Status Updates From A World to Win (Lanny Budd #7)

Josef Stalin’s whole mind was occupied with the problem of defeating this enemy and hurling him out of Russia. He had sent the greater part of the government to safety, but he himself had stayed under the bombs. He hadn’t summoned Lanny Budd in order to meet a charming playboy or to hear a story of adventure, but to glean every fact that might conduce to the success of Soviet arms. (Lanny meets Stalin after Mao!)

Americans were a privileged people, likely to drop down out of any sky; and now they were allies in the war on the Hitlerite bandits. “Amerikansky tovarische” would get them anything they wanted in the People’s Revolutionary Republic of Outer Mongolia.

As Lanny and his new wife travel in China, they meet Mao of course!

“The longer I watch things, the more I realize that the world is in a mess,” said the wise lady whom this philosopher had chosen for his wife. “Let us make up our minds that we are going to try to understand all sides, and not expect to find it easy.”

Lenny is married again toward the end of this book and in a new part of the world as he and his new wife travel through China in 1940 in the midst of the war between China and Japan. Life is never normal for this adventuresome man who is now in his early 40s.