A mythic figure cut down to size to reveal the self-serving rascal beneath the bon vivant. (Illustrations)
British espionage historian Cook gives a thorough hammering to the outlandish career of a man often considered the archetype of the modern spy.
Credited by Ian Fleming as the inspiration for James Bond, Sidney Reilly was a suave spy, fond of fine living and the lover of too many women to count. This biography starts, appropriately enough, with murder—or rather a likely murder, since the author scrupulously separates fact from conjecture at every stage of a work buttressed by staggering research. In 1898, Cook tells us, Russian émigré Sigmund Rosenblum may have poisoned the husband of his lover, then married her for her money and for the opportunity their union gave him to morph into Sidney Reilly. Cook follows Rosenblum/Reilly’s trail like a hound to the scent, picking up snatches of it here, losing it there, only to find it again. His life was all foggy deception; even this dogged biographer can’t determine exactly where in Russia he was born, or whether it was in 1872, ’73, or ’74. After leaving his homeland, he worked as a patent medicine salesman in London, then in the service of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch tendering information on the Russian émigré community. Though the level of detail can be drowsy-making, Cook’s subject holds the attention. Yes, Reilly served the Secret Intelligence Service, though he may well have spied for the Japanese against the Russians as well. He supplied meat-and-potatoes intelligence for the British, but he was also looking out for himself and the opportunities spying afforded him to live the high life. “Seeking to lay the foundations for an Anglo-American syndicate to invest in a post-Bolshevik economy” led him into deep water and a sting operation, and Reilly’s years as an international operator came to an abrupt end in 1925 with a couple of bullets courtesy of the Russian secret police.
A mythic figure cut down to size to reveal the self-serving rascal beneath the bon vivant. (Illustrations)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7524-2959-0
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Tempus/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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