Pursued By The Need To Blog

Might as well at least try and keep with my promise to try posting this week. All the canines around here aren't making it easy, though. A few minutes ago, one of them started barking, code that they want out, usually for bathroom-related reasons. But once I'd let the dog in question loose, she retreated back into her crate because one of the other hunds decided to get territorial over, as best I can tell, a chew bone she didn't give a damn about five minutes earlier. She scooped it up as the much smaller dog approached, and began growling, even when I eventually carried the little dog outside to take care of business. Alex was right, it's like dealing with a house full of kids, all selfish, needy, and intensely annoying to me. But that's not relevant to today's discussion, beyond whatever adverse effect it has on this post..

I said previously that I'd read enough books dealing with World War 2 to last for quite awhile. Apparently not, since today I'm discussing James Stewart Thayer's Pursuit. Whereas I finished off six other books in five days, this one took the better half of a week to complete, and it wasn't due to the length of the book.

It's the story of a German soldier's escape from a POW camp in Washington State, because he's been given a mission to kill someone very important to the United States at that time. What, exactly that assassination is supposed to accomplish in the long run is unclear to me. I can't see it causing the U.S. to withdraw from the war, or leading to a series of stunning losses by American troops on the various fronts. Maybe it's for spite. For whatever purpose, the story follows this POW and his ally/hostage across the U.S. as they evade the feds, Secret Service, and local law enforcement through methods both clever, and a few that seem to be simply that the POW is that damn good. Which is at least marginally backed up by the description we're given of his activites prior to his capture, so it isn't completely surprising. Their chief pursuer is a Secret Service agent, hardened by loss, who has tried - and most succeeded - to bury his painful past, even as he was contemplating leaving federal employment.

One thing that strikes me as beig not entirely successful is that attempt to draw connections between the POW and the Secret Service agent. Both the POW and his ally/hostage remark on their similarities. Yet, the POW succeeds most on his guile and skill, occasionaly relying on sheer force of will, while stubborn determination seems to be all Agent Wren has.

There's a fair bit of back-and-forth in the book about codes, sending radio messages, and breaking the codes for each message. In of itself, that doesn't interest me much (I was never much for word jumbles and things of that sort), but it did introduce to the character I was most interested in, a radio operator assigned to a remote Labrador listening post, all by himself. The reason for his exile appealed to both my juvenile sense of humor, and what's left of my "stick it to the man" attitude. Plus, the description of what he does to pass the time up there all alone, and his frequent requests for a transfer were entertaining reading.

As for the rest of the book, it never reached that stage some books do, where I'm just flying through it, and I stay up into the wee hours of the morning because I don't want to wait to learn how it ends. This was a book read in fits and starts, and one I contemplated not finishing a couple of times. But by that point I was already at least 150 pages in, so it seemed silly to have wasted that time on a book I didn't finish. Draw from that statement what you will about the book.