I have devoured 200 pages of Marxismus and loved every minute of it. It is a delight. Although my work dealt with nothing so glamorous as secret agents, the parts of Marx's memoir about dealing with military bureaucrats certainly cut close to my (funny) bone. There was actually a "strike" among enlisted military intercept operators in North Africa against their "superior" officers. They all strangely went deaf -- and actually got away with, it forcing various changes in treatment and procedures.

Many thanks for the book and calling my attention to it. Oddly, I had never heard of it.

Hope all is well with you,

----- Original Message -----

From: Phil Howerton

To: D. Barton Johnson

Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 3:00 PM

Subject: Re: Book

Don: Trust you have received the book by now. Have you read any Michael Dibdin? His Aurelio Zen stuff in Italy is really good.

Judge Philip F. Howerton, Jr.
2812 Sunset Drive
Charlotte, NC 28209

"To be proud, to be brave, to be free." Vladimir Nabokov

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 10:08 PM

Subject: Re: Book

Dear Phil, I look forward to the Leo Marks book. I just googled him and he is a fascinating character.

I don't recall if I ever mentioned it, but I was a (very bad) Hungarian cryptanalyst in the fifties. Nothing very glamorous but it gave me a sense of business. Best, Don

----- Original Message -----

From: Phil Howerton

Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 5:31 PM

Subject: Re: Book

The book came in and I will be upsing it in the morning. Written in 1998, it's called "Between Silk and Cyanide," and it's by an Englishman named Leo Marks. He was a twenty one year old kid, the son of the Marks that operated the famous bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road in London, who was a whiz at codebreaking but was such a smart alex little guy that he was turned down by the code breakers at Bletchley and instead shipped off the new SOE organization that Churchill created and ordered to set Europe ablaze. He soon realized, much to the bureaucrats' fury, that the codes that were being used were ridiculously easy to break and were being read by the Germans at will. As a result he basically rewrote all the code stuff for the operational people behind the lines in Europe. It dovetails nicely with the stuff that Furst writes about. It's not technical and this guy, who later became a famous screen and play writer, is a hell of a writer; funny, sad, irreverent, bureaucratically rebellious, etc. It is a heck of a book that I could not put down. Don't be put off by the length; it's 600 pages and I read it in a weekend. It's just too good not to pass along.

Judge Philip F. Howerton, Jr.
2812 Sunset Drive
Charlotte, NC 28209

"To be proud, to be brave, to be free." Vladimir Nabokov

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 8:37 PM

Subject: Rousing Rouse

I picked up a copy of P.D. James' _A Certain Justice_ in a thrift store. In chapter III the lady lawyer reflects twice (inter alias) on the Rouse case. I wonder if she knows she is treading on VN territory?

Did you get my note about Phillip Kerr's _Berlin Noir_ trilogy. I can send it if you like.