Copyright 2013 by Dan Brown. Published by Anchor Books, a division of Random House LLC.

This is the 4th book featuring Robert Langdon, the Harvard professor and expert in medieval symbols, the most famous being The DaVinci Code. The plot in this one is centered on a brilliant genetic scientist who is a big fan of Dante’s Divine Comedy and believes that the human race is on the brink of extinction due to overpopulation. His solution is to concoct a new plague that will “thin the herd.”  He wants to kill a third of the people on earth.

Initially Langdon’s role in thwarting this plot is unknown as he is, at the outset, suffering from amnesia.  He wakes up in a hospital room in Florence, Italy, with no recollection of the three days prior.  He remembers nothing after an evening walk across Harvard Yard.  He is apparently is involved in something serious as shortly after he regains consciousness a young woman shoots her way into his hospital room, killing a doctor.  Langdon barely escapes with his life in the company of another doctor, a young American named Sienna Brooks.

What follows is an epic chase, through Florence, Venice and Istanbul, with Langdon barely escaping numerous times from a black-clad group of assassins who are just one step behind.  This book has been made into a movie, apparently, and I can only imagine that it is one long, non-stop chase scene.

My objection to the book, initially, was that the chase was implausible.  A Harvard professor and a doctor successfully eluding a large team of assassins?  My other objection was that it reads like a chase scene through a Fodor travel book.  The chase visits all the great tourist sites of all three cities.  Yes, it did make me more interested in visiting all three cities, but great tourism seems tangential to a plot to kill billions.  My feeling, halfway through, was that Dan Brown must have been able to take some very long vacations in Europe and write it all off as “research.”

So two-thirds of the way through, my opinion of the book wasn’t very high.  But he saved up the best for the last third of the book.  Nothing is quite what it seems.  Unraveling what is going on – and who the bad guys are – becomes very engrossing.  He is a fine storyteller and he kept me guessing in this one.

After finishing the book I am left with just one complaint: that Langdon, despite being central to the plot, really doesn’t do anything to affect the outcome.  The result would have been the same if Langdon had never left Harvard.  But, still, the book was well-written and very thought-provoking.

8 out of 10.

Copyright 2012 by J.A. Jance. Published by HarperCollins, New York.

This is one of Jance’s mysteries featuring Joanna Brady, sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona. This is a long series – this is apparently the 15th – so it is very popular. Sheriff Brady is petite, so she isn’t capable of overpowering anyone like Jack Reacher or John Puller can do when necessary, but she is tough. She commands well and has a clear head about what needs to be done.

There are several plots here. The main one involves the murder of the principal of Bisbee High School, found in the desert with four gunshot wounds. This is followed the next day by the murder of a woman who is in charge of an artist conference and painting exhibition. What is the connection? Is there a connection?

The secondary plot involves the death of a copper miner many years before. This one ultimately involves the death of Joanna’s father who was once a miner who became sheriff. This is ancient history. This plot helps advance Joanna’s character and history, but smacks of being thrown in to give the book more weight.

I liked the characters in the book and think that Jance is a fine author. But the plot seems thin to me. The motive of the murderer (spoiler alert: the murders were committed by the same person) seems very thin, on the verge of unbelievable. The motive in the cold case is more believable but less central to the book. And in both cases the identities of the culprits were uncovered due to actions of outsiders rather than due to the diligence of the police. To me this makes the plot rather unsatisfying.

5 out of 10.

Copyright 2018 by David Benjamin. Published by Last Kid Books, Madison WI.

I have mentioned before that the author is my bff from high school. I have read all of his books and have followed his career closely. He is, in the words of my sister-in-law who has also read at least one of his books, a “wordsmith.” He really knows the language (actually, several languages) and can craft a fine story. I think his best book is his collection of essays, Almost Killed by a Train of Thought, but this novel now ranks second, close behind.

The story centers on a summer camp in the woods of Wadsworth County, WI, in the summer of 1968. The protagonist, Franklin Roosevelt Cribbs, or “Cribbsy”, is an 18-year-old counselor, a freshly-minted high school graduate who is eagerly anticipating his entry into college. But for the summer he is responsible for “Smith 3”, one of the cabins housing 16 11- to 15-year old boys with an artistic streak, most of them refugees from the darkest, most dangerous streets of Chicago. Besides the counselors, the camp is run by a contingent of “Work Campers” who are, without exception, paroled felons doing community service to prove that they are trustworthy enough to be allowed back into society. The elements are in place for a rather “interesting” summer. Which also happens to be the summer of turmoil: the murders of MLK and RFK and the police riot that characterized the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Layered on top of this societal and political angst is the presence of a 14-year-old girl who becomes deeply infatuated with Cribbsy. Pathological kids, felonious Work Campers, a hippy-dippy camp director and a jail-bait teen bent on seduction. What could go wrong?

A lot.

Cribbsy skirts with statutory rape, the kids of Smith 3 come close to mob murder and Cribbsy discovers, eventually, that he is not nearly the complete loser that he had convinced himself he was. This is all related in a compelling sequence of chapters, each focusing on one of the more interesting characters in camp, punctuated by entries in Cribbsy’s journal and poems penned by the girl. The dialog is realistic, the stories believable. And it is all wrapped in some pretty insightful commentary on the state of America in the summer of ’68.

The commentary on racial relations were, in my view, particularly insightful. One example: the young girls at Camp Nantoka liked to run their fingers through the hair of Cribbsy (blond) and the other counselor in Smith 3 (redhead). They had never felt soft hair. I had never thought that soft hair would appeal to young black girls, but it rings true. Did the author have that experience in real life?

That question – which of these experiences were derived from David Benjamin’s life? – was in the back of my mind as I read the book. I, after all, spent most of that summer with him (and he was not a camp counselor that summer). I even worked at the Oconomowoc Canning Company with him, so I know that those experiences that he included in the book were true because I shared them with him. There were many other scenes in the book that I know are autobiographical, but I won’t mention them. You can read the book knowing that some of it is true. But which parts?

7.5 out of 10.