The Foreign Service Journal, November 2014

58 NOVEMBER 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Image , the second Sophie Medina mystery, is scheduled for release by Scribner in 2015. You can visit her website at www. ellencrosby.com. Though Crosby’s books are available on Amazon, please con- tact the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Ariz., for signed copies ( http://ellencrosby.com/signed-copies) . Tzimmes (and Don’t Forget the Cheesecake and the Strudel) Arthur Marshall Fell, BookBaby, 2014, $5.18, ebook, 84 pages. Tzimmes is a humorous story about Dr. Sam Landover, an unpretentious high school mathematics teacher. Grounded in Jewish tradition, Sam gets tangled up in choosing a rabbi for the Shalom Center. As he impro- vises his way through the confusing jumble, the story becomes a mixed-up stew—like the tasty dessert called tzimmes. FSO Arthur Marshall Fell retired as a minister counselor from the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1990. During a 21-year diplomatic career, he served as an adviser at the African Development Bank in Abidjan, deputy director of USAID in Yaounde and Dakar, and mission director at USAID’s Regional Economic Development Support Office in Nairobi and in Abi- djan. He is the co-author of The Club du Sahel: An Experiment in International Co-operation (OECD, 1984), and has written numerous articles about law, economic development and music. Fell lives with his wife, Teri, on the southern coast of France. The Berlin-Breslau Affair Dennis Ortblad, CreateSpace, 2014, $12, paperback, 451 pages. In The Berlin-Breslau Affair , an engaging political thriller, author Denis Ortblad has sought to depict what FSOs actually do and the pressures they face within an authentic embassy setting—instead of what he refers to as the “fanciful tales of overseas spying.” Diplomat David Ames is posted to Berlin. When a Fulbright scholar is murdered in Dresden, Ames is assigned to expedite the arrest of the killers, preferably with a roundup of neo-Nazi gang leaders. But in pursuing the murderer, he, instead, becomes the prey as he works his way through a tangle of competing intel- ligence services scrambling for smuggled Nazi art and gold. The actionmoves swiftly fromDresden’s Elbe River promenade to Berlin’s Unter den Linden, and ends in a forgotten Hitler bunker beneath a castle in Poland’s Sudety Mountains. Ames’ career is at stake as he struggles to escape a web of blackmail and political payoffs. Retired FSO Dennis Ortblad served in Krakow, Hamburg, Osaka, Sapporo, Manila, Bern and Berlin, in addition to assign- ments in Washington, D.C. He has taught English in German universities and in North Africa. He lives in Seattle, Wash., with his wife and children. PHOTOGRAPHY M’s Adventures in Bangladesh Mikkela Thompson, Lulu Publishing, 2014, $35, hardcover, 25 pages. Vibrant with color and humming with activity, Bangladesh is a photographer’s dream. On M’s Adventures , her blog about food and travel, Mikkela Thomp- son has photographed and written extensively about her experiences as an expatriate in Dhaka, among many other topics. A friend asked her to create a “coffee table book” of photos from the blog, and this short but sumptuous volume is the result. Thompson’s vivid color photos and insightful captions combine to draw a fond portrait of Bangladesh. MikkelaThompson is a former business manager for The Foreign Service Journal who has contributed articles and art to its pages, and also worked for other sections of AFSA. After joining the Foreign Service as an Office Management Specialist in 2012, she was posted to Dhaka, and has just begun an assignment in Bogotá. To follow Mikkela’s adventures, and learn more about this fascinating country and the realities of expatriate life, visit http:// madventures.me. A Portrait of Africa Charles Ray, Uhuru Press, 2014, $17.96/paperback, $6.99/Kindle, 82 pages. The typical Westerner thinks of Africa as a strange place full of wild animals, wars, poverty and disease. But in living on the continent for more than six years, and traveling to 10 different countries up and down its expanse, author and photographer Charles Ray discovered that Africa is much more than the dis-