Finished two consecutive books on how the world works. Both are good and devastating in their own respective ways
Dead in the Water: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy
When the cargo ship Dalit hit Baltimore’s Key Bridge last year, I felt it deeply, not just because I’m a Baltimorean but because I’ve worked with seafarers in the past. It’s a hard life: dangerous labor with little pay and almost no labor protections. Away from your family months at a time. Obviously, my primary concern was to the men who lost their lives on the bridge, as well as the port workers who stood to lose money from a lack of work. But my heart still broke for the crew.
The two journalists here do an excellent soup-to-nuts take of how a falsified act of piracy led to a real life act of sabotage for an oil tanker, one that became a conspiracy touching many parts of the globe. Yemeni ports, British maritime dominance, Lloyd’s of London Insurance, Greek shipping and banking, Marshall Island shell corp protection, Liberian ship distribution and so much more. A twisty tale that will give people a clue as to how things are transported overseas. It ain’t pretty and it involves a lot of corruption, and in some cases, murder, as poor David Mockett’s family can attest to. Capitalism at its most naked and exposed.
The Constant Gardener
John Le Carré based this on a true story that involved Pfizer and just a reminder that you don’t need to be a weirdo anti-vaxxer to know that pharmaceutical corporations are ludicrously corrupt and dangerous. It repeats a lot of the familiar Le Carré themes: critique of British establishment, elites flailing as the sun sets on the Empire (one scene felt like it was straight out of The Long Good Friday), a cuckolded husband nobly digging for the truth. In the post-Cold War/pre-9/11 sweet spot for espionage fiction, Le Carré targets colonialism in Africa and hits it hard, if a bit stereotypically with some of the characters. The structure is frustrating; I would’ve appreciated more of Justin’s POV and knowing a little more of what he knew than just diving in cold. Large parts of the book’s middle are repetitive exposition dumps. But it’s still good and thrilling and sad and frustrating as only Le Carré can be.