Book Review: Wedding Station, a prequel to the John Russell novels, by David Downing (2021)

I either picked the best or the worst time to read a novel set in Germany in 1933. Wedding Station, by David Downing, published in 2021, is a prequel to his John Russell novels. A friend recommended Downing’s novels to me, and I’m glad to have finally read one. But throughout reading Wedding Station there were disquieting parallels to modern day America.  

In 1933 Germany, after the Nazis took power, there were groups of SA men, the “brownshirts” running around and beating up whoever they wanted to. The SA was a paramilitary group that protected the Nazis and roamed the streets causing fear and chaos. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? 

John Russell is an English journalist and the main character of Wedding Station. Downing’s series of novels are all named after stops on the Berlin U-Bahn. Russell is a crime reporter, and while he initially thinks that there won’t be anything too political about the writing he does, he quickly discovers that everything is political in the new Germany.  

Wedding Station begins just as the Reichstag fire breaks out at the end of February 1933. This was a pivotal event in the early days of Hitler’s rule. The Nazis blamed the fire on the communists, and it became a pretext for increased violence against communists, allowing Hitler to further consolidate his power.  

Russell is an interesting protagonist. He is separated from his German wife, and he knows that his legal status in Germany is incumbent upon his wife not divorcing him. As a journalist he is able to investigate crimes, but he also knows that there are some stories he cannot follow too closely, because of government censorship. In my head, I cast the Beatles’ producer George Martin as Russell, and that worked well for me.  

Wedding Station is a fascinating novel, full of grey moral areas and the complicated calculus that Russell has to perform in order to do his job and to function. As one of the characters in the novel says, “When it’s in their own interests I find that people can convince themselves of almost anything.” (p.290) 

Downing has a great line late in the novel, as Russell thinks, “Clever could go either way, but stupid was always a problem.” (p.314) The rock band Spinal Tap would surely agree.  

Wedding Station is unfortunately afflicted with sloppy proofreading and editing. I’m always annoyed by finding errors in books. I’m not reading books looking for errors, and if I found a bunch, how many more would a professional proofreader have caught? Here’s a doozy of a continuity error: “Russell was up early on Wednesday...” Two sentences later: “Today was a Tuesday, March the 15th, which Russell remembered from school as the Ides of March.” (p.121) So it’s Wednesday, and then suddenly Tuesday? Interesting.  

But it’s petty to quibble about errors like that, as overall Wedding Station does a superb job of immersing the reader in the murky world of 1933 Germany. Downing’s attention to detail is fantastic, as he takes the reader through various train and subway journeys throughout Berlin. Wedding Station may not be an escape from the terrors of the current political moment, but it’s an interesting read. 

Book Review: Tahoe Deathfall, an Owen McKenna mystery by Todd Borg (2001)

A display of Todd Borg's Owen McKenna mystery novels. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. Situated on the California/Nevada border, Lake Tahoe offers fantastic summer and winter activities. My uncle lived in South Lake Tahoe for more than 30 years. He passed away in March, at the age of 92. Last week we had a celebration of life service for my uncle. On that trip, I found Todd Borg’s series of mystery novels set in and around Lake Tahoe. I don’t often read mysteries or thrillers, but I decided to pick up Tahoe Deathfall, the first book in Borg’s series of novels featuring the private detective Owen McKenna.  

Tahoe Deathfall opens with 14-year-old Jennifer Salazar wanting to hire Owen to look into the death of her twin sister Melissa. When Jennifer and Melissa were six years old, Melissa fell off a cliff while hiking. Jennifer always felt that Melissa’s death was more than just an accident. Owen starts investigating the case, and of course there are more layers to unravel.  

Owen McKenna is a fun and engaging lead character. One of the things I enjoyed most about Owen is that he is an appreciator of art. He has a poster of Edward Hopper’s New York Movie in his office, and his ruminations about art are fun to read.  

It’s always fun to read about places that you know very well, and I enjoyed reading about Emerald Bay and Zephyr Cove and thinking to myself, “Hey, I’ve been there!” It’s the little things. If you’re unfamiliar with Lake Tahoe, there’s a helpful map at the beginning of the book. 

Owen is aided in his investigation by his harlequin Great Dane Spot, and his girlfriend Street, who is a forensic entomologist. They make a fun team, and Owen and Street have a fun relationship.   

I was looking at Todd Borg’s website, and I learned that he grew up in Minnesota, my home state, so it’s fun that I have two places in common with him. If you’re looking for an engaging mystery series, pick one of Todd Borg’s Tahoe series.  

Book Review: Squeeze Me, by Carl Hiaasen (2020)

The striking cover of Squeeze Me, and the author Carl Hiaasen, 2020.

Carl Hiaasen’s 2020 novel Squeeze Me offers up his signature cocktail of Florida dysfunction and biting social satire. An addition to the mix this time around is Hiaasen’s venomous portrait of the Former Occupant of the White House and his wife. Although the Former Occupant is never named in Squeeze Me, it’s not hard to discern who the object of Hiaasen’s scorn and derision is. (Hint: it’s not Barack Obama!) If you need another clue, I’ll tell you that a major plot point revolves around the Former Occupant’s personal tanning bed.  

The plot of Squeeze Me is set in motion by the mysterious disappearance of Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons, last seen attending a charity gala at a fashionable mansion. When Kiki Pew’s dead body is finally found, the case takes many twists and turns, and the Former Occupant stirs up trouble by falsely accusing an illegal immigrant of murder. Throw in a subplot about the First Lady, referred to here as “Mockingbird,” her Secret Service code name, having an affair with one of her Secret Service agents, and Squeeze Me is full of over-the-top wonderfulness.  

One of my favorite lines in the novel occurred when a Secret Service officer asks his superior officer if perhaps the Former Occupant’s harebrained theory about what happened to Kiki Pew could actually be right. The officer responds: “Don’t you get it? It doesn’t fucking matter if he’s right or not. That’s the scary part.” (p.121) That’s precisely what worried me so much during those four long years of the Occupancy. The Former Occupant was never right, and it never seemed to fucking matter.  

The main character in Squeeze Me is Angie Armstrong, who specializes in wildlife removal. She’s a likeable protagonist, and she’s helped by many colorful characters as she tries to unravel the mystery and make sure that justice prevails.  

Squeeze Me is a fast and funny read, with some thrills along the way, and some laugh out loud lines as well.  

Book Review: Razor Girl, by Carl Hiaasen (2016)

Paperback cover of Razor Girl, by Carl Hiaasen, 2016.

Author Carl Hiaasen.

Carl Hiaasen has been on my list of “authors I should read” for a while now. I’ve seen his books in stores for years, and they’ve always stuck out, thanks to their eye-catching covers. Years ago I saw Hiaasen interviewed on The Colbert Report and I was struck by his humor. So I finally cracked open a Hiaasen novel this summer. 

Razor Girl, published in 2016, is Hiaasen’s most recent novel, and the second of his books to feature Andrew Yancy as the main character. The cast of Razor Girl is made up of assorted loonies and miscreants, ranging from the titular character Merry Mansfield to Martin Trebeaux, who owns a company that replaces sand on Florida’s beaches, and Buck Nance, the star of a trashy reality TV show. 

There’s no shortage of topics for Hiaasen to satirize in Razor Girl, and his prose keeps the novel humming along smoothly. There are plenty of laughs to be found. One of my own favorite lines was about two transplants to Key West: “At first they were distrusted because of their sobriety and competence, but in time the locals accepted them.” (p.22) 

I’ll forgo a detailed plot summary, since it is quite Byzantine, and just tell you that I enjoyed reading Razor Girl. However, the novel does tend to lose a bit of steam during the last third, as it takes the various strains of the plot a long time to wind down and wrap up. 

My one annoyance with the characters in Razor Girl was how every female character seems to find Andrew Yancy super attractive. I don’t recall Yancy ever being described as especially attractive, but even if he looked like Cary Grant, it’s stretching it to think every woman would be so interested in him. To wit: there’s Yancy’s girlfriend, Dr. Rosa Campesino, although she quickly leaves South Florida for Norway. There’s Merry Mansfield, who starts telling Andrew they will never sleep together as soon as they meet, which, of course, inevitably means that they will sleep together. (I think this rule is related to Anton Chekhov’s saying about not having a loaded gun on stage unless it will be fired.) There’s also Deb, whose fiancée wants to build a home on the empty lot next door to Yancy’s house. Deb loses her engagement ring somewhere on the property, and offers Yancy a blow job if he’ll help her find it. Perhaps offering random strangers oral sex may be de rigueur among neighbors in Key West, but it struck me as a pretty unlikely occurrence.

That being said, I’d still recommend Razor Girl as an entertaining romp, a perfect summer read that will give you some laughs.