the foster care system, genetic predisposition (nature or nurture), blame, and capital punishment. The writing is quite literary for a crime novel, although that’s not necessarily a good thing. It goes counter to the genre. Overall it is a readable story but somber and frustrating enough that it’s not very enjoyable.

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I noticed a weird correlation today. Google trends today showed the below graphic displaying the search interest in the male and female French Open winners. What surprised me is how closely the interest followed political red/blue state lines. If anyone has a theory as to why Republicans are more interested in Coco Gauff and Democrats in Carlos Alcaraz. Besides the obvious male/female dichotomy, the other major differences are race (Gauff black, Alcaraz white) and nationality (Gauff USA, Alcaraz Spanish). I have my theories but I’ll refrain from spelling them out.

Longhorns East by Johnny D. Boggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

According to the author this biographical novel was inspired by the story of Tom Candy Ponting, an Illinois cattleman who was the first to drive a herd of longhorn cattle from Texas to New York City. The author admits to having invented most of the characters and incidents, but the general facts of Ponting’s achievement is reportedly accurate and the three or four main characters real persons. The book has many tense even deadly moments, a few funny ones, and even some near disasters. The life of a western cattle drover is delineated in considerable detail and is perhaps the most interesting thing in the book. I wasn’t excited about the book, but it filled the time well. I listened to the reader who narrated in Tom’s English accent, a rather odd one that took some getting used to. It was a rough accent, not received pronunciation (RP). I’m stretching my rating to 4.0.

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Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation by Erika Krouse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the true life story of the sexual harassment/Title IX lawsuit against the University of Colorado in the 2000s. The names and details have been altered, but it paints a clear and quite revolting picture of the culture there in the football program to recruit players. They are or were given carte blanche to show up at any party and force sex on any woman who happens to be there. There were multiple cases of rape uncovered and the rapists were never prosecuted because of the popularity of the football program. Some dogged investigative work by the author and the lawyer she worked for eventually led to the exposure of the activities and a major lawsuit. It’s an interesting, if depressing, read.

The other half of the book, interspersed with the lawsuit, is the memoir part. I understand the desire of an author to write a memoir. After all, one is supposed to write “what you know,” and there is nothing you know better than your own story. Even so, this part falls into the category of oversharing. Her early life is not a pretty picture and I found that and her later love life and courting of no interest. I was interested in the legal case, not a cathartic outpouring.

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