Favorite Reads of 2014

I read lots of books this year, mainly mystery novels as usual. I wish I could read twice as many books in a year. I neglected Agatha Christie and Ed McBain totally this year, and I had wanted to start reading Elmore Leonard and read much more of Len Deighton's books than I did.

I did read many great books by wonderful authors this year. I enjoyed almost all of them and it is hard to narrow it down to the ones that really resonated with me. But here is my stab at a list. I did go over 10 books but not by much.

The Danger Within by Michael Gilbert. 
Published in 1952, it is an exceptional story of men incarcerated in a prison camp in Italy toward the end of World War II. The book also includes a mystery, featuring an amateur detective, a prisoner in the camp who is asked to look into the circumstances of the death of a fellow prisoner.

The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott 
This is a historical novel set in the years preceding and during World War I (and the only non-mystery fiction on this list). It is the story of three sisters, teenagers as the story begins, who travel with their mother to support the family as a vaudeville act. I am very interested in vaudeville, and I don't know as much as I would like about the history of vaudeville. I found this book very readable, entertaining, with interesting characters.

Touchstone by Laurie R. King
This historical novel is set in the UK in 1926 and the story centers around the weeks leading up to the general strike. Harris Stuyvesant is an agent of the United States Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, and he has arrived in England to track down the man responsible for terrorist bombings in the US.

The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer
A spy thriller, which takes place during the activities of the Arab Spring, in February 2011. Sophie Kohl's husband Emmett is currently working at the American embassy in Hungary, but his previous assignment was in Cairo. Both of them have friends still in Cairo, and when Emmett is killed, Sophie seeks the reasons for his death there. 

Time's Witness by Michael Malone
This is the second book in a police procedural series. Cuddy Mangum is the narrator and the Chief of Police in Hillston, North Carolina. Cuddy is educated, but he is not refined, and to the powerful and rich inner circle of Hillston residents, he is a redneck. The book was published in 1989 and set around the same time period. The story in this book centers on George Hall, a black man arrested seven years earlier for killing a white cop. He is now on death row and supporters are seeking a reprieve or pardon. 

Eleven Days by Donald Harstad
Carl Houseman is a deputy sheriff working the night shift in the small town of Maitland, Iowa. He is sent to the scene of a crime after a 911 call comes in. At the scene, he finds a dead man but the woman who made the call is not found. By the next morning, a second crime scene has been found with three more bodies, and the two crimes seem to be related. The small department, with the help of state investigative agencies, works for the next eleven days to solve the crime.

9tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood 
This novel is fantasy blended with mystery, and the mystery elements were stronger in this novel than in many cross-genre novels. In addition to the noir thriller elements, this is the story of a journey of a man to understanding himself and his isolation from others. I enjoyed the book as much for the personal story of Bobby Zha as for the mystery.

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
I am very fond of espionage fiction, so it is no surprise that I liked this. The central character, the spy who has run an elite espionage unit in the past, has had many identities and many code names. Of those who even know of him, he is a legend. But he has reached a point in his life when he has left spying behind and is in a new untraceable identity.  Then several events come together to force him back into the spy game.

World of Trouble by Ben H. Winters 
Book III in the The Last Policeman trilogy, following the activities of policeman Hank Palace in a pre-apocalyptic world. An asteroid is headed for earth, and from the beginning of the series we know that it will be devastating. I also read Countdown City, Book II in the series, this year, and I rated it as highly as this one. In this final book, Hank goes on an odyssey to try to locate his sister before the asteroid hits.

Enigma by Robert Harris
Set in 1943, this book uses Bletchley Park and the code breaking efforts there as a background for a mystery. Tom Jericho had left Bletchley to recuperate in Cambridge after a nervous breakdown resulting from the stress of his work. Now he is asked to return to help in a new effort to break Enigma codes.

Garnethill by Denise Mina
Set in the city of Glasgow, this novel deals with tough topics: incest, patient abuse, drugs, unemployment, dysfunctional families. It is a very dark story. There is an optimistic resolution, but many of the characters in the book are not very pleasant people. Nor is there the possibility for a truly happy ending.

Kerrie of Mysteries in Paradise is collecting lists of  top crime fiction reads for 2014. Check them out HERE.

Enigma (film)

Enigma is a film by Michael Apted that was released in 2001, based on the 1995 novel by Robert Harris. Both are fictionalized accounts of the British code-breaking efforts at Bletchley Park in 1943.  Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott) played a big part in breaking an important code earlier; now he is returning to Bletchley Park after a nervous breakdown to take part in a new effort, although there are indications that he is just there for show. His girlfriend Claire (Saffron Burrows) is missing, and he and Claire's roommate Hester (Kate Winslet) try to solve the mystery of her disappearance.

I recently read the book and enjoyed it very much; my review is here.

Did I enjoy the film?

This was my second viewing of the film. I don't remember that much from the first viewing and I suspect I might have enjoyed it more if I had read the book first. This time around I did enjoy it very much. I liked the acting. In addition to the main actors mentioned above, I enjoyed the acting of Jeremy Northam as an intelligence agent, Tom Hollander as another member of the code-breaking team, and Matthew Macfadyen as a naval officer who had been badly burned.

One negative aspect of a book to film review is that I usually read the book and watch the film back to back. In that situation, I tend to nitpick at details while watching the film. This second viewing may have been one of those times when I was watching too much for discrepancies and not immersing myself in the film enough. Regardless, overall I liked a lot about the film and we will be watching it again.

Did the film represent the book fairly or well?

Some reviewers noted places where the film was not true to historical facts. Both the book and the film were supposed to be fiction, so that was not a problem for me. I don't know much of the real history of Bletchley or the code breaking effort, so I wasn't looking for errors, nor was I expecting to learn the strict facts of what happened from either the book or the film.

I was disappointed that the character of Hester Wallace was so changed in the film. Both versions show the discrepancy between the roles of women and men in work like this, and emphasize Hester's frustration at doing more clerical work, and not having the opportunity to work on code breaking. However, the nature of Hester's and Tom's relationship is very different in the book. I prefer not to go into more detail about that for the benefit of those who have not seen the book or the film. Overall, I did not feel that this change marred the film.

While a film usually cannot get into the characters and their relationships (and thoughts) as well as a book does, a film can portray action in a clearer and more effective way. The war scenes that can only be imagined while reading the book are given more reality in the film version.

Given that changes are always necessary to make a novel conform to the needs of film, I found the changes made for this film acceptable. The film focused much more on the espionage subplot, and spent less time portraying actual conditions at Bletchley. I like the portrayal of characters and relationships better in the book. The film had more to offer in action and pacing. I felt that both stood well on their own.

This film review is submitted for the 2014 Book to Movie Challenge at Doing Dewey.

Enigma: Robert Harris

Set in 1943, this book uses Bletchley Park and the code breaking efforts there as a background for a mystery. Tom Jericho had left Bletchley to recuperate in Cambridge after a nervous breakdown resulting from the stress of his work. Now he is asked to return to help in a new effort to break Enigma codes.

After his return, he gets involved in a search for a missing woman, Claire Romily, that he had a brief affair with. He is helped by her roommate, Hester Wallace, who has aspirations to take a more central part in code breaking, but has been passed over and given clerical work because she is a woman.

Publisher's Weekly described Enigma as a "high-adrenaline thriller." It felt more slowly paced to me, although towards the end as Tom and Hester take chances to trace some missing cryptograms, it does ratchet up the tension.

My husband's review at Goodreads:

Enough time has elapsed since original publication (1995) that I believe this mystery thriller of World War II code breaking can be considered a genre classic. The thriller aspects center on Bletchley Park and efforts to break (rebreak actually) the extremely complex German Enigma codes. Worked into the plot are fascinating details on code breaking in general and the Enigmas in particular. Mystery aspects mostly involve the shadowy figure of Claire Romilly. Who she is, what she has done, where she has gone. A film version was released in 2001 and I remember it as not particularly involving. Given my positive reaction to the book, I plan on giving the movie another look.

This is a clever story with convincing characters. Not all of them are likeable or admirable. The author also gets across the lack of food and supplies in World War II Britain.

This was where the devil of the war resided: in the details, in the thousand petty humiliations of never having enough toilet paper or soap or matches or clean clothes. Civilians had been pauperized. They smelled, that was the truth of it. Body odor lay over the British Isles like a great sour fog.

I like the author's style of writing, but it is possible that I liked this story even better because it is an espionage story and it is set during World War II. I am eager to try more of the author's books. I have had Fatherland and The Ghost for five years now, so it is time I got around to reading them. I bought An Officer and a Spy shortly after it was published in the US.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Random House, 1995.
Length:       320 pages
Format:       Hardcover
Setting:       UK, 1943
Genre:        Espionage fiction
Source:       I read my husband's copy.