Amanda Knox: The Italians Are Calling

The Italian courts, which earlier this year reversed Amanda Knox's acquittal in the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, are seeking her extradition to face a new trial. The U.S. State Department can refuse to grant extradition or they can accede to the Italians request. We have an extradition treaty with Italy. In most cases, it would be a routine matter to sign the papers and send her on her way.

If she is sent back, she will almost certainly spend more than twenty years in an Italian prison. The prosecutors in the case are adamant she is guilty and they convicted her once already. I suspect they will make certain she has the opportunity to resume writing in her diary and brushing up on her language skills.

What is the Obama Administration to do?

Should the State Department refuse to extradite Amanda Knox, some pundits argue, our relationship with the Italian government would suffer. Their fear is that the Italians would then be in a position to thumb their noses at us if, say, a terrorist fled to their country after committing a grievous act here in the states. I disagree. The Italians would certainly lodge a formal protest, the State Department would step in, some quiet offers of compensation would be made and bam! Amanda Knox? Chi è quello? (Amanda Knox? Who's that again?).

The question is...should the U.S. get involved? CNN legal analyst Paul Callan believes, it's an entirely political decision. If enough Americans think Knox should not be sent back, she won't be. Treaty be damned. I absolutely agree.

Has Knox helped her position with her TV appearances and writings? Many Americans believe her claims that she had nothing to do with Kercher's murder. I think she's a cold fish who's been expertly trained how to handle even the toughest reporter's questions and whose book was professionally written by someone else. Has she always been that frosty? I have no idea. There's a strong suggestion she seemed disinterested in the killing before she was arrested but four years behind foreign bars would leave most people pretty jaded.

However, I'm no longer sure she's guilty of murder. The evidence was so poorly handled and the prosecution so clearly inept if not criminally prejudiced, the Italian courts certainly did not meet the U.S. standard of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."  And, she's spent four years in an abysmal jail. Some convicted murderers in this country go free in far less time than that.

Were I a Roman, and she in the pit with the lions, I'd throw her a thumbs up.

Pines by Blake Crouch (A Review)

A Secret Service agent awakens and comes to realize he's either suffered a beating or been in a terrible accident. He remembers where he is and why eventually but, like walking up an incline that's constantly shifting, he's off balance and can never fully right himself. He can't contact his boss, his wife or anyone outside the town of Wayward Pines. And those within the community all seem a little odd, graduating to homicidal and then terrifying.

At least a dozen times during my reading of Pines I nearly gave up. It's not a relaxing journey and if you get annoyed by being thoroughly confused, you won't make it.

What kept me going was the realization that if I was having a weird trip, the main character, Ethan Burke, was going through three kinds of hell and it was fascinating to watch him cope.

This is pure action with a hard twist. Ethan is a resilient hero, perhaps a little more Superman than I'd prefer (eventually he begins to sound like Lee Child's Jack Reacher whose every punch has cataclysmic impact) but likable and, especially, sympathetic. I could relate to his struggle to comprehend what the hell was happening to him and why.

If you remember the iconic 1960's TV series The Prisoner, or even Twin Peaks in 1990, you'll be in familiar territory. Throw in some Planet of the Apes and you'll feel right at home.

Pines is the first book in the Wayward Pines series. The second, Wayward, was released this week. Now that I understand the author's concept, I'm curious to see where he takes it.

I gave this book a four out of five star rating on Amazon where the Kindle price is $4.99.

WILL by Dan Cardinal (A Review)

Truth be told, I figured I'd flip through Will because the author, Dan Cardinal, is the son of some old friends. I didn't expect to discover an irresistible main character on the first page and a compelling story that I put down only once (and reluctantly at that) before I finished reading.

Will Brown, mourning the death of his young wife and child in a traffic accident, gives up his engineering job and moves to his family's long-unused cabin in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He plans to stay for ". . .maybe a week--maybe a little longer." Cardinal takes us along on Will's quest and shows us the landscape in deft bites that describe just what sorry shape the property is in ("Along the back wall of the cabin stood a row of firewood that bore the uniform blackish-gray color that came from years and years of weathering" and, even better, "There was nothing else that was not a part of the forest. Indeed, the timberland was making a nature-paced advance to reclaim the old cabin").

From there, the timberland becomes not only backdrop, but a supporting character.

Will is the name of this likeable protagonist as well as what the story explores. Will's resolve to survive even as he copes with his grief leaves us urging him to go the distance.

Cardinal describes the brutality of life in the UP, but also its beauty--and the rough but comradely kindness of its people. But this is far from a navel-gazing novel of sadness and despair. It's a story with plenty of action and plenty of heart, a tale as personal as one told in the back booth of a warm country tavern while a winter storm rages outside.

It is an exceptional piece of work.