March Book reviews

[bedsitter23]

Binary- written by Michael Crichton writing as John Lange-  This is one of the novellas Crichton wrote as he put himself through med school.  Obviously, this is of interest to more of a few people, so it's been reprinted a few times.  In fact, one recent cover of this book makes it look like something out of Chandler/Ellroy/Sin City pulp fiction (which it isn't even close to).

That said, it is some of Crichton's early work as a pulp writer.  That seems contradictory, maybe oxymoronic, but Pulp Crichton is actually exactly what you think it might be.  It's pulp but it has to be all science-y.

It's a short 200-ish page book about a potential bombing of the 1972 GOP Convention (which was planned for San Diego).  Crichton has to give it a chemisty spin and the 'this could actually happen any day now' hysteria at the beginning and end of the book is a nice pulp touch.

If he had written this in the 90s, he probably would have fleshed this out to a 600-page monster and its film would have been a mega hit.  Since Crichton's career wasn't quite there yet, it's a quick and dirty story of a cat and mouse between a flawed cop and a genius criminal mastermind.

Nothing here life-changing,  but for a quick cheap (99 cent ebook) read, it is quite a fine time killer

Manhunt: The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer- written by James Swanson -  Swanson's book became a hit with the recent renwed focus on Lincoln.  Deservedly so, as e tries to make these events read like an action book.

My one questionable decision might have been choosing to read this.  I might want to have skipped to the 'sequel' Bloody Crimes.  I know the Lincoln shootings and the Booth chase fairly well, through books and tv.  There weren't really any surprises to me, whereas Swanson's follow up- the chase for Jefferson Davis- is a bit more obscure.

Swanson does find enough nuggets that he has dug up from first hand accounts that it is a worthwhile tome to history fans.  I found the epilogue of what happened to those involved some fascinating reading.

I have minor issues with it.  Nothing to discourage anyone from it.  Swanson's purpose clearly seems to be that to make this action packed.  I shouldn't fault anyone trying to make history exciting for all.  However, Swanson overdoes it a bit with the flowery language, and trying to oversell the dramatization.  The biggest examples trying to draw metaphors from Booth's life to an actor into playing an 'actor' in a real life role of assasin.

That side of things really hits hard at the beginning of the book, and I could have done without it, but as things move away from assasination to chase, sme of that overblown language went away (or maybe I just got used to it).  Aside from some of that hyperbolic tone, this covers some interesting territory, and is worthwhile for the content it covers