State of the Onion

State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy is the first book in her new series about a White House assistant chef named Olivia Paras. Our Olivia is a modern gal. She's just walking with her shopping on the White House lawn when there is an incident - a man is evading the Secret Service. As she takes cover, she is a bit disconcerted to realize that he is coming her way. And she tries to help out. She hits him with her shopping - which just happens to be a engraved frying pan for the head chef who is retiring. Well, that gets her into all sorts of trouble. The frying pan gets confiscated and she is warned that the guy she just pummeled is a known assassin. But he is trying to tell her something about someone shooting the president...

After being warned off the situation, it keeps festering in the back of her mind. She's no fool. She realizes it did not make the news the way it really happened. Who is this guy? And why does he know the agents personally? And in the meantime, she is trying to help prepare for various important state dinners, trying out for the job opening of head chef and dealing with her boyfriend who does not want to talk about the event. What's a smart gal going to do? Turn to the Internet! There she finds out more about what is going on...

Olivia is a great character - she's smart, personable and ambitious in her field. It is refreshing to have a lead character that is no simpering miss, and takes control of the investigation - at least the parts she can control. The level of detail that Hyzy provides about the White House kitchens is excellent and adds to the fun. No worry about partisanship here - her president is made up!
A wonderful debut. I am eagerly awaiting the next installment! A fun read.

All the President's Men - with Friends Like These...

I have been a bit busy lately and have fallen behind in my posting, but not in my reading. And I had to read this title for a current events genre study. Yeah, it is not a "current event" but the ramifications of this political era still resonate throughout our political life.

All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward could be called one of the first political "instant" books. These books are written during or right after a political event. They started the in-depth investigation into the break-ins at the Watergate building, and proceed to bring the rest of the media and in some circles, the country, with them. It really is a great study of investigative journalism that still has meaning today. The question, for me is - would they have been able to publish this information in the Washington Post today? Would they have been forced to put this in a blog? What would be different if they had today's technology? Half the book is devoted to finding out who are the players and how they are connected - would this have been faster or not? Consider the current administrations' block on information flow - how hard would it be now?

As they take you through the story, one of the most interesting things to me is the loss of political innocence. The people who finally cooperate with Bernstein and Woodward - really love their country and the presidential office and they can not believe the lies and liars that are surrounding Nixon. You can tell these people got involved in public service because they believed that they were helping their country. And that they were let down, and in some cases, betrayed by a paranoid president.

Whether you are a Nixon fan or not, (some of us did not have well formed political views at that time, and wished all those talking men behind the curtained tables would stop blocking our summer television programs!), this is a great study of how power corrupts and how the American public gained their cynicism for their political leaders. It is greatly detailed book - I admit I needed a timeline cheat sheet to keep everything straight - but it reads like a thriller as the authors try to uncover the truth. A great read.