Incident at Hawk's Hill

"Benjamin MacDonald was following a mouse."

So begins an unusual tale set in 1870 on a small farm 20 miles from Winnipeg. Ben is six years old and very small for his age. He's an odd lad who likes to follow animals around and emulate their behaviour, preferring their company to that of his own family. 

His father thinks there's something wrong with him, while his mother feels he just needs a little more time to grow out of it. When neighbours see him clucking like a chicken and eating grass like a lamb, there's bound to be talk.

One day while out on the prairie he encounters a badger and follows it on all fours, micmicking its grunting and chattering. He is enthralled when he sees it eating a mouse, and moves close enough to offer it some baby mice from an abandoned nest. At length the badger tolerates him.

Later his family is visited by a crude trapper who proudly exhibits a dead badger that he's trapped. Ben's father worries about the safety of his young family, for he knows that badgers can be dangerous and he has already lost two horses due legs broken from stepping into badger holes. Though he doesn't like the trapper, he lets himself be goaded into skinning the badger. This results in a confrontation between Ben and his father that ends badly.

The stage is now set for the most engaging part of the novel. Ben is out on the prairie when a storm hits, and he ends up taking shelter in the den of the badger that he previously met. When he doesn't return home his family is frantic, and the story veers back and forth over a period of weeks between them and life in the badger den. This part is admirably done.

An author's note states: "The story which follows is a slightly fictionalized version of an incident which actually occurred at the time and place noted."  

The book includes eight scratchboard images by John Schoenherr. A 1975 Disney movie,The Boy Who Talked to Badgers, is very loosely based on the book. 

 

Guide to The Peripheral by William Gibson

I first read this book in 2015, the year after it was published. The hardcover version clocks in at 485 pages. In 2022 it surfaced again on Amazon Prime as a mini-series, though the second season was cancelled due to a writers' strike, a disappointment as I thought the cast was great and there were parts that I found unforgettable -- the haptic band of brothers and their use of drones, and especially the eerie portrayal of a future London with tall buildings that are part ruin, part classical sculpture. So I picked up the book again this year, but had forgotten how reading Gibson can be like boarding a moving train. He speeds through chapters without fully explaining what's going on and backfills gaps later on. This streamlines the story but the scattered clues can be difficult to pick up. Many of the details, while interesting, are not germane to the plot. Add a few twists and stir in the mini-series, which does not hew closely to the book, and you'll be forgiven for feeling a bit dazed.

PLOT SYMMETRIES

The 124 chapters alternate between the future and the past, and between the POV of two main characters. The cast is large and there is much detail which, though entertaining, is unimportant to the plot. The overall effect is like a linear jigsaw puzzle. 

Far-reaching consequences set the story in motion in chapters 8 and 15. They involve murders in two locations (London and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). They appear unrelated at first, but later we find out that two sisters are involved, Aelita and Daedra. One is a victim, the other a perpetrator, although we do not find this out until later. The murders are bizarre and could only happen in the future.

Featured in the other half of the story, which takes place in the near-present, is another pair of siblings, this time a brother and sister named Burton and Flynne. An imaginative version of time travel brings the present and future together, separated by something called the Jackpot, a combination of war, disease, drought, and climate change that decimated 80% of humanity. Those who survived (mainly the wealthy) were able to rebuild thanks to a surge in technology, but it's mostly an empty world. Androids and nanobots do the heavy lifting, everything from menial tasks to killing.

In the near-present people drive cardboard cars made in China, and make money in two principal ways -- online gaming and the drug trade. Flynne and Burton are good enough at the former to attract the attention of a wealthy dilettante named Lev who dabbles in the past as a hobby. In other words, he too is a kind of gamer.

Burton is offered big bucks to role-play what he thinks is a game, but at a critical moment Flynne has to take his place, and she witnesses a murder. This immediately attracts the attention of unknown rivals who send a hit-squad to take out Burton and Flynne in the present. Burton however is an ex-Marine who was part of Haptic Recon unit. At first, he and his ex-military buddies are more than a match for the people pitted against them, but the conflict between present and future quickly escalates.

VIRTUAL TIME TRAVEL

No time machine necessary. Instead a mysterious server in China ("something to do with quantum tunnelling") enables an exchange of data between the present and the future. The consciousness of a person from the present can be uploaded into an android, aka "a peripheral." Such a person is called a polt (not a poult -- though that might be more fun), and is able to interact with others in the future. Peripherals have no digestive tract, and must be infused with a nutrient every 12 hours. People in the future use them as casually as people use characters in online games, both in their own timeline as well as in the past.

As soon as a connection with the past is made, an alternate timeline (or "stub") is created. Thus Flynne's present does not lead directly to Lev's future. Yet that does not prevent two of the characters from existing in both Flynne's present (which is only a few years beyond today) and Lev's future (which is 70 years distant from hers). Flynne's is the first stub created by Lev. Others exist, but we are not told anything about them and their presence is not widely known. It is soon discovered that someone else from the future has made a connection with Flynne's stub, and a deadly race ensues between the two groups for control of the past with Flynne and her family caught in the middle. How people from the future operate in the present is not explained in any detail, except to say they use their phones.

Wilf, when asked if he's from the future, says, "I'm in the future that would result from my not being here. But since I am, it isn't your future."

CHARACTERS & GLOSSARY

[Shaded entrees = Future]

Aelita West - Sister of Daedra, and a murky American figure whose murder is witnessed by Flynne.

Annie Courrèges - A Neoprimitive curator.

Assemblers - Nanobots that build things.

Ash - One of Lev's "technicals" who along with Ossian helps manage his hobbies. She has moving tattoos, doubled (figure eight) pupils, and a hat that resembles a black leather toad.

Aunties - Algorithms.

Badger - A social media platform. (A sarcastic jab by the author?)

Boss Patcher - A peripheral operated by Hamed. Has keratotic skin, no neck, features of a bullfrog, two penises. Lives on a plastic island in the Pacific.

Bullpup - "An Army rifle that looked like it had been telescoped back into itself, squashed front to back."

Burton Fisher - An ex-Marine getting disability from VA due to problems caused by his haptics. Uses the avatar "Easy Ice" when playing online games, and has won many drone competitions. When warned that a contract has been put out on him, he replies that he's not "a particularly easy target."

Coffee Jones - A coffee chain that also serves freshly printed cronuts. Flynne once worked there.

Conner Penske - The only other HaptRec vet. Missing an arm, leg, a foot, and several digits. Drives a special trike that burns cooking oil. Kills a 4-man hit team sent from Memphis to take out Burton and Flynne. In London his peripheral is a martial arts instructor aka the dancing master.

Corbell Pickett - Richest man in the county, involved in the drug trade. Burton pays him hush money after Conner kills a hit squad from Memphis. Corbell has Flynne kidnapped after getting an offer to kill her. Flynne is rescued by Burton and Corbell's home blown up. Corbell flees the country.

Carter - The youngest of Burton's posse, helps monitor the drones around the Fisher home.

Danny - Runs Jimmy's, a bar & grill.

Duval - Part of Burton's posse, helps monitor the drones around the Fisher home.

Carlos - A volunteer EMT, part of Burton's posse.

Clovis Fearing - A very old friend of Lowbeer who owns a shop in London dealing exclusively in Americana. Resembles "some crumbling relict saint," and is familiar with continua enthusiasts who will "buy anything from the twenty thirties, twenty forties." They "try to get as far back from the Jackpot proper as they can. About 2028, latest." She is "also a former British spy, as was Lowbeer, who ran her out of the embassy in DC."

Clovis Raeburn - An American in Flynne's time. In the future she is Clovis Fearing.

Daedra West- A celebrity exhibitionist, herself "the product" in an art form that is part reality television, politics, and performance art. After each media event she has herself flensed and sells the skin to art collectors. She breaks her agreement with the backers of her latest project (visiting the Patchers) by appearing naked and tattooed. It's a deliberate provocation of the Patchers, who had eaten the last two envoys. According to Ash, Daedra "or one of her associates is our competitor in the stub."

Dominika - Lev's wife.

Edward - Part of Burton's posse, works at Forever Fab.

Ella Fisher - Ailing mother of Flynne & Burton.

Fabbitt - A 3D printing chain.

Flynne Fisher - Burton's sister. Would have signed up for the Armed Forces when he joined the Marines, but stayed at home to look after their mother. Makes money by online gaming, and is better at it than Burton. Shoots Hamed at the end of the book.

Fitz-David Wu - Best Shakespearian actor of his day.

Forever Fab - A 3D print shop owned by Shaylene.

Gobiwagen - A Mercedes land-yacht "commissioned for a tour of Mongolian deserts" by Lev's grandfather.

Gonzales (Felicia) - President of the US. Her assassination "was pivotal, a tipping point into the deep Jackpot." 

Great Pacific Garbage Patch - A floating island made of recovered plastic, inhabited by fewer than 100 Neoprimitives.

Griff (Gryffyd Holdsworth) - Lowbeer when she was much younger. Flynne mistakes her for a man when they meet in the present. 

Hamed al-Habibi - "Minor Gulf klept...a fifth son. Quickly the black sheep." He killed Aelite, the woman he was involved with.

HaptRec Recon 1 - A unit of Marines outfitted with haptics that enable them to coordinate their movements on the battlefield.

Hefty Mart - A large chain of stores suggestive of Costco or Wall-Mart with headquarters in Delhi.

Homes - Homeland Security.

Hong - Owns Sushi Barn.

Jackman - A sheriff in the pay of Corbell.

Jackpot - Civilization "dying of its own discontents," according to Lowbeer. Androgenic and multicausal "with no particular beginning and no end." See the Heinlein short story, "The Year of the Jackpot."

Janet - Friend of Flynne, makes socklike things for Conner.

Janice - Friend of Flynne, helps look after Ella, married to Madison.

Jimmy's - A bar & grill.

Klein Cruz Vermette - A law firm out of Miami working to keep Flynne and Burton safe.

Klept - Russian oligarchs.

Leon - Cousin of Burton and Flynne. An Army vet, he aids Burton by accepting a $10 million prize via a state lottery rigged by the future.

Lev Zubov - The youngest of a powerful Russian family in London, and a dilettante who is "a sort of scout for the family." Looks for things they might invest in as well as "sources of novelty." Flynne's is his first stub. When it's discovered that someone else is accessing it via the polt that Wilf gave to Daedra's sister, he takes steps to block their efforts. Has two older brothers, Anton and Pavel, and two pet "thylacine analogs" named Gordon and Tyrenna. Lowbeer thinks he will pervert the economy of Flynne's world.

Lithonia - Friend of Flynne, spells Janice in looking after Ella.

Lorenzo - Rainey's cameraperson, he records Daedra's meeting with the Patchers.

Lowbeer - Detective Inspector Ainsley Lowbeer of the Metropolitan Police in London and a former spy with global intelligence feeds. Called in by Lev after he heard Flynne's story about the murder. Has broad shoulders, white hair, and wears clothes "as ambiguous as she was." A former spy. See Griff.

Luke 4:5 - A religious group "as much a business as a cult." Hated by Burton.

Macon - Gay friend of Burton and Flynne, good at math, excels at 3D fabbing.

Madison - Playing vintage sims like Sukhoi Flankers, a main money earner for him and Janice.

Maenads' Crush - a bar.

Matryoshka - Name given to those opposing Flynne and Burton. "Out of Nassau, so that's probably where they first came through from the future." Racing Milagros Coldiron for ownership of the world in the past.

Medici - A healing device, in appearance "something like a cross between a bull's balls and a jellyfish.".

Michikoids - Aka koids, AI-operated androids able to move like spiders when the need arises, and grow extra sets of spider eyes.

Milagros Coldiron - A shell company in Colombia set up by Lev to facilitate operations in the present.

Mobi - A blimp.

Neoprimitives - People who "either survived the Jackpot on their own or have opted out of the global system." Some embrace "heritage diseases" like the common cold.

Operation Northwind - A game played by Flynne before being contacted by the future.

Ossian Murphy - Aka the Irishman, named after a fictional Gaelic poet. He and Ash sometimes communicate with each other in a synthetic language that sounds like birdsong. They work for Lev and mind his hobbies for him. He wears a pigtail and sometimes acts as a butler.

Party Time - A chemical that turns people into homicidal sex maniacs.

Patchers - A small group of Neoprimitives who cleaned plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and used it to assemble a huge floating island. They are into grotesque body modifications. They ate the last two envoys.

Pharma Jon - A pharmacy chain.

Polt - Short for poltergeist. A person operating a peripheral.

Rainey - Lives in Toronto and works for the Canadian government. She hired Wilf for Daedra's project, and afterwards tells him that they had been used to facilitate the deaths, which were an assassination, a hit.

Remembrancer - Sir Henry Fishbourne. A crooked official of the City who collaborated with Hamed. Appears only at the end of the book and is killed by Burton.

Reece - An Army vet and part of Burton's posse, forced by Pickett to kidnap Flynne.

Shaylene - Friend of Flynne, owns Forever Fab where Flynne sometimes works. She went out with Burton in high school.

Squidsuit - A camouflage suit like "cluttlefish camo, like Burton and Conner used in the war."

Tarantula - Conner's trike.

Tommy Constantine - Deputy sheriff, an honest cop.

Tacoma Raeburn- Red-haired sister of Clovis Raeburn, also a notary and a CPA who works for Griff and for Klein Cruz Vermette. Claims she's better than Clovis with a gun. 

Vespasian - A continua enthusiast from Berlin and "a weapons fetishist, famously sadistic."

Viz - An eyepiece that provides views feeds from other sources. 

Wheelie Boy - A ball with a tractor tire on each side and a mini-tablet on a stick. Used by Wilf when he visits the present, as no peripherals are available there.

Wilf - A friend of Lev, with whom he went to school, now a glib publicist with a drinking problem. Worked briefly for Daedra, and with whom he'd had an affair. He tried to impress her by mentioning Lev's stub and offering the use of a polt (Burton), but she wasn't interested. At her suggestion the polt was given to her sister. He was fired after the fiasco at the Garbage Patch in chapter 8.

SUMMING UP

Rainey told Wilf they'd been used by someone to kill the Boss Patcher and his his entourage. That someone could only have been Daedra, with whom Wilf had had a brief affair. Daedra didn't want the polt that Wilf offered her, and suggested that it be give to Aelita. Presumably she was the one who contacted Burton to provide security, mainly to keep paparazzi drones away from a reception she was holding. Flynne took Burton's place and witnessed Aelita being killed by Hamed, who had learned about the stub from Aelita, as they had been together for quite a while. Immediately after Aelita was killed, Ash tells Lev that someone has been accessing their stub: "seems as though it has something to do with your polt." When Hamed learned there was a witness to the murder, he went after Flynne and Burton.

On page 354 Ash comments that "it's almost certain that Daedra, or one of her associates, is our competitor in the stub." Presumably one of the associates is the City Remembrancer (Sir Hentry Fishbourne), who was involved in the monetization of an island "that he created," (p. 458), presumably the one inhabited by the Patchers who, according to Hamed, have "endemic health issues...of which they aren't yet aware." On page 471 Lowbeer speculates that the Remembrancer "might have suffered some well-concealed setback in his affairs: a real estate and development scheme, with resource extraction?" This suggests the media stunt that Daedra orchestrated sank whatever financial aspirations the Remembrancer had for the island. As soon as he is killed, Lowbeer says to Flynne and Burton, "Sir Henry's death has deprived your competitor of the sort of advantage that Lev and I afford you now."

In the end Hamed gets away with murder, as "he's too well-connected to be bothered by any of this" (p. 474). Daedra is tormented by Conner for a while but isn't harmed, so she too gets away with murder, for she had obviously set up the confrontation with Hamed, who was pretending to be the Boss Patcher. (He wasn't killed but some of his followers were.) Daedra "was covered with a hypersonic weapons-delivery system...something orbital, ready to drop in" (p.32).

The final two chapters are saccharine, probably because Gibson figured we'd had enough nastiness with the revelations about Hamed, Daedra, and the Remembrancer, and with the worst of the Jackpot still to come (but then again, maybe not in this stub). 

UPLOAD 

William Gibson makes a very brief appearance in this humorous series on Amazon, in which people can be uploaded to a virtual afterlife. In Season 3, Episode 5, he appears as a hologram in a San Francisco library and offers a few words about "AI-generated characters."

The Library Book

Front Cover & Inside Back Cover

In 1986 the Central Library in downtown LA burned for seven hours with more than a million books damaged or destroyed. 

 

The suspected arsonist was a likeable fellow and would-be actor, as well as an inveterate liar who never told the same alibi twice. The evidence against him was circumstantial and he was never convicted. 

 

But true-crime is just one aspect of this marvellous book. Author Susan Orlean has found a rich source of material, including the evolution of libraries from horseback delivery to "nonphysical books," and the many other tasks that libraries take on today, particularly social ones. 

 

"Often at the library," she writes, "society's problems are magnified." Particularly homelessness, drug use, and mental illness. "The library's commitment of being open to all is an overwhelming challenge," and not only in large urban centres. 

 

The library, she observes, "is a good place to soften solitude."

Goings On at the Library

The strange concept of air rights, which the LAPL sold for $28 million in order to finance the rebuilding of the Central Library.

Movie studios in LA used to send people into the library to steal books for research purposes. One person would go inside, gather what was needed, and toss them out a window to an accomplice waiting below.

The library's network is often hacked, mostly by people based in China or Russia, but why? What is there to be gained? A staff member says it's because the library is a relatively easy target for hackers still learning their trade. It's a training exercise.

"People searching for missing loved ones sometimes scribbled messages in library books with the hope that the person they were looking for would see the message."

Drug dealers coming into the library for help with their income tax forms

A woman who made $40K a year selling books pinched from libraries,

A patron with a service wolf, and another who said on being told that eating was now allowed, "I'm not eating, I'm snacking."

Back to the Fire 

 

The fire was so fierce that it resulted in something called a stoichiometric condition, a rare combination of fuel and oxygen almost impossible to achieve outside a laboratory. 

 

"Usually a fire is red and orange and black. The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were a sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue. It was so hot it appeared icy."

 

The temperature rose to 2500 degrees Fahrenheit, approaching a situation called a flashover, in which everything becomes so hot it achieves spontaneous combustion.

 

One of the most unnerving things that Orlean mentions is that some firefighters are arsonists.

 

Random Thoughts 

Most readers will have fond memories of libraries. I remember as a child looking for books about Freddy the Pig, and the excitement of my own children when many years I took them to the same library looking for titles in the Redwall series by Brian Jaques.

My mother-in-law was a librarian whose sole failing, as her daughters wrote in her obituary, was "the inability to cram more books into her library." One of her chief pleasures was sending books to her grandchildren for Xmas and birthdays.

I've been fortunate to work in a number of libraries -- providing technical support, giving computer tutorials, setting up Wi-Fi hotspots, and on one occasion writing a small program to automatically shut down computers at closing time because librarians were having trouble prying patrons away from them.

Books are important because they allow us to transcend our own fragile existence.

This is why I read. This is why I write.

The Blue Fox

Another unusual read from Iceland.

Set in 1883, the book opens with “a daughter of Reynard,” a blue fox indistinguishable from the stone she is resting beside. She is keeping an eye on a pursuer hiding in a snowdrift. 

He has not moved in the last 18 hours. Suddenly he receives a message telling him exactly how to intercept the fox. 

“Had the man received a thought message from the vixen?”

The prose is spare. Snippets of text give the opening pages the appearance of poems. On one page there is a single sentence. The visual effect suggests, for me at least, the snowy landscape in which the story takes place.   

II

The second part settles into a more conventional narrative, one that grows increasingly tangled and convoluted. It centres on Fridrik Fridjonsson, a herbalist and farmer who 17 years previously rescued Abba from prison.

(No, not the Swedish pop group.) 

She's a woman with Down syndrome. Her full name is Halfdis Jonsdottir and she has just died. Her sweetheart, Halfdan Atlason, has come to collect the body. He is also "the Reverend Baldur's eejit."

Fridrik gives Halfdan a letter for Baldur, who is conducting the burial service. At the end of the letter Fridrik mentions that he has dreamed of a blue fox.

The tale retreats further into the past to explain how Abba arrived by shipwreck, and describes the strange bundle she carried with her for the rest of her life. Fridrik opens the bundle and finds 48 wooden tablets. When properly assembled they reveal a quote (in Latin) from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

III

The third section continues the book's opening thread. We now know more about the person hunting the blue fox.

The shot he fired triggers an avalanche that sweeps him under a glacier, along with the fox. He meets a young woman and the Well of Life. The fox revives, digs out the shotgun pellets from her body, and engages the man in a discussion of electricity.

What happens next is even more incredible.

IV

The final section takes the form of the letter that Fridrik wrote to a friend. It sheds some light on the connection between Abba and the hunter.

Sjon

The author is a poet, playwright, and singer who has performed with Bjork. More about him can be found on his website. 

The Blue Fox was first published in 2004. The English translation by Victoria Cribb appeared in 2008, and clocks in at 112 pages.

Children in Reindeer Woods

A few years ago my wife visited Iceland and returned with a stack of books. One of them, Bloodhoof, a collection of poems in both Icelandic and English, she took a stab at translating herself with the help of a dictionary.

This is the first one I've dipped into it, and it's quite unlike anything I've ever read, It's a modern fairytale that takes place at a summer camp called Children in Reindeer Woods, and is linked by road to the Ceaseless Heath, the Endless Pass, and the Forever Valley.

The heroine is an 11-year-old girl named Billie. Her father believes he is a puppet. Whenever his arm is torn off, Billie's mother sews it back on. 

Billie has several dolls. One is named Guggalugga, another is bald, and a third is pregnant.

The man in charge of the camp is a former ballet dancer with splayed feet.

Somewhere in the Distance a War is Going on.

The story begins with the arrival of a soldier named Rafael. He wants to be a farmer and gets rid of his uniform but not his weapons.

Another soldier arrives. He parachutes in with a guitar. 

A pair of tax collectors show up with a briefcase full of money in the trunk of their car.

A nun comes to the back door and asks for food, then a cigarette. Rafael offers her a drink. She takes off her clothes, plays the guitar, and kisses Raphael.

The last visitor is a shepherd who has been tending a flock of sheep all summer. He plans on returning to university.

Except for Rafael, none of them stay around for any longer than a night. When he and Billie have an argument, they call each other idiot-head and pretzel-face.

Eyes of a Child

There are brief moments of violence but they are not gruesome, and some are absurd. Two dolls commit suicide. Raphael hangs a chicken for crapping in the house, and blows up two cars.

Many of the scenes are described with a childlike innocence.

The cow lowed from out back as though it was missing the fun. Mooooo.

[Billie] dried her mouth as if it were a stamp and the napkin an important document.

The automobile set off from the place.  Fart Fart.

When Rafael and Billie decide to get married, the dolls are witnesses. "We'll let the hens sign the contract," says Billie.

The final chapter caps the surreal nature of the book. It takes place on the planet of the puppeteers who control Billie's father. 

Author

Kristen Omarsdottir is an Icelandic author, poet, playwright, and visual artist. She has written other novels but this is the only one that has been translated into English. The translation is by Lytton Smith.

Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory

Operation Mincemeat was a part of a plan to convince Hitler that the Allies, following the success of their North Africa campaign, intended to mount a double-pronged invasion of Europe at Sardinia and Greece, and not Sicily, the most logical target.

Mincemeat was implemented by British Naval Intelligence.  The cadaver of a derelict was fitted out with a uniform, identity papers, and a sealed envelope containing information about the bogus invasion. The body was placed in a sealed cannister filled with dry ice, and carried by submarine to Spain and deposited close enough to shore where it could be found, with the hope that the envelope would make its way into Nazi hands.

A Novel Approach

The plan took an immense amount of planning and had many possible points of failure.  For example, it was not enough to plant fake ID papers on the cadaver.  An entire personality had to be created.  It was as if they were "constructing a character in a novel."

The author points out that "the greatest writers of spy fiction have, almost in every case, worked in intelligence before turning to writing."  He mentions Somerset Maugham, John Buchan, Graham Greene, John le Carre, and of course Ian Fleming, who happened to be the personal assistant of Admiral John Godfrey, head of Naval Intelligence and a man with a "sandpaper personality."  He served as the model for M in his James Bond novels.

Twin Frailties 

Admiral Godrey described wishfulness and yesmanship as the "twin frailties of German intelligence" 

"The Nazi high command ... when presented with contradictory intelligence reports, was 'inclined to believe the one that fits in best with their own previously formed conceptions.'"  Hitler's "favourite intelligence analyst," Alexis von Roenne, told Hitler what he wanted to hear, that the information was genuine.

Yet the whole story does not end there.  Unknown to anyone, von Roenne had turned against the Nazi regime.  In 1944  he deliberately misled Hitler about Allied plans for the invasion of Normandy.  He was executed after the failed plot to assassination Hitler.  Although he played no part in it he was a close friend of several conspirators 

Illustrations

There are 14 pages of b&w photos. The person on the cover is Ewen Montagu, one of the masterminds of Mincemeat.  His brother, Ivor, was a communist spy.

The following map shows the route taken by the bogus information:

.

Titanic Survivor

The author was a stewardess who not only survived the sinking of the Titanic, but also that of its sister ship, the Britannic.

As dranatic as these events are, they form only a minor part in the life by a remarkable woman. Violet Jessop was born in Buenos Aires to Irish parents, spoke Spanish, had a pet armadillo, and lost part of a lung due to TB during her early years in Argentina. Her brothers and sisters suffered numerous illnesses, some of which were fatal: scarlet fever, diphtheria, meningitis, smallpox, rheumatic fever, and malaria.

She was 16 when her father died. Her mother moved the family to England, and went to work as a stewardess on a steamship line. Eventually Violet followed, and thus began a 42-year career at sea, during which she became the family breadwinner. She worked for several lines -- the White Star, the Red Star, and the Royal Mail -- and saw a good deal of the world. 

Titanic

Three chapters are devoted to her experiences on the Titanic. She has kind words for Thomas Andrews, "beloved designer" of the ship because of the consideration he showed for the crew in his plans.

Violet was in lifeboat 18. As she was boarding it, a baby was thrust into arms, and later once she was aboard the ship that rescued survivors, the Carpathia, a woman snatched the baby away from her without a word. In an epilogue we learn that just before she died, she received a mysterious phone call from a person who claimed to be that child.

Britannic

Four-and-a-half years later, during WWI she signed up as a nurse, and eventually found herself on the Britannic. It was being used as a hospital ship when it hit a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea. The captain kept her under way after the explosion, trying to make for shallower water, without realizing that the propellers were chopping up lifeboats and people in the water. Violet's head was struck three times by a prop,

Two chapters are devoted to this and the aftermath. Violet suffered a fractured skull (which she did not discover until years afterward) and a "leg pierced to the bone, which took nearly three months to heal." Twenty-eight lives were lost.

Life at Sea

What I enjoyed most about the book were Violet's observations of shipboard life. She relates a number of amusing anecdotes involving crew and passengers. A drunken steward hid under a passenger's bed. During Prohibition a woman  took advantage of her ample bosom to smuggle ashore "a quart of champagne in her 'balcony'."

Then there was the time when a passenger died while at sea, and a friend kept company all night with the body and the widow in her cabin, until the ship rolled and the body fell off the bed and pinned her to the floor.

But eventually the long hours and hard work took their toll on Violet. She wearied of the "exacting demands" and "aggravating ways" of passengers. 

And because she was attractive she had to put up with the unwelcome attentions of both passengers and crew. She turned down several offers of marriage. A steward ran amok with a knife after she refused to kiss him. A ship's captain, after being rebuffed, dismissed her for being a flirt. During the WWI she ate great quantities of garlic-laden salami to discourage an ardent Danish sailor.

Ironically the one man she was interested in, a gifted mechanic from Australia, was too shy to make a formal proposal.

The Book

Her memoir went unpublished, but the year before her death she was visited by John Maxtone-Graham, who was conducting research about the golden age of transatlantic liners. He took on the task of editing Violet's book, and has provided many useful details about her life.

One chapter has gone missing, and there is no mention of a marriage, which Maxtone-Graham learned from Violet's niece. She married "so briefly and disastrously that not even her husband's name remains extant with the family."

It includes 24 pages of black-and-white photos.