History is untidy. That's easy to forget when everything is presented to us as a timeline. I have always assumed that as World War II ended, there was a concerted international effort to round up the Nazi war criminals and bring them to justice. Quite the contrary. Those who were not recruited by the Allied countries including the USA to acquire their various areas of expertise or were not rounded up as a happenstance during final days of the armed conflict, often were allowed to blend in with the peacetime world. Some were even allowed high posts in the post war German government. The most evil fled abroad--among them Adolf Eichman who created and drove the social mechanics that carried millions of Jews to their deaths. The story of his discovery and capture are amazing. The characters involved are compelling and the power of the Nazi crimes are never undersold. Neal Bascomb does a solid job of reporting and the book is well structured so there is little confusion amidst a story that spans many countries and many years. While the book is all those things, I wished it was something else. The story starts with Eichman and we follow him in his efforts to elude capture and escape Europe. I would rather the story had started with the Jews who became his pursuers. From their perspective, even more emotion could have been drawn from the story and Eichman's crimes unraveled like the true mystery that they were after the war. Most people had never heard of Eichman or the part he played. The story of Eichman's capture was not just a criminal being brought to justice, but also a ringing justification for the existence of Israel. By the time of his capture in 1960, the world had rather successfully turned its collective back on The Holocaust. Even many living in Israel knew little of what had actually happened. His capture became a world-wide sensation and his trial an opportunity to educate a world suddenly sitting at attention. Likely without this event, the extent of stories told about The Holocaust since his capture would have been terribly muted instead of attaining a dramatic place amidst the historical/entertainment structure among western cultures. All this would have been more powerful if told from the perspective of the Jewish pursuers from the beginning instead of their taking over the story about half way through. Maybe that was thought too little focus on Eichman. Considering his crimes, that focus could not have wandered far. All that being said, an amazing and compelling true story that gladly is not lost to history's devouring tide.

Any collection of stories is bound to be a mixture of hits and misses for the reader. Even given that caveat, I am hard pressed to understand the logic behind this collection of the best "mysteries" of 2002. While the batting average of about 50% isn't bad I suppose for a rather finicky reader, some of the clunkers were truly clunkers--could not even drive them off the lot let alone around town. TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING by Michael Collins puts unbelievable people in unbelievable situations, BLESS ME FATHER FOR I HAVE SINNED by Ed Gorman was predictable from word one and irritating, THE PAINTED LADY by Deloris Stanton Forbes took a ridiculous square peg plot and forced it into a round whole genre and MOM LIGHTS A CANDLE by James Yaffe is a mystery but that cutesy kind where a detective's mother solves his crimes for him--blech. A few others I will excuse as mediocre and spare myself remembering them enough to write about. TO LIVE AND DIE IN MIDLAND TEXAS by Clark Howard (which starts out the collection with a bang) and MOODY'S BLUES by Hal Charles are both more pulp crime stories than mystery though they both do tease the title genre somewhat. Both have sharply drawn characters in convincingly desperate straits and you are drawn to their endings like a bad child being pulled across the yard to that tree with the best switches. I also enjoyed THE DEAD THEIR EYES IMPLORE US by George Pelecanos, though it felt more like a writing exercise at times than a mystery. Ultimately a well done jazz riff on a down and outer amidst a well hewed urban crime setting. The prize for me amidst this collection was IF ALL IS DARK by Mat Coward. You only realize at the end of the story that you have indeed been reading a mystery and have been sifting the clues almost unconsciously so that by the end you are surprised but not shocked. Told with ease and snarky wit, the story lives and breathes around three characters who should not really be together but who's coexistence feels natural and somehow unavoidable. The one story that immediately drove me to the web to find out more about the author. I will be reading more from him. Writing this has revealed that the batting average was closer to 66% than fifty so I guess there was more mystery about it than I gave it credit for. On the whole, worthwhile. Especially if you skip the first four stories I mentioned.

As one who arrived at the tail end of the Baby Boom Generation (those born 1946 → 1964) I was among the last raised with the sense that World War II was not ancient history. By the time I could absorb history, Korea and Vietnam would supplant WW II in the media but my access to history as a child was mostly watching war movies on Saturday afternoon. Pulse pounding action drew me in creating a more than passing interest in the conflict for the rest of my life. One of my favorite books is THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH by William L. Shirer and I've enjoyed a couple books by Stephen E. Ambrose as well. So between all that and the annual Memorial Day crash courses in America's wars, I was relatively well steeped in WW II. I was looking forward to reading D-DAY AND THE INVASION OF NORMANDY to add another layer to my knowledge. It didn't. It skims over the invasion the way a butterfly flits across your yard. Randomly alighting here and there before moving on. When those landing on Utah beach were described as facing sporadic gun fire before moving onto another subject I knew I was in trouble. The book is part of the "Discoveries" series published by Henry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers. Their books are tight little paperbacks mostly on glossy paper appointed quite well with many photographs and maps--even a multi page pull out map of the Normandy beaches (nicely done, there is a different map on each side of the pull out but one of the maps omits the middle beach of the five to be attacked). The production value of the book and some miscellaneous writings and correspondence tacked on to the end of the book authored by various people involved on both sides raise this a star. If this is your first look at this piece of history, you will enjoy it more than I did and likely spur you to learn more. I have another volume in this series about the Napoleonic Wars about which I know very little--affording me I hope the opportunity to enjoy the book.