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Apparently, when I say that I’m busy, I’m actually exaggerating a good deal less than I often suspect may be the case. You know how much I usually read, after all. The last few months, however, BCBR has been on hiatus not because I had no time to post, but because I read next-to-nothing.

I did manage several books in January, during which month I started that big contracting job, but the subsequent two months which fell entirely during the contracting period really tell the tale. On my booksihaveread list, for each of the months of February and March of 2011, I have precisely one book. And I had nothing for April as of the last day in busy-mode… since when, however, in spite of a week-long vacation in France the number has zoomed up to seven.

I just found this interesting. But let us proceed to the books, themselves.

Dark and Tangled Threads of Crime, William Secrest. A biography of Victorian-era San Francisco Detective Isaiah Lees. Pretty good. Lees had a long, colorful career in a colorful era, and Secrest tells the story well, working in just enough context without straying too far from his primary subject. In all fairness, aside from the obscurity of the subject matter, Threads of Crime is probably deserving of a larger and more sophisticated publisher than whoever put together this edition with its flourishy, amateur-desktop-publisher design. Look past that and this is a good job of research and writing.

Bloody Crimes, James Swanson. Oh how I have waited for this book. Swanson’s first book, Manhunt, is absolutely riveting. So the prospect of a second helping of Civil War fugitive adventure was an exquisite torment. Perhaps only Alan Moore’s Jerusalem, if it ever arrives, will exceed the anticipation I felt when I finally had Bloody Crimes in my large grasping hands.

Knowing this, then, you probably won’t be shocked when I note that Bloody Crimes wasn’t quite up there with my expectations. It’s good, but it’s basically Swanson demonstrating all his mastery of prose to dress up what are, next to John Wilkes Booth’s flight from Union pursuers, pretty slim pickings. Swanson already did this once, I think, in a book about the trial of the assassination plot conspirators (the story of which seems to be a big-screen movie, now; I wonder if he was consulted) written with another author; I didn’t bother with that one.

From interviews, it’s obvious that Swanson really loves this material, so it’s not shocking that he went back to the well for a third time. And the result is interesting and readable, but more in spite of than because of the material. Essentially, Swanson combines two narratives of Lincoln and Davis beginning shortly before the fall of Richmond and continuing through Lincoln’s death and funeral pageantry, and Davis’ flight, capture and the fallout through his remaining years. And this doesn’t really fit together naturally as one book.

But, if Swanson made a dubious choice in the task which he set before himself, give him credit for a result which was not only quite good but, for what it was, probably about as good as human ability could possibly achieve.

Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann. You may recall that I borrowed this work’s evocative title for a blog post last month, before I cracked the volume open. I did read the book, though, and it was good. Pretty compulsive reading, in fact, probably just shy of being a finish-at-2-a.m. all-star.

Basically, you have a series of interlocking short stories all of which, at some point, include the day on which Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers. As this happened in 1974, most of us have no memory of that August day, but McCann’s book seems to provide a remarkable simulation of what it must have been like. Along with that, all of the stories are good, and often inventive; the characters are richly-developed. The only fault, if you choose to see it as one, is that the novel doesn’t really lead to anything or end, either with or without the present-day epilogue. But, given the book’s title, I’m not sure that’s an oversight.

A World Lit Only By Fire, William Manchester. I grabbed this at Half Price Books for the flight to France, and it turned out to be a decent choice. As I thought it probably would, of course, having read Manchester’s magnificent if incomplete last work, on the life of Churchill. This one is a smaller and, at the same time, arguably more ambitious work, as Manchester decided to attempt an analysis of medieval European thought and its transformation by the Renaissance. Realistically, it’s more of an interesting stroll through some loosely-related subjects, a bit like Bloody Crimes; amidst a general overview of the era, Manchester focuses on the corruption in the Catholic Church, Luther, and Ferdinand Magellan, the author having been convinced for some reason that Magellan was the key figure of the entire epoch. I can’t say that I was convinced, but the book is still an entertaining collection of well-told stories.

Hail, Hail Euphoria, Roy Blount Jr. Yet another rag-bag of interesting stories assembled by an author better at telling them than at convincing me of a genuinely valid “theme” to the whole set; Hail, Hail is at once better-focused and more expansive than Swanson’s or Manchester’s above-reviewed works. Essentially, what Blount has done is written a commentary track for the Marx Brothers’ film, Duck Soup, in book form. Which is a pretty solid core concept, but at the same time leads naturally to a rather wide-ranging and oddly-organized collection of anecdotes. Good, funny stuff, though, and for what it’s worth as someone who doesn’t particularly like commentary tracks, I would happily welcome more of them in this format.

The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov. I used to read a lot of science fiction, and then I stopped reading it almost entirely. I’m not sure why, and I’m not going to try to get into any significance to the shift right now. In any event, even as a teenager I never read much by Asimov, and oddly enough the one work I do recall from he of the killer whiskers is an outstanding history of dark ages Europe he wrote as part of a series for young readers.

So I owe my decision to pick up this item to an enthusiastic write-up on NPR.org, as well as to the awesome cover design on this new edition. That‘s a grabber. I definitely appreciate the encouragement of both, as this proved to be an excellent story, and one hell of a page-turner. In End of Eternity, we have a time-travel story with a lot of mystery-novel qualities, but also a remarkable artifact from 56 years ago. In a few little ways the story shows its age, such as the failure, shared by most speculative fiction prior to Neuromancer, to anticipate many developments in information technology. In a lot of ways, though, the story felt as contemporary as anything on the shelves today, in both its style and the thoughtful examination of choice, risk and human destiny.

(And then there were Asimov’s speculations on space exploration which, in light of one of tomorrow’s two headline events to which I’ll return later, seem sadly more relevant than they probably did at any point in the book’s existence up until now.)

Maigret and the Bum, Georges Simenon. Another Inspector Maigret mystery novel. Good; largely unremarkable.

Front-Page Detective, William Hunt. Like The Incredible Detective, which I reviewed back in October, this was a biography of once-famous detective William Burns. Unlike Gene Caesar’s older work, which Hunt rubbishes in his endnotes, this version placed less emphasis on amazing deductive feats and more on a critical study of Burns and his social significance within his era, much like James Horan attempted in his biography of the Pinkertons and from much the same perspective. All of which is fair enough, though even as a progressive I think Horan lays it on awfully thick at some points, especially given how in the end he then turns around and offhandedly absolves Burns of any real wrongdoing during most of his career, and declares him ultimately to have been a brave, decent man. I mean, which is it, guy…

Slipper of the Yard, Jack Slipper. A relatively more modern detective biography, or autobiography in this case; today Jack Slipper is unfortunately remembered, when he is remembered at all, more than anything for his failed mission to bring Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs back from Brazil. Which is a pity, because even if solely for argument’s sake we believe every critical word Britain’s tabloid press published about that incident rather than Slipper’s own account, this was really just a footnote in a long and impressive career. Nothing in here is quite page-turner suspense, but I quite enjoyed the book. Slipper was not a riveting storyteller but he was interesting, and had a comfortable, candid style which brings everything to life as though you’re getting the story firsthand from old Jack, over a pint down at the Red Lion. RIP, detective.