PositiveThe Wall Street JournalReading other people\'s descriptions of topics you know intimately is usually a recipe for disillusionment; here, it\'s almost cause for alarm. Necessary Errors so completely recaptures the smells and scenes and political conversations and above all the feelings of 1990-91 Czechoslovakia that I began to actively worry that Mr. Crain was inserting new memories into my brain, now fuzzed up by advancing age and beer residue. But the question haunting the novel, like its characters, is: Does it all really matter? Somewhere deep in the book—for me, it was page 302—the reader will realize that nothing much is ever going happen ... There\'s some de-coupling and re-coupling, a few going-away parties, and a whole lot of meta-discussion ... This may be a realistic enough depiction of expat angst, but whether it makes for a compelling narrative will probably depend on your tolerance for eavesdropping on other people\'s writing groups or for reading deep drunken thoughts... Reminding ourselves of a different time may not be necessary, but it certainly can\'t hurt.
Barry Friedman
PositiveThe Wall Street JournalIt’s hard to read Barry Friedman’s criminal-justice system indictment Unwarranted without being distracted by the chasm between the context in which it was written and the one in which it now appears ... Fortunately, Mr. Friedman has framed his argument in a way that may even carry more utility in our Trumpified age. 'The real problem with policing is not the police,' he writes in a preface dated June 2016. 'It is us.' Until the citizenry takes active responsibility for the rules that govern law enforcement’s unique powers of surveillance and force, we will continue to see widespread injustice and the erosion of our fundamental rights ... This is where Mr. Friedman runs up against a paradox that he can’t quite power through. Isn’t the intersection between democracy and policing precisely where some of the worst policies have come from? ... He confronts these limitations in a concluding chapter that contains more than a hint of exasperation...But you need not agree with Mr. Friedman’s solution or his overall civil-libertarian bent to find Unwarranted an important book about the 21st-century rules of engagement for counter-terrorism, police work, surveillance and crime prevention ... Unwarranted shakes us from what we’ve allowed ourselves to accept.
