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Why Not Read a Good Book!
By Annemarie Henny, Torrington
Reading is for relaxation, information and entertainment. So when you're bleary-eyed from watching TV nonsense and tired of playing computer games and spending too much to see a ho-hum movie, why not read a good book!
Here are a few I would recommend:
• Agents of Innocence by David Ignatius — This 1987 novel pulls us into the secret world of the war against terrorists. CIA Officer Tom Rogers is appointed to Lebanon to penetrate the growing Palestinian movement, and he takes his family with him to Beirut.
He meets the leader of the Palestinian intelligence, Jamal Ramlawi, a free-wheeling favorite of the Palestinian chief. In Beirut there is an Israeli intelligence station under such deep cover that no one except its members is sure it exists. Yakov Levi, an Israeli agent, is interested in the new American arrival and begins tracking him. When Jamal Ramlawi emerges as head of the Palestinian terrorist organization, the American and the Israeli realize they are on a collision course.
The action moves from Rome to Washington to Cairo to Damascus to Tel-Aviv. David Ignatius spent three years covering the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal, chronicling the collapse of Lebanon and the rise of terrorism.
• The Hidden Target by Helen MacInnes — Nina O'Connell, whose father holds a high-level position in Washington, DC, meets an old acquaintance, Robert Renwick, former head of NATO Anti-Terrorist Section. He tells her he has resigned from his post, but not that he's setting up an undercover international intelligence agency. Meanwhile, Nina is off with a group of students from England on an expense-free trip across Europe, the Near East, India, and finally the U.S. Renwick has misgivings about the trip.
The two leaders of the student trip are young, well-trained terrorists who plan to recruit in the countries visited; their organization is well organized and financed. Chapters 15-18 are most interesting: the heads of the terrorist group has purchased property in a small town in California, and we get a bird's eye view of their training.
Helen MacInnes wrote highly literate suspense novels for more than three decades, beginning in 1939. Several have been made into successful movies. The Hidden Target was published in 1980, but it has present-day implications about terrorist activities.
• The Cat Who Went Up The Creek by Lilian Jackson Braun — When a new book is released in the "cat" series by the above author, I immediately reserve it at our local library. Up to the time I started reading this series, I'll admit that I was a half-hearted cat fan. But now I admire the many cats that stalk around in our backyard. Now to the review—humorous mysteries, I'd tag them.
The main character in the stories is James Macintosh Qwilleran and his two Siamese cats, Koa K'o Kung (Koko) and Yum Yum. It is Koko, a very unusual cat, who helps unravel the mysteries—don't ask me how. That's what makes reading this series interesting.
Qwill is a former crime writer for newspapers "Down Below," as the locals call all states except Alaska. A huge inheritance has brought him to move north to Pickax (pop. 3,000) in Moose County. He still writes two columns a week for the local paper—but the content is entirely different from his usual material.
To help out a friend, he and the cats plan to spend a three-week vacation at Black Creek Resort. Shortly after they arrive, a body found floating down the creek is identified as a guest at the resort. Qwill, Koko and Yum Yum move into the dead man's cabin and Koko is fascinated by a pair of shoes left behind. In a false heel, Qwill discovers a handful of gold nuggets. As Sherlock would have said, "Watson, the game's afoot."
Note: Two non-fiction books I highly recommend for their insight and information are: Keith B. Richburg's Out of America—A Black Man Confronts Africa; and My American Journey by Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico. Both have an index and are worthwhile reading.
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