Orders is Orders by L. Ron Hubbard

First published in Argosy in 1937; published in trade paperback by Galaxy Press on March 16, 2009 as part of its Stories From the Golden Age series

L. Ron Hubbard wrote stories in a variety of genres before he invented a religion that, despite being founded by aliens, came to be embraced by an uncertain number of people (estimates range from 30,000 to 10 million). Hubbard was a good storyteller and religions are all about stories, so it was a natural fit.

Orders is Orders is written in the typical style of 1937 pulp fiction -- which makes sense, since that's when this story first appeared. It is one of the early stories in Hubbard's writing career.

The Japanese are laying waste to China, the United States is neutral, and members of the American Consulate in Shunkien need money and medicine in order to make it out alive. A Navy ship has money and medicine but Shunkien is 200 miles inland. The captain decides to send two expendable Marines because the deaths of more would risk an incident. During their trek, the two men manage to encounter a feisty American woman who accompanies them on their mission.

Hubbard gives reasonable depth to his characters, particularly the leader of the mission, who has a serious drinking problem (will it jeopardize his mission?) and a problem dealing with his past, including the 15 years he spent being raised by his missionary father in China. The story moves quickly and resolves in a way that is satisfying, albeit predictable.

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I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers

Published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday on June 9, 2015

Coping with a sense of responsibility for an unintended death is a theme that I Saw a Man explores from three different perspectives. The theme is gloomy and so are the characters, but I can't fault the novel for exploring the pain and despair associated with guilt and loss. Life is sometimes gloomy and serious literature should reflect that.

Getting to know a neighboring family for the last seven months has been a healing, settling experience for Michael. Having moved back to London from Wales to make a new life after his wife's death, Michael fears the company of others. At a party hosted by his neighbors, Samantha and Josh, Michael feels himself "adrift, the only seeing witness in a room of the chattering blind."

Michael is haunted by the loss of his wife, whose fate we learn only after nearly half the novel has passed. So haunted that he believes he catches a glimpse of her in his neighbor's house. The story takes a shocking turn at the midway point when another event occurs that jars the lives of Michael and his neighbors.

The structure of I Saw a Man is odd. The novel begins as Michael enters his neighbors' house through an open back door to look for the screwdriver he loaned them. Halfway through the novel he is still looking, having made little progress while moving through the home. Most of the novel is filled with backstory, memories of Michael's past that are triggered by his benign trespass as well as the story of another man whose life is tragically linked to Michael's.

The other man is Daniel McCullen, a pilot who flies drones in Afghanistan from a base in Nevada. McCullen is dealing with his own kind of pain. McCullen's story begins to move to the forefront in the second half, then all but vanishes. At its best, McCullen's story raises profound and discomforting questions about the relationship between money and war and the death of innocents.

The plot is a bit thin, an improbable set of coincidences that allows Owen Sheers to reveal the inner workings of his brooding characters. Decisions that Michael makes at the novel's end struck me as particularly contrived. Daniel might be the most interesting character, making his disappearance from the story disappointing.

The novel's exploration of the impact that related tragedies have on different characters is insightful, but give that this is a relatively brief book, there are too many redundantly expository passages that begin with phrases like, "Months passed and Michael still felt ...." In other respects, Owen Sheers' prose is both subtle and elegant. I therefore have a mixed reaction toward I Saw a Man, but in the end I recommend it to readers who are not turned off by literary efforts that are less than cheery.

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Palace of Treason by Jason Matthews

Published by Scribner on June 2, 2015

Dominika Egorova, last seen departing for Moscow in Red Sparrow, is again the focus of Palace of Treason. She continues to work as a mole for the CIA, motivated by some awful things she sees in the SVR, where she was trained in twin arts of espionage and seduction. Will she once again break all the rules by sleeping with her CIA handler, Nate Nash? Do you need to ask?

The preliminary story involves an Iranian nuclear engineer who is of interest to both the Russians and the Americans. That story gives Nate and Dominika the opportunity to reunite.

About a third of the way into the story, a new character, embittered by the American intelligence establishment's failure to feed both his ego and his bank account, decides to pass secrets to the Russians. One of those secrets might expose Dominika, leading to a series of chase scenes, fights, and other standard spy thriller fare.

If you liked Red Sparrow (which I did), you will probably like Palace of Treason, simply because it is a similar novel. It blends tradecraft and action with a reasonable degree of character building. Jason Matthews isn't John le Carré or Len Deighton, but he tells a story that is credible and reasonably suspenseful. Interestingly, his Russian villains are drawn with greater detail and complexity than his whitebread American characters.

Palace of Treason is a bit wordier than it needs to be. The novel's sex scenes (including a rather mild encounter with Putin) lack the mature touch of a seasoned author. I could live without Dominika seeing colorful auras around the people she encounters and I still don't understand the point of putting a recipe at the end of every chapter for some meal that appeared during the course of the chapter, a contrivance that forces his characters to eat constantly. Those reservations aside, I continue to enjoy the series. Matthews has a knack for storytelling. For a spy fiction fan, the tradecraft alone makes the novel worthwhile.

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The Mask by Taylor Stevens

Published by Crown on June 30, 2015

Arriving in Osaka, Vanessa Michael Munroe thinks she is finally home. She is back with Bradford, the only man who can tame her savage instincts. From nearly the first page, however, the reader is forewarned that Vanessa will soon be troubled about a choice that Bradford makes.

Bradford has taken an assignment as a security consultant for a Japanese firm that believes trade secrets are being stolen by one of its employees. He is soon accused of murder. Although Michael knows that the accusation is false, she is upset with Bradford for reasons that make her seem uncharacteristically like a drama queen. In any event, getting to the bottom of why Bradford has been framed becomes Michael's mission.

The Mask presents a grim view of Japanese business culture. Its portrayal of the Japanese system of criminal justice is even darker. Whether the perspective is accurate I couldn't say, but it is at the heart of the novel's plot. Had this story been set in the United States I would have found the plot unconvincing, given fairly obvious evidence (revealed early in the novel) that Bradford has been set up. Perhaps exculpatory evidence has less value in Japan. In any event, my unfamiliarity with the culture allowed me to suspend my disbelief, which allowed me to buy into the plot.

The story doesn't have the power or drama of some earlier Michael Munroe novels, but the intricate plot is satisfying, action scenes are fun, and the pace is swift. The Mask adds little to Munroe's character development but it does add a worthy opponent to her growing list of adversaries (described as two tigers meeting by chance in the forest). I would have enjoyed seeing that character developed more fully but perhaps Taylor Stevens has plans for her in a future novel. I would like that, but whatever the plan might be, I look forward to reading the next installment in Munroe's effort to find a balanced life.

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The Bill of Rights by Carol Berkin

Published by Simon & Schuster on May 5, 2015

Carol Berkin's The Bill of Rights must be read in the context of its subtitle: The Fight to Secure America's Liberties. It is not so much a book about the Bill of Rights as it is a concise history of the adoption of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. It is not a legal treatise. The rights themselves are not explored in depth, nor is there a discussion of how courts interpreted those rights after they were adopted. That is not a fault, merely a caution that if you are looking for a book that explains the Bill of Rights, you should look elsewhere.

Berkin's thesis is that the Bill of Rights was "more a political strategy than a statement of America's most cherished values." She argues that the Federalists (primarily James "Jemmy" Madison) wanted to enact a Bill of Rights not so much to protect individual rights (although that was certainly a secondary motivation) as to thwart the Antifederalists who criticized the broad powers that the Constitution gave to the federal government. By limiting the federal government's ability to use its power oppressively or tyrannically through the Bill of Rights, Madison hoped to syphon support from the Antifederalists who wanted to amend the Constitution in ways that would weaken the federal government's power.

Early chapters in The Bill of Rights explore the origins of the tension between federal power and state's rights, an ideological divide that produced notable differences between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. Berkin argues that the need for a strong federal government became apparent after the Revolutionary War, as cooperation among states turned into competitive squabbling that threatened to destroy national unity. Although the Antifederalists lost steam after the first congressional elections gave them minority status in the legislature, Berkin's book traces their attempt to refight the battles they lost at the Constitutional Convention by supporting constitutional amendments that would shift federal power to the states (primarily by limiting the federal power to raise revenues and regulate trade).

Berkin explores the historical context that motivated Madison to urge the protection of rights that had been denied or limited by the British. She also discusses the contentious issue of the limit of federal power, exploding the modern myth that the federal government has only those powers that are expressly enumerated in the Constitution (a proposed Antifederalist amendment containing that exact language was firmly defeated).

After discussing the Articles of Confederation and the adoption of the Constitution as its replacement, Berkin's story moves to the first Congress and to Madison's championship of the constitutional amendments that later became the Bill of Rights. Madison's proposed amendments were less a Bill of Rights than a series of specific changes to the language of the Constitution, including some that had nothing to do with individual rights. Berkin recounts in detail the fascinating evolution of Madison's document until it became the Bill of Rights that the states ratified.

It is interesting to read about the vigorous debates that affected the wording of rights that are now so familiar, including freedom of religion and its supposed relationship to the right to bear arms. Particularly amusing was the objection that a prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments might put an end to the "necessary" punishments of whipping and dismemberment. Also interesting are the so-called "obstructionist tactics" used by the Antifederalists, an accusatory phrase that both political parties wield (with some justification) today.

The story follows the Bill of Rights from the House of Representative to the Senate, which simplified some of Madison's turgid language. Berkin then discusses state ratification of the amendments. Two of the twelve passed by Congress (addressing congressional salaries and the size of the House of Representatives) were rejected by the states, leaving the ten amendments that have become the backbone of America's commitment to individual rights (albeit a commitment that in practice has too often been unsteady). An appendix includes Madison's proposed amendments, the Bill of Rights as adopted, and brief biographies of the first elected senators and representatives.

Berkin suggests that supporters of the Bill of Rights, including Madison, did not envision the crucial role it would play over the course of history in protecting individual rights. Supporters of the Constitution as it was drafted argued that the political process, as controlled by the Constitution's scheme of checks and balances, would be sufficient to prevent the new American government from violating the basic rights of the governed. History shows just how wrong they were. Fortunately, the public understood that "social and cultural majorities" were just as likely to be oppressive as a monarchy. Their fear of majoritarian tyranny translated into reservations about a Constitution that did not protect their fundamental rights. Madison exploited that fear as a means of undercutting the Antifederalists, but regardless of his motivation, the fight Madison waged is a defining moment in American history.

Berkin's book is amply sourced and (although I am no historian) her research seems to be accurate and unbiased. She avoids the dull prose of academia and tells the story in a lively voice. While the mission of this brief book is limited, I think Berkin proves her thesis, making this an insightful contribution to the history of one of the nation's most important founding documents.

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