Hot Money - Dick Francis

I can’t remember the last time I read a who-dun-it. It probably must have been another of Dick Francis’s book, Longshot. And that, while it had a murder to be solved, and definitely had some parallels with Hot Money, did not have as much a detective-novel flavor as this book did.

Hot Money begins with a family tree; nothing as complicated as Bagginses or Took family tree from LOTR, but quite a long list for your usual family. At the head sits Malcolm Pembroke, the affable, lucky, brilliant and spectacularly rich gold-trading man, who has a strange disposition to get married all the time. He has five wives. Not simultaneously, but one-after-another, and each of them have kids and some of the kids have kids. The last two wives, Coochie, the best of the lot it seems, and Moira, the last one, are dead. And Moira has been murdered. And then, someone tries to kill Malcolm. Hot Money, especially in the volumes that Malcolm owns, is a much desirable target. And everyone in the family stood to gain from Moira’s and then, Malcolm’s death.

Malcolm approaches his estranged son, Ian, to be his bodyguard. And the relationship with Ian and Malcolm really lights up the book. The protagonists are the highlight of any Dick Francis book. And this one has two of them, and in a father-son pair, and their banter and arguments and just about any interchange, makes the book quite delightful.

Ian is an assistant horse trainer and an amateur jockey. And Malcolm seems to have discovered a passion for horses, and goes about spending millions of pounds on colts, much to the anguish of his family, most of them who badly need the cash. With such hostilities brewing for his father, Ian knows that the only way his father, and himself, can be truly safe is buy nabbing the killer.

The plot of the book is quite tight. And the chemistry between various characters extremely well written. Even though every individual family member doesn’t get too much page-time, so to speak, their characters are handled quite well, considering the number of characters and overall book-volume.

Hot Money was the second book of the omnibus containing Flying Finish. And Hot Money has as well and truly wrapped a conclusion as Flying Finish’s is incomplete. The mystery is solved eventually (obviously) and there are no over-dramatic twists, and it’s pleasing to read a very well balanced and a real detective story. Not that Agatha Christie style of detective fiction where every page and paragraph is about that body that was discovered is not fun. But in the real world, where solving murders is the responsibility of the police really, real people do not quit their jobs and stop racing horses trying to come up with schemes to arrest murderers. And the worldly treatment of a murder story makes the book a very interesting read.

Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

Who thought that a rebel scientist could write an entertaining book? But here it is, Bad Science, in all its paperback glory.

First up, let me be clear: Ben Goldacre is not a person against simple, logical things which promote good living. He fully advocates things like exercise and a balanced diet and abhors smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. What he has a problem with, to generalize, are people who claim outrageous things under the pretext of science. And that, as any common man would be vaguely aware, is so common place that it’s hard to discern the good science from the bad.

The writer starts with relatively harmless hoaxes like brain gym, a concept apparently prevalent in toddlers-schools in UK, and some strange, detoxifying foot massager. And then ups his ante to take on homeopathy. I could say he got personal. I have been on homeopathy medicine all my life. As of this moment, I have a bottle of a medicine called Cory-C, which is a clear liquid to be consumed orally, for curing common cold. I have been having it for 10 years now. It hasn’t helped my cold one bit. But I continue having it. But that’s because it tastes exactly like Vodka. I love this medicine!

Then we go on to crazy nutritionists, pill peddlers, and even modern medicine. The extent of domains he covers itself should convince you that he is not for or against anything as a concept in particular. The only thing Ben Goldacre relentlessly demands through the book is a systematic, honest search for cures for ailments of the human race. He constantly points out the role of the insensitive and ill-informed media, and at times ruling political leaders, for creating mass hysteria or hype about things that, at best, do not warrant any attention, and at worse, cause needless deaths in thousands. The AIDS fiasco in South Africa being the case in point; that one chapter, much more than the MMR episode that Ben Goldacre seems so passionate about, highlights the grimness and far reaching effect of “Bad Science”. Ben Goldacre writes that if he were not writing a light, humorous book, he would have been really, really angry. I couldn’t help feeling angry even though it was a light, humorous book that I was reading.

The best chapter of the book is definitely “Bad Stats” for me. The writer took me by surprise by his keen sense of understanding of statistics. Numbers can be misleading if you are determined to make them tell a story that they don’t really convey. And there are examples of how statistics are twisted to convey pre-determined inferences. Do that, and perfectly good science gets twisted to be bad.

This book will definitely open up your eyes to a lot of bull-shit, you wouldn’t believe how much, that goes on in this world. And while you probably will not go to the extent that Goldacre goes to validate, or repudiate, any of the gazillion claims of fat reduction, or hair growth, or memory enhancement that the latest new medicines make in newspapers you believe in, you will at least gain some intuition as to what is wrong with those claims. That perspective itself is the biggest take away from this book.

Flying Finish - Dick Francis

Bored-with-life protagonists are nothing new in Dick Francis books. But there is a different element to them every time which does preserve the uniqueness of every character.

Henry Grey, a Lord who has no fascination about his own title, works in a bloodstock agency, pushing around papers. A loner, cleanliness zealot, an amateur jockey, and a bloody good pilot: Henry is bored with his job and takes up a position as labour in a transport agency, responsible for transporting horses from one country to another. His job requires docking horses in planes, taking care of them in the journey, unloading them at their destination, and clearing customs in the destination country; all of which, as it turns, out, is a very methodical procedure.

The story progresses as Henry takes a job transfer from his desk job to the more menial horse handler job, gives a cold shoulder to his families demands of marrying into a respectful family and settling down as a “Earl” ought to, deals with his father’s death, flies planes, does favours for friends, and eventually falls in love. Nothing major seems to be happening in the story for a very, very large portion of the book. The Sin City type monologue tone of the book keeps you hooked. And considering Dick Francis books are no voluminous epics or anything, reading them, when there does not seem to be much action, is not as painful as it is with a lot of other books. Yes, there are a couple of people who have disappeared in these trips on which horses are transported, but Dick Francis underplays it so much that even though you know the story is precisely about that, you don’t expect much from it. And you do begin to want something to happen to break the boring monotony of Henry’s life.

And the book plunges headlong into the climax, with very little warning. And all of a sudden it’s all happening. A reader feels as dazed as Henry Grey as he tries to battle it out with the bad guys. And there is a gripping bit of writing in the end as Henry Grey finds himself flying a plane without any communication gear, in the thick of the night, lost in the European skies. And Dick Francis does some fantastic piece of narration about Henry Grey flying an airplane, something that I might not have been interested considering the technicalities involved. But Dick Francis keeps it sufficiently simple for the non-pilot readers, as I expect most are, and gets the complexity of Henry Grey’s predicament through to the reader.

And then, the book ends. The climax draws to as sudden an end as it began. There are five lines which explain away everything and the book ends. It was bizarre. The characters were great. The story was quite good. But the build up to the climax and the smoothing to the conclusion was just not there. I just turned over the last page and there was nothing more. That’s that!

Carry On, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse

Carry On, Jeeves is a set of ten short stories surrounding, well, Wooster and Jeeves. This is the book where Wodehouse gives the history of Jeeves entering Wooster’s employment. And a pretty expected explanation of Wooster’s never ending income. For a bit of a spoiler, it’s the hangover-buster drink of Jeeves that Wooster is swept of his feet with. While in the TV series of Wooster and Jeeves, Jeeves keeps the recipe a secret, in the book he spills it out without any hesitation.

The stories themselves are not as top grade as a full blown Jeeves novel. Some of the stories are pretty tame actually. And Jeeves, as Wooster points out time and again, is not at the top of his usual form. He does come to the aid of the crisis in most of the cases, but he takes an unusual amount of time, is frequently displeased with his master, and in a couple of cases actually just lets things go on! Now that’s not like good old Jeeves at all! And in one of the stories, one of Wooster’s friend really bites the dust, so to speak. Now what is a Wodehouse story without an overall happy ending? Well, it is still a happy ending, but not as happy as I’d want it to be.

The writing is funny as usual; which is the biggest selling point of any Wodehouse book for me. I just have to pick up a book, start reading, and all my worries melt away as those brilliantly phrased dialogues keep coming one after another. I once started out on a project of jotting down memorable quotes from Wodehouse books, and discovered that I was jotting down every alternate sentence. So I chucked it and started collecting his books.

So maybe story-wise this book is not up to the really high Wodehouse standards. But entertainment wise, it still is.

Desperation - Stephen King

I read a horror book after quite some time now. And if you don’t count Strangers and Cujo as horror books then I am hard pressed to remember the last horror book I have read.

And it was quite fun to read good old SK again. He really gets to you the way he writes… builds characters… and plays out their internal thoughts. Of all the fiction that I have read, SK does it the best.

About Desperation now. The book is about how a bunch of strangers are dragged and imprisoned in a town called Desperation by a lunatic, dangerous and a physically huge cop. The strangers include the Carver family: Kristie and David being the kids and Ellie and Ralph the parents. Then there is Peter and Mary. America’s greatest writer Johnny Marinville is amongst those present. And the Desperation local vet, Billingsley is one of the few in the town who seems to be alive. And Steve Ames lands in Desperation as well, looking for his boss, Johnny. And he brings along a hitch hiker, Cynthia, along with him.

The prisoners have no clue why they are being held. They have no clue if the cop is going to kill them the way he seems to have been doing with other town folk. And they have no clue as to why such relentless killing is going unchecked in this little town. And they have no clue how to escape.

The story for most part is over-the-top gross and violent. And while reckless death is the premise of the book, as a reader, even a Saw series appreciator like could not really digest all the blood. And just as I was getting sick of the book being all about the cop killing people with the only explanation of the prisoners being alive seeming to be that their escape would be the story, there is a twist. It comes sort of late, after a lengthy ramble about David discovering religion and Steve wanting to have sex with Cynthia. But the book doesn’t really get too boring till that point. So you will probably remain interested to reach plot point one.

That’s where the story gets interesting. And it builds to a nice climax. SK treads the path well. While the evil in the book is evil for the heck of it really, and the hero is well, quite random and not very smart in delivering the Desperation survivors, it is not outright dumb really. So I wouldn’t complain much about it. And the climax was thought out properly, so it does have a satisfying conclusion to the story with some negligible loose ends in between.

Desperation is no “The Shining”. But if are a horror fan who reads horror really few and far in between because there is so much else to read, you won’t have a lot of problems with this book. I certainly don’t have any regrets about reading this book.

Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis

Liar’s Poker is an extended autobiographical essay of a misplaced investment banker. A BA in art history and masters in economics from London School of Econmics speak volumes about the utter confusion of what kind of a career he wanted to pursue. It’s a battle everyone can relate with it.
The book traces the journey of Michael Lewis from him joining Salomon Brothers as a trainee to his exit after establishing himself as a “Big Swinging Dick”. And along with his own journey, the author provides insights into the chaotic world within Salomon Brothers. Right from the rise of the company along with the mortgage bond market in the early 80s, and it’s opportunity loss during the junk bond bubble during late 80s. Even if as a reader you’re not financially savvy, you do not need to feel intimidated by the book, because Liar’s Poker does a brilliant job of keeping things simple.
The book is essentially about the people in the whole crazy financial world. It talks about the things that the people go through, right through the value chain. It talks about the graduation of a worthless trainee to a gawky geek to a mature man, eventually to the ultimate coveted title – “Big Swinging Dick”. The author does a brilliant job of showing the human side to the those ridiculously rich investment bankers. Well, a lot of them do not have a human side, as it turns out. Their greediness is as innate to them as the stereotype of a investment banker makes it out to be. But then, there are some, who do not start out the journey that way. Especially the kind of people who have art degrees. Sure they get corrupted with so much money flowing around, and so many money hungry people telling them the things they should be doing. ‘One-bad-apple’ phenomena. But these humans amidst the vultures is what makes Liar’s Poker a great story.
You will love this book if you have anything to do with the world of finance. May be you can identify with one of the guys in it. If you are one of the greedy folks, well, that doesn’t make you a bad guy. You probably still have a lot of people who look up to you. So don’t take anything written in this book about traders and bond salesmen and equities brokers and others too personally. Read it for what it is. A series of facts and one man’s opinion on them.
And even if you do not have anything do with the world of finance, but are enamored with the houses that the investment bankers live in and the cars they drive, you definitely should read this book, to get a glimpse into what they really are like.
Lastly, Salomon Brothers went through a lot more turbulent phase after the publication of the book. That’s just to give you some perspective. If you thought Salomon Brothers trading floor was a hell hole… it got worse. So stop cribbing about your job… unless you are one of them.

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets - P.G. Wodehouse

A collection of Wodehouse short stories are always a delight to read. Bingo Little, Bertie’s childhood friend stars in many of the stories in his book. He is married to a novelist named Rosie M. Banks. How he managed to pull that one off, I will never really understand. Anyways, granting that as one of those things that have to be for a story to be told – like superman can fly for all the superman stories – Bingo has developed this gambling habit (don’t remember him having that in any of Wooster/Jeeves stories) and keeps getting into trouble by betting on horses which finish last and those sort of things. Of course at times he does win, like this historic moment at the roulette table which you can read about in the book and it really makes you feel happy for him, regardless of his dog-napping antics. Eventually he does turn a good leaf and finds himself a respectable job. Wonder if he would ever publish a book that I might write.
There are some other stories featuring one time stars – or at least people who I don’t really recognize from other stories – in their romantic tangles and trust funds and inheritances. These are as rib tickling as any Wodehouse stories.
And then to top it off the book concludes by some stories of the most delightful conman, Ukridge. Corky and him make a great inseparable twosome. His “Buttercup day” day scam in the book is pure genius. Not that he is too well off after that, but what the heck, Corky will keep him afloat so no worries. Had the Ukridge-Corky stories been popularized enough they might have rivaled Laurel and Hardy in their own way. Well for now, I am fine with enjoying them in the books.