Billion Dollar Whale. The man who fooled Wall Street, Hollywood and the World. Tom Wright & Bradley Hope. 2018. ISBN 978031643648.   Two Wall Street Journal journalists and a host of  forensic legal minds have unfolded the swindle of 1MDB. The loss was  to the tune of $13B dollars (2 % of Malaysian GDP) by Jho Low and his cronies ( including Najib Razak the ex Prime minister of Malaysia) , with the assistance of Goldman Sachs, UAE sovereign wealth funds and a host of sleazy corrupt Abu Dhabi royalty plus offshore and Swiss banks.  Of course the biggest crooks seem to not get any judgment at all while the small potatoes get charged. Low was the Whale who thought nothing of multi million dollar gambling nights, parties and debauchery ( which included huge gifts/graft to potential girlfriends, wives, business associates and friends) . His spending makes Crazy Rich Asians look very tame.  None of the money was his, but was swindled from 1MDB.  The depth of crime is sickening, but true.  It is not unique to Malaysia

Becoming. Michelle Obama. 2018.  On one hand a singular job of writing about quite an amazing life and on the other a touching illustration of one person’s humanity.   Quite a well done book that should give hope and guidance to generations of minority and disadvantaged youth for years to come. You live their life and feel how they felt and still fell.  One of those books you do not feel like putting down.  Very worth the read and clearly written with good pace.

James Ryker series by Rob Sinclair. 2017.  A Lee Child, Vince Flynn style writer. Ex military SAS/CIA type who goes around the world preventing terrorist and other threats,, Fast paced and decent stories. Could use a bit more character development in order to hold the reader into a full series of books. Should be popular with the readers of these types of books. Too bad there is not more description of these very important locations where the action takes place.

Cork O’Conner series (1-17_ William Kent Kreuger .  O’Connor is at various times sheriff, deputy, and private eye out  of Tamarack County in upper Michigan butting up to large US/Canada forests and lakes. He is Irish/Ojibwa with a foot in both camps. This series follows his exploits in tracking down murders, conspiracies and other goings on in his small town, local reservation and the wilderness nearby. They are American cowboy style tales with a good sensitivity to Native issues.  The author spins a good story and pace.  There are many back stories unearthed in the series which give them depth. Enjoyable

Finite and Infinite Games. A vision of life as play and possibility. James P. Carse. 2012. ISBN 9780029059807.   A seminal book on the subject, (Game theory)  which has became quite topical in the technology world with speakers such as Simon Sinek.  This is a deceptively thin book that will warrant several rereads to tease out the ideas Carse puts forward.  I would very often find myself lost in the ideas and then the author would hit me with a particularly resonating section. This would be sufficient to push me into the next few sections.  I found the first few sections challenging and then it caught in the dialectal discussion. Like the Phenomena of Man by DeCardin, this can be a mind changing book, full of life lessons.