A Train to Potevka by Mike Ramsdell

 I went to some effort to get this book, published in 2006, and finally was able to borrow a copy from Karen, one of my friends in the Ridgeview Ward book club. I think we're calling ourselves the Dixie Book Club now, and I was committed to getting it and contributing to our next discussion because I really enjoy these women, and I've had to miss the last two meetings. 

Mike Ramsdell is a Bear River, Idaho native who wrote about his life and one of his very challenging adventures as a Russian spy. He claims it's fiction because there are laws about what ex-spies can share, but it feels authentic. Along the way we learn about his life growing up, his son Chris, and what it was like to be trained as a spy, to catch your best friend being a traitor, to starving on a train and then in a safe house in Siberia, and to finally reunite with your best friend in Germany and marry her. It held my interest all along the way.

I read for several hours at the Honda Service Center as our Honda had a fuel pump module recall repaired. The two hours flew by. In a lot of ways, it's a simple book, because he doesn't go into great detail about the espionage he's writing about. He outlines Russian history, and describes the Russian landscape and people very descriptively. It's also a fairly fast read and moves along at a good clip. The overwhelming poverty, starvation, alcoholism and constant cold are pervasive in the USSR and the hard life these people live is instructive. I knew a lot of this from my years in West Berlin, sometimes experiencing the Soviet way in East Berlin. The endless concrete block buildings, the pervasive grey of everything, the harshness of the soldiers, the high distrust of everyone because the KGB was everywhere. 

A charming aspect of this book was the author's illustrations. They are simple pen and ink drawings, but add a nice dimension to the book. Ramsdell is LDS but he's not a preacher in this book. He describes his own mission briefly, and his religion comes up when he attempts to buy two Elders dinner in Moscow, but there's no doctrine or Christian message beyond his love and longing for his family. 

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Ramsdell is in Moscow and describes in great detail how difficult it was to find a restaurant that would serve him and two Elders he encountered at Gorky Park. They end up at the newly-completed McDonalds, but the line snakes outside and is over 2000 people long! It was fascinating to read about little boys who saved places in line, identified foreigners they could help, and then sold increasingly close places in line to the entrance of the restaurant. Capitalism beginning to grow in these young entrepreneurs! And then the disheartening revelation that most of their earnings would be collected nightly by the Russian Mafia.

I knew about the KGB, but was pretty clueless about the Russian Mafia. Both groups seem sinister and destructive to a struggling new government...Russian history is so fascinating and mysterious to me! This book added to the mystery and to my wondering...Is Russia forever destined to be run by corrupt people and is dishonesty still so pervasive? They, as a people, do seem markedly different than their western European neighbors...

The Immortals by Steven T. Collis

I was a little annoyed when Marsha Oshita, a friend in our ward, decided to start a new book club outside of Relief Society. It's not that she started a book club, but that she started one and promptly picked out all the books herself! I'm not sure that's what happened, and we haven''t met yet, but this is the first one picked. It's a military history and it was hard to read because of the cold, the desperateness of the men involved, and how it really only hinges on a half-hour at sea when the Dorchester gets torpedoed and sunk.

There were four chaplains aboard, and a cook on one of the accomanying ships who heroically helped save others and then succumbed themselves. It's a moving example of selflessness. But the author goes on and on and speculates so much about what the men were thinking and feeling that it felt like padding to make a book out of a short story. I thought the men's lives prior to the disaster were interesting to read about..but not particularly compelling. A lot of facts didn't lead anywhere.

I did bother to read the end notes, and this author did a lot of meticulous research from primary sources to tell this story. I learned a lot about how the chain of command works and doesn't work. There were other heroes besides these five that he writes about, and it's amazing to read of their selflessness.

The other thing I learned was that the military specifically sought out chaplains who could think larger than their own particular religion. They needed men who could minister to men with no faith and with a variety of faiths. This description of their qualifications as lovers of humanity was interesting. 

I guess one of the reasons to be in a book club is to read things I wouldn't normally read, and this one certainly qualifies. I would have put it down; no, I wouldn't have even picked it up because I like happier milieus, but I am glad I got rhrough it, and it will be interesting to hear what the other women in the group think about it next week. I fear it may veer into the political, so I hope I can stay appropriate, especially now that Trump is threatening to take over Greenland, and that connection may be brought out in a positive way at the discussion. Yikes, what will I say? We shall see! 

King and Maxwell by David Baldacci

So...the recent David Baldacci book I read was disappointing, with shallow characters. But this one is part of a supposedly popular series about a male/female private investigator team called King and Maxwell and so I thought I should give this author another try.

Disappointing. Like the other one I read, it had an exciting, complex plot of military and political shenanigans, and like the other one, the characters were shallow and flat. Even the supposed chemistry between King and Maxwell wasn't there. The kidnapping of an Army Special Forces man's son and the revenge of a demented military contractor were the major plot happenings, and they were interesting. I liked all the internet spying and satellite tricks, etc., but many of the coincidences as the case unfolded were not believable. Neither were the skills of Edgar, the guy who could hack into any system and learn whatever King and Maxwell needed.

However, it was a light, fun read on warm summer nights and afternoons when I needed a book to put me to sleep. But I'm done with this author. I don't think Mother liked him either, now that I think about it. I think I may have confused him with Richard Russo. He's one I KNOW she enjoyed. I may try him again in the future.