Jazz and the Mob!

English, T. J.  Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld.  New York: William Morrow, 2022.  

         ISBN: 9780063031418

Do you listen to jazz music?  Especially older jazz such as from the 1920-1940's?  Or are you a fan of tales of the Mob?  Maybe you grew up reading/watching about Al Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd, or Mo Lansky, the Valentine's Day Massacre and the Untouchables.  In either case, you owe yourself a read of Dangerous Rhythms to see how organized crime and jazz grew up and became entwined though early 20th century America.

T. J. English opens Dangerous Rhythms  in New Orleans focusing on the early interactions of jazz with organized crime.  Both were in their infancy and both profited from the growth of the other.   Then jazz spread around the county to Kansas City, Chicago, New York and Los Angles.  Early on jazz was played in bars and speakeasies which were owned by local crime bosses.  Organized crime provided the venue and the booze for the customers while the jazz bands drew in the crowds.  Both jazz musicians and organized crime organizations profited even if organized crime profited more.  All the early and great jazz musicians played in mob controlled venues such as the Cotton Cub, The Plantation, or Cuban Garden.  This pattern continued with stars such as Bing Crosby, the McGuire Sisters, Carmen Mcrea, and especially Frank Sinatra.  Frank Sinatra was quite helpful in the 1950s by carrying money into Cuba for  the Mob in their bid to turn the island into a gangster playground awash in jazz music.  Then when a bunch of bearded guerillas chased the gangsters off the island, Las Vegas, the Mississippi of the West, took over as the playground of the Mob and as a venue of some jazz music.   T.J. English also intertwines the role of the mob in promoting jazz music via jukeboxes, radio plays, and record companies that were controlled by organized crime. 

In Dangerous Rhythms, T. J. English provides a very readable account of both jazz music and organized crime.  This book provides an interesting lens to view both of these facets of American history and shed light on both.  A very worthwhile read!

Rangers on the Western Front!

 Druy, Bob, & Tom Clavin.  The Last Hill: The Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle 

           That Defined WWII.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2022.  ISBN: 9781250247162

If you know World War II history, you know of Rudder's Rangers.  They were the 2nd Ranger Battalion that climbed the cliffs at Omaha Beach to seek and destroy the big guns.  They also played an important role in the capture of the port of Brest.  They performed magnificently on both, but then came their final major mission - the storming and holding of Castle Hill (also known as Hill 400) in the Hurtgen Forest in December 1944.  The Last Hill is a detailed look at this key fight.

But before they get to that fight, Bob Druy and Tom Clavin provides the reader the history and backstory of the 2nd Ranger Battalion by dividing the book into 5 parts with a number of chapters per part.  Part 1: The Rangers - provides the background on why Rangers were created, introduce the members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, and their training for D-Day.  Part II: The Beach - follows the 2nd Rangers as they scale the cliffs at Omaha Beach, discover the empty bunkers and then locate and destroy the targeted weapons among other heroic actions.  Part III: The Fortress - highlight the actions and individuals of the 2nd Rangers during the campaign to take Brest.  Part IV: The Forest - covers the hellish experiences of the 2nd Rangers in the Hurtgen Forest.  Part V: The Hill charges the reader alongside the 2nd Rangers as they make their way to Bergstein, assault and take Castle Hill from the entrenched defenders men that had turned back multiple regiments with 130 men and then held the hill against all that the Germans could throw at them.  One week later, the Battle of the Bulge opened. The 2nd Ranger's role for the rest of the war is briefly covered in the Epilogue and Afterword.

In The Last Hill, Bob Druy and Tom Clavin provides the reader with insight on an epic battle that is all to often only a footnote in the fight for the Hurtgen Forest.  This tale and these individuals should be more widely know!  If you enjoy stirring history, you will want to read The Last Hill!

Can You Handle the Truth?

 Spitale, Samuel C.  How to Win the War on Truth: An Illustrated Guide to How Mistruths are

        Sold, Why They Stick, and How to Reclaim Reality.  Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2022.  ISBN:   

       9781683693086

 

What is truth?  Is there and absolute Truth with a capital T or is all true relative based on how many people believe it?  Is there an organized assault on truth or is this just the result of a very frenzied "marketplace of ideas?"  Interested?  Read on!

 

Samuel Spitale is fervent in his belief that objective truth is under attack.  He has come to the conclusion that the United States and other countries have evolved into a post-truth nation where facts matter less than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs.  He is among the thinking majority that believe this is a dangerous state of being.  So he conceived of How to Win the War on Truth as a means of educating the reader on tools to recognize when they are being manipulated and how to fight back in eight chapters.   Chapter 1: Propagating the Faith delves into the history and process of propaganda, public relations and advertising.  Chapter 2: Cutting Out Complexity examines how a complex situation is reduced to a simple either or choice.  Chapter 3: Bias and the Brain sheds light on how the lenses we view the world are wired and how these lenses can be manipulated.  Chapter 4: Emotional Manipulation checks out how propaganda uses people's emotions to take action.  Chapter 5: Dividing and Conquering (An Audience) looks at the use of stereotypes to separate folks into "us vs them" groups.  Chapter 6: Power, Profit, and Propaganda slices into the use of propaganda by corporations to increase their influence and bottom line.  Chapter 7: Propaganda Techniques lays out the tools used in propaganda.  Chapter 8: The Southern Strategy provides a case study in the use of propaganda in the service of politics.  

 

Samuel Spitale in How to Win the War on Truth provides a passionate plea for readers to be media literate, not passive media consumers.  His point of view is clear to any discerning reader, but he does not ask for blind faith, rather he provides activities that allow the reader to participate in their own education.  If you have an interest in thinking about stories, politics, and/or life, take the time to carefully read this book!

 

Army vs Marines in the Pacific, 1944

McManus, John C.  Island Infernos: The U.S. Army's Pacific War Odyssey, 1944.  New York: 

           Caliber, 2021.  ISBN: 9780451475060

1944 would be a milestone year in both the Pacific and European theaters for the U.S. Army.  In Europe wold be invasions of Italy and France.  In the Pacific the U.S. Army was still struggling in New Guinea.  It had made progress among the Gilbert Islands, cleared the Aleutian Islands, and established a force in India aimed at Burma.  It was the opening John McManus had set for Island Infernos, the second volume of his series on the U.S. Army in the Pacific War.

John McManus lays out the situation at the beginning of 19955 in the Prologue of Island Infernos.  He then takes the reader though all the operations and activities of the U.S. Army in 1944 over the course of the next ten chapters.  Operation Flintlock - the invasion of the Marshall Islands.  The invasion of the Admiralty Islands of Los Megros and Manus.  Fighting and more fighting in New Guinea and on Bougainville.  Galahad Force left India and trekked though Burma.  The Marine/Army invasions of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian that brought plenty of casualties and almost ruptured relationships between the two services.  Finally came the longed for return to the Philippines by McArthur and the U.S. Army assisted by the U.S. Navy.  McManus also provided a brief update on POWs and their treatment.  

John McManus has continued his credible job of presenting the role of the US Army in the Pacific Theater of WWII.  He works to provide details from both combat and other aspects of Army life.  In one volume he managed to cover the wide range of activities undertaken by the U.S. Army over the course of 1944 for the reader to peruse and absorb. 

Crime and Your DNA

Humes, Edward.  The Forever Witness: How Genetic Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double 

           Murder.  NY: Dutton, 2022.  ISBN: 9781524746278

 Do you crave a chance to solve a mystery?  Do you follow true crime stories and read everything you can get on killers?  Or do you live in northwestern United States?  Finally, are you engaged in the ancestry DNA craze?  If your answer to any of these question are yes, you might want to pick up and read The Forever Witness.

 

On November 18, 1987, Jay Cook and his girlfriend Tanya Van Cuylenborg left Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada) to drive five hours to Seattle, Washington, to pick up a furnace for his dad.  They never arrived.  Someplace along the way they encountered someone who murdered them both, left their bodies in rural Washington and the copper-colored van was left in the town of Bellingham.  A massive search went out, but the case went cold.  

 

In 2005, Jim Scharf was appointed to work the 65 cold cases of Snohomish County (WA) where he had worked off and on since 1h3 1970s.  The only double-homicide was that of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook.  In 2008, Sharf invested in decks of tip cards -  playing cards that had the story of a case and photo of the victim.  Since DNA in semen was found on Tanya's body, DNA matching could be used to rule out various suspects that tips brought forward.   CODIS, a database of DNA collected from known criminals was tried a few times without any hits.   Then came the genetic genealogy phenomenon where folks started sending in their DNA to trace back their ancestors and find living relatives via 23andMe and other DNA testing companies.  Scharf used Parabon which had gone private after creating a terrorist DNA database for the Defense Department. He got a profile with a description.  This is where CeCe Moore comes into the story.  She is a genetic genealogist who  has made a business out of her obsession with tracking down genealogical answers.  She saw that her toolkit for helping people find answers could possibly be a way to help solve police cold cases.  She and Parabon gotten together to work on cases using the GEDmatch platform to solve cold cases and the first case was Jim Sharf's.  It took CeCe Moore nine hours to identify the possible killer.  Then came the need to obtain direct DNA evidence that was positively linked to the suspected person which was accomplished on May 18, 2018.  Then all the evidence collected over the years needed to be put in order, a case presented to a court, and a verdict rendered which happened on December 6, 2021.

Edward Humes provides a very readable account of how the case of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook's murders were solved and the vindication of genetic genealogy as a tool in law enforcement's handbook.  He also provides a warning about the need for limits on these tools.   Pick up a copy and dive into the details of a fascinating cold case solved!