February Book Report

One of my new years resolutions (you know those things that come back to haunt you the rest of the year) was to read two books a month (one fiction and one non-fiction), well I've accomplished this for February.

The first book up is Caleb Carr's The Angel of Darkness. This is by the same author as the Alienist (says so on the cover), which was a pretty good book, imagine CSI-New York 1891 and you pretty much get the idea. The main character in this book or group of characters are a group bent on solving a horrific crime that the inept corrupt police force can't not solve, so it is up to these heroes to do their best to bring about justice. The Angel of Darkness is told through the voice of Stevepipe a young kid who grew up by himself from the age of 4 on the mean streets of Manhattan (watch Gangs of New York) and knows the ins and outs of the various criminals that the Carr Crime Cabel encounters. In this case, a daughter of a Spanish diplomat has been kidnapped, but the father wants nothing done to locate the child. The mother then turns to protaganist 2 (Miss Howard) - female sleuth - to help solve the crime. She then recruits Moore, a journailst from the New York Times, Two Jewish detectives (who imagine this use Science to solve crimes), and our hero Dr. Kreizler, a forensic psychologist that holds amazing insights into the criminal mind.

Through a series of stops, fights, and 200 pages the main suspect appears to be Libby Hatch, a women with the propensity for smothering (quite literally) babies. She is also a master manipulator who is able to recruit the famed trial lawyer Clarence Darrow to her cause. The main argument here is that females are incapable of committing these horrible acts unless a male made them do it. Here Carr is at his best setting out a modern argument in a historical evidence, using real people (who happen to be dead for 100 years - so no likeness rights necessary). As with every good psychologist (or least Freudians) Kreizler takes us back to the beginning of Libby murder spree, where eventually she cops a plea. This is technically where this book should have stopped (sometime ambiguous endings are a good thing). Unfortunately it didn't. Libby slits the prosecutor and the guards throat and escapes back to her hideout in New York. This requires the Carr Cabel to recruit Teddy Roosevelt to help send in the Navy (no I'm not really kidding), where they brawl with the Goo Goo Knox boys (once again not kidding) and Libby bites it in roof top showdown. Honestly, a little bit of stretch for the last 150 pages.


The non-fiction book was Boys Adrift by Dr. Leonard Sax. This book came highly recommend by my wife. The basic tenet of this book is that American boys are being affected by a systemic lack of motivation. Sax identifies five major things behind this: 1) education; 2) misdiagnosis of ADD; 3) Video Games; 4) endocrine disruptors; and 5) lack of healthy intelligent male role models. The book basically goes though the five things chapter by chapter. The book is well written and easy to read, if you read some these parenting books they can be a little heavy handed. Overall I agree with most of the book but is written oddly from a feminine perspective. This may be because Dr. Sax is a pediatrician, so he probably sees more females and is more used to interacting with them then with males. Two or three things about the book. One I agree with the idea of male role models in person's life - for me my hero was my father. However, while we know the importance of fatherhood in the life of a child, but is Homer Simpson a role model. If we look at the ways males are portrayed a lot today in the media. They are bumbling idiots, no offense to my genetic brethren but come on. Look at any movie from the mid 80s on, where you have a male parent - they are always idiots or assholes. It would be nice to see an actuall father figure who loves his kids, of course no one would go see that movie unless it was set on Mars in the year 2347 and it involved lasers. So what makes a better father, I would have liked to have seen him touch more on that than point. Second, this book mostly refers to white middle class suburban kids than with other ethnic kids - he mentions Latinos and African - Americans but never really talks about how to address some of the problems boys in these groups might face (i.e. gangs - there is an obvious male bonding exercise but counter productive). I suppose that is really it at this point. I suppose if we don't do anything as John Varley once wrote in "ten years the penis will be obsolete".