I have no idea whether Erik Larson was thinking about Trump when he set out to write about Hitler. (Something tells me he was thinking about Trump.) One of the most satisfying kinds of stories is: good fights against evil. Evil wears a mask, for a bit. Good sniffs out clues. Villains are identified; the problem is contained; order is restored. Erik Larson made his name with "The Devil in the White City," about a serial killer in Chicago. The new book, "The Splendid and the Vile," gives us a different kind of killer (again, it's Hitler), and the "detective" is unusually charismatic. The detective is Winston Churchill--who writes and speaks as well as a gifted novelist, has a talent for making grim realities seem inspiring, and refuses (refuses, refuses) to give up. Larson's book plunges you into Churchill's semi-Victorian world, in which his wife, Clementine, gives him moral scoldings via handwritten letter. (This made me think of Ab...