Cloak & Lager: Denver Espionage Book Club

Since this is the hotness lately, let’s read and/or watch about the Troubles!

I will commit myself to re-reading the book AND watching the FX on Hulu series, but you are welcome to do either/or and we can see what the discussion will be like with this mixture of mediums. I fear expecting everyone to do both is overkill.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Keefe
441 pp.

And/or:

Say Nothing, FX on Hulu TV series, 9 episodes.

Book Summary:

Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

An influential and fun early example of the genre!

The Scarlet Pimpernel by EmmuskA Orczy
182 pp.

Summary:

The Scarlet Pimpernel is Baroness Orczy's classic adventure novel about Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy Englishman who has a secret identity as a daring rescuer of aristocrats from the French Revolution. Orczy's thrilling tale of heroism and romance is a timeless classic that has captivated readers for over a century. Set in 1792, The Scarlet Pimpernel follows Sir Percy as he outwits the forces of the French Revolution to save innocent lives. With a colorful cast of characters and an exciting plot, Orczy's classic novel is an unforgettable reading experience that will leave you wanting more.

The name is Bond, James Bond!

I thought it would be fun to do a series on the most famous spy novels AND partner films of all time. Genre-defining sexism, campy villains, goofy gadgets, and all. This will be a discussion of both book and film. The films are an integral part of the Bond experience as they famously are often better than the books. I also have not read or watched most of the Bond books and movies!

I decided to do a highlights tour of six well-regarded or particularly notable or controversial Bond book/movie pairings. This will mean skipping some books. If that idea bothers you, since they’re spaced two months apart, you’re welcome to do a completionist consumption of all the Bond books/films. I’m not sure whether I will do this. I thought a full year of Bond and only Bond might be too much of a drag for those members who aren’t enamored with Bond, and frankly I’m not dying to watch Die Another Day (2002).

We need to start where the series begins: Casino Royale. The first Bond book. The 2006 film (not the 1967 version!) with Daniel Craig is the best-reviewed Bond film of all time to date. (If there are two films of a book, I will always choose the better regarded one.) Because neither is overly time-consuming, please read and watch.

Book:

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
192 pp.

Film: Casino Royale (2006), starring Daniel Craig

Book Summary:

“Le Chiffre” is a ruthless operative and the accountant for a soviet SMERSH cell in France, but he’s on the verge of disaster after gambling away his client’s money. Taking the last of his stash, he lures a dozen wealthy players to a high-stakes baccarat game, hoping to hustle his way whole.

The British Secret Service would like to see this red thorn plucked from the hide of Europe, and sends their best card sharp, James Bond, to bankrupt Le Chiffre for good.

With the cards running against him and SMERSH operatives threatening to kill him and his beautiful ally, Vesper Lynd, 007 needs his luck to turn before he wagers away their lives.

Let’s read this history of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba by the CIA! This one is new to me and I’m excited to read it.

The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination by Stuart A. Reid
640pp.

(Somewhat torn on whether to split this, but I think I won’t.)

Summary:

It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.” Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization’s biggest peacekeeping mission in history. But chaos was still spreading. Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help—an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA. To forestall the spread of Communism in Africa, the CIA sent word to its station chief in the Congo, Larry Devlin: Lumumba had to go.

Within a year, everything would unravel. The CIA plot to murder Lumumba would fizzle out, but he would be deposed in a CIA-backed coup, transferred to enemy territory in a CIA-approved operation, and shot dead by Congolese assassins. Hammarskjöld, too, would die, in a mysterious plane crash en route to negotiate a cease-fire with the Congo’s rebellious southeast. And a young, ambitious military officer named Joseph Mobutu, who had once sworn fealty to Lumumba, would seize power with U.S. help and misrule the country for more than three decades. For the Congolese people, the events of 1960–61 represented the opening chapter of a long horror story. For the U.S. government, however, they provided a playbook for future interventions.