Wulf C. Krueger

What 107 Days Promised, and What 285 Days Betrayed

When I was a young man, I saw the United States of America as a source of good in the world. I dreamt of migrating there and becoming a hot-shot IT guy in Silicon Valley.

My belief was further fuelled by people like Noam Chomsky, Barack and Michelle Obama, Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, Robert Langer, and, last but not least, Kamala Harris.

I feverishly followed those 107 days of Harris’ campaign and loved how she presented her vision for the USA, the world, and herself. Her authentic passion and the joy she exuded gave me hope.

Then the USA elected, for the second time, the racist felon whose Republican administration is now responsible for the death of millions of people around the globe. The current US administration is dismantling everything good about the USA and leaving it as many from my generation have always seen the USA: an imperialist nation that forces other countries into compliance.

Now, my only hope is that the sheer incompetence of said administration will be their downfall: an intellectually challenged president, an oafish backwater turd as VP, a “war” secretary running the Pentagon like a frat house on steroids - a drunken, misogynistic circus where the bar tab is as scandalous as the supposedly secure documents, a self-styled medical maverick who treats science like folklore, spreading conspiracy memes, apologising by text, and claiming no memory of infamy, a blonde right-wing barbie spinning inflated stats, and picking civil rights when they’re convenient - just ignoring the rest of the US Constitution, and a mercurial voice claiming civil liberties, parroting disinformation, shifting ideologies, and cherry-picking minority rights when it fits her brand.

All the more so since Kamala Harris had wonderful ideas and plans. Had she even been able to implement a fragment of what she describes in “107 Days”, ironically, it would have actually made the US great again.

Harris writes engagingly in short- to medium-length chapters about every step along the way. We don’t learn anything really new, but it’s still highly interesting to get to know Harris’ personal points of view and how she actually felt. More often than not, I was in tears when comparing her ideals, her plans, and what she did with what is happening right now.

I agree with almost everything she writes but one major point she’s trying to make: Harris writes that two thirds of the US population did not vote for Trump. She’s being honest in stating that one third simply stayed home instead of voting. This is not a valid excuse, though: the US citizens knew what was at stake - namely their democracy - and they still didn’t vote.

This is why Harris is wrong: You The People are responsible for Trump. You The People are complicit in what your administration is committing. You The People do not rise against the current administration in defence of your democracy.

Instead, you let your modern Gestapo, ICE, randomly arrest people who are not white enough or speak with an accent. Your corrupted Supreme Court is the new Volksgerichtshof the majority of judges of which give all of this their blessings.

What we see in the news daily, this is who you are now, and I promise you: We, The World, may eventually forgive but we will never forget.

Five stars out of five.

Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam

I haven't read this book and I won't because it has been thoroughly discredited and, thus, withdrawn by its original publisher. Sadly, the English translation hasn't (yet?) been dropped.

Of course, you don't have to take my word for it (I wouldn't if I were you) so I'm adding two links to the BBC about the book and its issues:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60204868
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60843577

Please stay away from this money-grab.

Last but not least, a short excerpt from the second article:

The new report into the book contradicted its findings, calling its work “amateurish”.

“There is not any serious evidence for this grave accusation,” the experts found.

In response, Dutch publishing house Ambo Anthos said the book would no longer be available and asked bookshops to return their stocks.

The publisher offered its “sincere apologies” to those offended by the book's content, while the granddaughter of Van den Bergh has called on HarperCollins to drop the English-language edition.

Strong start, shaky middle, and an ending that can’t make it whole

It started out so well: Effie is a policewoman. Having been born and raised in New Zealand (NZ) for her first 15 years, she’s now in her thirties, living in Scotland. Suddenly, back in NZ, a girl appears from out of the bushland. She looks just like Effie at that age. Of course, Effie feels she must go back and investigate.

This is basically what the first third of the novel focuses on. It’s interesting and gripping; Effie “feels” like a self-reliant, competent woman. The descriptions of NZ’s bushland were brilliant and the writing was perfectly fitting. The pacing was good and the story full of promise.

The second third deals with Effie’s investigation and discoveries in NZ, and that’s how the cookie crumbled for me: Effie, who did well in Scotland and whose instincts and experience from her earlier life in NZ came back to her, this Effie suddenly starts to look like a naive damsel in distress. Her childhood sweetheart, now himself a local policeman, whom Effie immediately falls for again after 17 years of absence and he falls for her, too, has to rescue her time and time again. The pacing starts to become rather uneven here - there’s one particularly long slog that should have been much shorter.

The final third introduces a third timeline following the two already established timelines (young Effie in NZ, today’s Effie in Scotland/NZ). It details a view of a closely related story which, to me, didn’t actually add much to the by now somewhat convoluted story. The endling, unfortunately, didn’t really help redeem this novel.

It’s really a shame; this novel held so much promise. Ultimately, though, it’s bogged down by clichéd devices (e.g., the motherly matron saving our heroine, the manly local hero, and similar tropes), uneven pacing, hard-to-believe plot elements, and other small flaws. For me, it fell far short of what it could have been.

Three stars out of five.

The murder of a family of local old-money, seemingly perpetrated by the criminal equivalents of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, leads to a commune of aging hippies, high-profile international drug smuggling, police corruption, murder-by-cop, and loads of other crimes against readership by the highly incompetent author, "Caro Ramsay" (in quotation marks because nobody would publish anything like this under their real name, I hope!).

The large cast is ridiculously clichéd from their "crooked" toes, "endless" legs, flat stomachs, big breasts, large blue eyes, and, of course, blonde hair. "Adorable" animals, the same plot device used three times inside a single chapter - unless you're either a completionist fool like myself, or had a recent lobotomy, stay away.

I keep reading about publishers rejecting authors. If only they had rejected this one.

One star out of five.

"For Reasons Unknown" and absolutely unknowable, this collection of words but mostly without proper punctuation, was actually published.

Another family murdered in their locked house, another "damaged", "dark", DCI called Matilda Darke (can you hear me cry?) who tragically lost her husband to cancer, mostly sees through to the bottom of bottles, not cases, is being brought back to investigate a cold case.

»She popped two Venlafaxine from the blister pack, washed them down with the wine, and left the house, taking the newspaper with her.«

(Note the admirable use of commas! The author doesn't ususally grace his wooden sentences with them. Here's proof: »‘No you don’t do you?’«)

As with the latest lot of novels I've been reading, this one just plain sucks: Shallow characters, unbelievable villains, cops who act to the best of their minimal abilities, a completely unhinged antagonist - this one has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It does feature lots of melodramatic bollocks...

»The rage and tension building up inside her was agony.«

(Having recently finished this, I do sympathise with the general sentiment, though.)

Also, "your" and "you're" is hard for such gifted authors as this one...

»‘Yesterday, a body was found in the city centre, on Holly Lane. I went to the scene and you’re Acting DCI Hales was there.'«

"Michael Wood", once more I hope this person has no children to embarass or was at least smart enough to choose a pen name, also suffers from (and makes us suffer for) his distinct incompentence in the use of idioms:

»for argument’s say, let’s say it was your fault.«

For <beep>'s sake! I should be paid for reading such drivel!

Go forth and read any old directory because it surely is better written, edited, and more interesting than this turd of a novel.

0.25 stars out of five because it's composed of words and has a (story-unrelated) cover.