CASE FILE

The Most Formidable Spy In History

We all love a good espionage story, and none is more fascinating than that of Richard Sorge, infamous Soviet operative whom Ian Fleming once described as “the most formidable spy in history.” A German communist,  at age 35 (in 1930) Sorge bore a distinct resemblance to the fictional James Bond, including his looks (despite having lost most of one hand in World War I), his taste for alcohol, and his prodigious—almost pathological—appetite for womanizing. As historian Ben Macintyre writes in his new book Agent Sonya, “Sorge was a dissolute warrior-priest: self-indulgent, belligerent, and unquestioning of the brutal regime he served, a born liar equipped with lethal charisma, boundless conceit, and almost unbelievable good luck. He possessed a magical facility for putting people at their ease, and getting women into bed. He was rigorously disciplined in his espionage and exceptionally messy in his personal life. He was also snobbish, nit-picking, and frequently drunk, a loud and louche habitué of fast motorbikes and loose company.”

DOJ Reportedly Pursuing Criminal

Charges Against John Bolton

Attorney General William Barr apparently is making good on his threat not only to seize any monies received by John Bolton for writing his bestseller The Room Where It Happened, but also to pursue possible criminal charges against him. Publishers Weekly reported last week that publisher Simon & Schuster is said to have received a subpoena for documents, and various news outlets claim the Department of Justice has convened a grand jury to consider charging Bolton for illegally divulging classified or otherwise privileged information. In June, federal judge Royce Lamberth refused to block publication of the book, and the potential indictment represents a major escalation of the Trump administration’s legal battle against the former National Security Adviser. In a statement, Bolton’s attorney, Charles Cooper, insisted his client “emphatically rejects any claim that he acted improperly, let alone criminally, in connection with the publication of his book and he will cooperate fully, as he has throughout, with any official inquiry into his conduct.”

A Glimpse Into The Twisted

Mind Of A Serial Killer

If you’re reading this story it’s probably because, like me, you’re as fascinated by how the cogs move and wheels tick inside the criminal mind. If so, you’ll likely also be fascinated by Alex Gibney’s latest documentary titled Crazy, Not Insane, which focuses on Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis (pictured), a controversial psychiatrist whose research has led her into the minds of some of the most notorious serial killers in modern history. As noted by The Daily Beast, she made her name defending the indefensible, convinced that brain damage—genetic and stemming from childhood abuse—triggers many to kill, and spawns multiple personalities in the most depraved individuals. Her archives, including videos and audio tapes, are a mix of intimate conversations with psychopaths, perverts, and pedophiles. In the film (which I have not yet seen) Gibney portrays Dr. Lewis as a sort of homicide detective who relies on “radical empathy” to pit science against the court of law, insisting that no person who is clinically insane should be put to death by the justice system.

Gaming Is The New “IRL”

In The Age Of Covid

I am not a “gamer,” although I was in my youth—until Pacman temporarily crippled me for three weeks. Still, it’s important to note that the global gaming platform is perhaps the fastest-growing segment in the entertainment industry, and I don’t just mean for those who play Roblox, Minecraft, or Fortnite. As reported by Nielsen last week, much of life has moved online (vs. IRL, or “in real life”), and few businesses have been better suited to this new normal than video games. Not only have people been playing video games at home in lieu of other entertainment options, but they’ve also been using gaming devices to hang out virtually with friends and participate in communal experiences. Case in point: back in April—during the initial peak of coronavirus infections in the U.S.—concertgoers flocked to a virtual event headlined by rapper Travis Scott, where 12 million people heard hit songs, danced, and even purchased merchandise. Consumer spending on digital games jumped as widespread lockdowns began to take effect in March, and it has continued to increase quarter-over-quarter since then.

OPINION

All The Light We Cannot See:

Anthony Doerr's Writing Is Pure Genius

Possibly the best novel I’ve read over the past five years is All The Light We Cannot See, written by fellow Bowdoin College alum Anthony Doerr and winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The writing style is unbelievably fresh and evocative of the setting (mostly pre-WW II Germany), and the development of the two main characters is pure literary genius. The book chronicles the lives of two children roughly the same age, a French girl named Marie-Laure LeBlanc who is rapidly losing her eyesight, and German orphan Werner Pfennig, an exceptionally bright kid with an aptitude for repairing radios. We know their paths are going to cross at some point as Europe falls under Hitler’s control, but Doerr ratchets up the suspense at a pace that keeps the pages flying by. As Amanda Vaill observed in a review in the Washington Post, the story is “enthrallingly told, beautifully written and so emotionally plangent that some passages bring tears, [but] it is completely unsentimental.”

Indispensable Writing Tips

From John Steinbeck

From the time I first read (and repeatedly re-read) the first paragraph of Cannery Row, I realized the sheer brilliance of John Steinbeck’s writing. Succinct, evocative, simple, complex, empathic, and sensory. Virtually perfect. Therefore, it was with great pleasure that I recently stumbled upon these writing tips from the master himself, published Friday in Sleuthsayer: 1) Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it is finished, you are always surprised. 2) Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. 3) Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material. 4) Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn't exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person – a real person you know, or an imagined one – and write to that one...

Bosch Season 7 Begins Filming This Week

I became hooked on Harry Bosch the moment I picked up my first Michael Connelly novel (The Concrete Blonde) in the mid-’90s, and I was captivated by the Amazon Prime series Bosch after viewing its pilot episode six seasons ago. Thus, I was thrilled to hear that Season 7 of the show has begun filming, with its storyline based around the book The Burning Room, and will begin streaming later this year or early in 2021. “We certainly have challenges this year with the pandemic, but we have instituted stringent safety measures and protocols and are confident we can protect our cast and crew,” Connelly said in an email last week. “Because of the virus, our start was delayed almost two months, so this season we'll do an eight-episode story and hope that helps make up for some lost time so that we can put the show out to fans at close to the same time of year as usual.” Disclaimer: Michael wrote a beautiful cover blurb for my first Jack Connor book Palmetto Blood (see below), and I will always feel indebted to him.

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“Palmetto Blood is a winner. It sweeps you in with intrigue and authority and never lets you go. I want to go riding with Jack Connor again.”

— Michael Connolly,

Bestselling author of the

Harry Bosch series