The Lensky Connection, by Conrad Delacroix, is set in mid-1990s St Petersburg and Moscow, Russia. 

FSB officer, Maj. Valeri Grozky, is assigned to police St Petersburg’s organised crime problem, especially drugs, a cause near to his heart after his elder brother died from an overdose while battling his post-war demons. Maj. Grozky forms an uneasy alliance with a journalist, Natassja Petrovskaya, who shares information with him about the current organised crime situation, alluding to collusion and corruption in official offices. Maj. Grozky is reassigned to a Military Intelligence operation set up to protect the President Yeltsin’s reputation against a possible expose relating to an oligarch and a failed oil company by a US Senate Committee during the lead up to the Presidential election. Secret plots are in play in both the US and Russia, and Maj. Grozky, with Natassja’s help, gets much closer to the truth than anyone expected. 

It’s a fairly long and convoluted story – the plot is complex, the characters even moreso, which gives the whole work a strong sense of authenticity. In fact, what I liked about this book, even more than it’s intriguing plot, was the strong feeling of reality – authentic dialogue, suspicions among even the closest of characters, and the uncertainty about which officials were corrupt and which were not. At times it was difficult to know which characters were on which side, further adding to the intrigue and suspense. The crisp writing style easily keeps the reader attached to the unfolding plot. An appropriate amount of supporting detail gives the reader a strong feel for the setting. (And it was good to read a book set in Russia that didn’t go on and on about the cold or the snow.)  

The life unexamined is not worth living. Socrates said that so if he drank coffee, he’d also have said the coffee unexamined is not worth drinking. 

Let’s examine the taste of coffee. What we all think of as the sense of taste is really a group of physiological responses, or sensations including taste perceived by the tongue, smell perceived by the nose, as well as a haptic perception of texture or feel in the mouth, and finally the sensation of temperature. Food technologists say the taste of coffee is the combination of these 4 perceptions: taste, smell, texture, and temperature. Both taste and smell, psychologists tell us, are linked to our emotions and memories and that’s all to do with the involuntary nervous system in the most primitive part of our brain and all of that is associated with evolution. Taste and smell are closely associated with memory because we have to remember the tastes and smells of food or drink that made us very sick and which may kill us. This explains why the taste of food and drink is important to us and why we (Socrates included) spend time examining it.

The tongue detects sugars such as fructose, glucose, and lactose as well as some alcohols and some amino acids and reports all of them to the brain as sweet.

The acidic sensation we sense from drinks such as lemon juice or white wine or food such as fresh apples is caused by hydrogen ions that are dissolved in a watery solution.

Food or drink containing sodium chloride or the salts associated with potassium and magnesium are detected and reported to the brain as salty. 

The tongue is extra-sensitive to bitter food or drink and it’s thought that there are more sensors detecting bitterness than the other elements of taste, likely because bitterness is related to the toxicity of the foods and drinks that could kill us. 

The savoury taste, redolent of a beef broth, is caused by glutamic acid or aspartic acid which are associated with many different food proteins such as ripe tomatoes, asparagus, meat, and cheese. MasterChef calls it umami.

Good coffee tastes good because it combines an agreeable balance of sweetness and acidity. Good coffee is naturally sweet and that sweetness is complemented by the right degree of acidity. Some people describe coffee as tasting bitter; if it does, it is usually not good coffee, although some may simply be incorrectly describing the combination of sweetness and acidity, incorrectly calling that bitter.  

I think Socrates would’ve said this is a good start to examining the taste of good coffee, but there is definitely more (yes,I know, he’d have said it in Greek, obviously) so I’ll post more soon.

Well-written, engaging and fast-paced plot, with an interesting/unexpected ending. 

The story begins with Cy Ford heading north to take a new job as a wildlife ranger. The story flips “time zones” occassionally to allow a few back stories to develop. Cy Ford and his colleagues are drug runners, using sled dogs. When they choose to end their drug-running, their boss disagrees. They become embroiled in a turf war between their boss and a rival. When the bullets start to fly, the local law enforcement become involved. 

The supporting characters are well developed. The setting was intriguing and allowed the writer to involve sled dogs which added an interesting layer that could’ve been developed more.

A throughly interesting, adventurous and fast read. Highly recommended.

In the Shadows by Gilles Boyer and Edouard Philippe is a fast-paced, intellectual suspense/thriller about a French Presidential election candidate’s inner team. The story is narrated by the campaign’s seasoned strategist. The story is crisply written, yet still manages to dwell on the essence of French and Parisian life.

The candidate narrowly won the party’s primary election, but shortly afterwards an anonymous tip-off is received by one the candidate’s team that the party’s primary vote may have been rigged. From whom the tip came is uncertain and the head strategist and his young protege, with the help of the protege’s ex-Foreign Legion uncle, set out to find the source of the rumour and to determine its veracity. Their investigation quickly reveals a suspicious death associated with the tech firm that ran the primary vote. After the campaigns strategist and his protege are chased and then badly-beaten, another person (who turns out to be the source of the rumour) is killed. 

Also alert to the possibility of the primary being rigged, the losing primary candidate maneuvres for political advantage, including a promise to be given the prime minister position in return for her silence about the primary vote and her support in the Presidential election campaign. 

The stress of the campaign, plus the possibility of their Boss being involved in a rigged primary vote, (added to some personal history between team members) causes the inner team’s cohesion to fracture. Suspicions within the team are rife and threaten to derail the campaign. To retrieve the campaign, the head strategist and his protege must chase down the primary vote scandal.

The already fast-paced story goes into overdrive as the campaign approaches election night and the candidate is backed into a corner regarding minor parties’ promises and the prospect of his adversary being offered the prime minister post in return for her support and silence. The protege brings in three of his tech geek friends to complete rhe investigation before the candidate completes his laet speech before the election. And so as not to spoil the ending, let’s stop right here.  

I enjoyed reading In the Shadows. It was extremely well-written. It captured the growing tension of an election campaign, it created authentic characters and wasn’t padded with unnecessary or unrelated minor threads or setting descriptions. I did enjoy reading the essentially French/European elements of the story. The ending was exciting and well-constructed. It is everything I want in a book.

Firstly, the coffee at Slasticarnica Cukar is perfect every time. The staff are friendly, quick and helpful, and the location, a few metres from Komiža’s waterfront, is the best location on the planet. The tables are next to a lavender garden and beneath a leafy vine. But that’s not even a fraction of why this might well be my favourite café… on Earth.

The owner’s mother was a dedicated cook and recorder of handwritten recipes, some of which are framed and hanging on the walls. The made-on-site pastries and cakes combine locally-grown ingredients such as carob, orange, lemon, lavender, rosemary, and figs. Slasticarnica Cukar is a culinary artist’s studio and a sweet-addict’s den.

There are small carrot cakes: moist and dense and packed with rich dark sugar, further sweetened by the carrots and walnuts and the not-overpowering cream cheese topping. 

There is a cake with an alluring, deep purple topping named after a local red wine, with a layer of dark chocolate biscuit separated by layers of chocolate cream. 

There is a moist, walnutty cake with a luxurious caramel layer just below the charred-meringue topping.

There is a heavy and dark carob cake. And I almost forgot to mention the dripping with honey, walnut-filled baklava. 

There is a light lavender-flavoured cream encased in a shell of white-chocolate on a biscuit base. 

And there is a not-so-sweet slice topped with a layer of hib (a densely compressed layer of dried figs – an absolute treasure from the island) and there is a small variation of this, made only of the compressed hib with almonds.

Every one of these little pieces of heaven goes best with a Julius Meinl double ‘Schwarzer’ (a large double espresso) because of its full, floral flavours.

Slasticarnica Cukar is in Komiza, a small fishing town on Vis Otok, a two and something hour ferry ride followed by a 15 minute bus ride from Split on Croatia’s Dalmatian coast. It’s a journey with a a heavenly destination.