There is a certain happiness sighted when your bus comes along. It is of course a small specialized form of happiness and will never be a great thing.

-Richard Brautigan, The Old Bus

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

What I read while riding the bus

Finished my third book while riding the bus and light rail. This time I had the good sense to pick up a book I already owned instead of squandering my bus-riding savings on reading material.

"Breaking the Ring: The bizarre case of the Walker family spy ring" is a 1987 book I picked up from a friend who was unloading her book collection. It's been sitting around for a few months in one of my to-be-read piles.

I've always been a fan of spy novels. I own all of John Le Carre's books. (See postscript here.) This real-life adventure was as engaging as any novel. The fact that one of the spies -- Jerry Whitworth -- lived in Davis when he was arrested makes it something of a local tale. In addition, I served in the Navy during part of the time that Whitworth and Walker were giving the Soviets the means to decipher the U.S. government's secret communications.

Before I read this book I had no idea of the extent of the damage done by Jerry Whitworth and John Walker.

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