The Drop

This is the 15th and most recent Harry Bosch novel, and it was written in 2011. Harry and his partner David Chu are working in the Open-Unsolved Unit which goes after convictions on cold cases based on new DNA hits. Their new case is about the death of Lily Price who was 19 years old when she was snatched off the street in Venice, California, raped, tortured, and murdered in 1989. But the blood from the scene, which had always been thought to be that of the killer is newly linked to a man who was only 8 years old at the time of the killing. Did the detectives at the time screw up the evidence? Did the lab contaminate something? No. The blood did belong to young Clayton Pell who was in the government’s data base because, as an adult man, he had become a convicted child molester, a predator himself. At the time of the murder 22 years before, Pell was being physically and sexually abused by a man known only as Chill. The same belt that Chill used to strangle Lily was the same one that he had used to whip Pell. Of course it took a while for Bosch and Chu to figure it out. Bosch does not trust or approve of Chu, so these partners are on the rocks with each other throughout the book. Chill turns out to be a serial-killing monster. The whole matter is complicated by the involvement of Irvin Irving and his son George. Irvin, on the city counsel, has long been an enemy of the LAPD and has been influential in forcing through budget cuts. His son, a former cop and lawyer, was an influence peddler, mostly selling his dad’s influence. Connelly expertly intertwines those story lines. “The Drop” is a double entendre. On the one hand, it refers to the LAPD’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan which might allow Harry to continue in his role as LAPD’s best detective for an extra five years. On the other hand, it refers to George Irvin’s “drop” from the 7th story of the Chateau Marmont. The senior Irving, despite his negative past with Bosch, insists that Bosch be the lead detective on the case in order to prove that his son had not committed suicide, but Harry learns a lot more than what the old man wanted him to find. There are some good minor subplots with excellent characters, including Harry’s smart 15-year-old daughter and Pell’s therapist, a possible but damaged love interest for Harry. This was a very good book, a very fast read. It gets my strong recommendation.

Blood Trail by C.J. Box

Now I don't know the details of the Joe Pickett's backstory like how he got to be so buddy-buddy with the Governor, what he did to get his duty station yanked and assigned to the Governor's office, and importantly how he developed a friendship with Nate Romanowski and what did Nate do end up in jail. I just jumped in and held on tight.

The game warden's office is funded primarily through hunting and fishing licenses. And that could be a problem because the Governor has shut down hunting in Wyoming.

Three hunters have been killed. While the first 2 could be considered as accidents, the third rules out accidental death. The third guy was shot, strung up like an elk, gutted, and his head removed. A red poker chip was under the carcass in the grass. And upon further review, a poker chip was found with the other two.

The fish and game boss is so spooked he abandons his office to head up the investigation and brings a friend, 'someone I can trust' (he couldn't trust his own officers?). While tracking the shooter, the friend and another officer are shot; 5 dead. No wonder the Governor shut down hunting until the shooter is found.

Enter Klamath Moore, an animal rights activist bound to spread the gospel of Moore to the gathering media. His wife is a native American who grew up on the local reservation and was a basketball player of some note before a sick grandmother and living on the edge dragged her down into the dumps until she met up with Klamath.

The Governor inserts Joe into the investigation that includes Fish and Game, local cops, and the FBI. While all eyes are on Moore's entourage, Joe's instincts say otherwise and manages to finagle the Governor agreeing to let Nate Romanowski out of jail to help Joe get to where the law can't be expected to operate. And no sooner does Joe get Nate into the search area, Nate disappears and Joe is in everyone's doghouse for not having solved the case and for losing Nate. The boss is nervous, the Governor is under pressure, Moore is crowing about the hunters getting what they deserved and the best bet for a solution is Pickett's former boss who happens to be biding his time in prison (more missing backstory) and wants his sentence commuted in exchange for his testimony. Be careful what you wish for former Mr. Warden . . . Nate is still out of jail.

This is only my 2nd Joe Pickett book, but this was one of the better mystery stories I've read recently. The locale, the detail, the plotting, and twists all remind us why Box is an Edgar winner and NYT bestseller. How in the world did we miss him?

What else is there to say? Can you say power rotation? Thanks to Midwest Dave for the introduction to Box.

East Coast Don

Full Black by Brad Thor

Full Black picks up where Foreign Influence left off. The shadowy Charlton Group, a group that operates way, way under the radar of governmental oversight, has hired Scot Harvath.

Harvath’s team has caught a very high placed Islamic terrorist in Yemen, tucking him into Harvath's trunk. As they clean up, the car is destroyed by an RPG.

The second in command runs his cell out of Uppsala, Sweden. Harvath’s team intercepts a new member of the cell and plant one of their own inside. After learning of the cell’s safe house, the team prepares for the takedown only to hit a snag (I’m minimizing a lot of things here) sending Harvath home to wallow in his own self doubt.

Meanwhile . . .

Larry Solomon, a big time Hollywood producer, and a couple young documentarians are putting together a film that traces the activities of James Standing, the mega billionaire head of a hedge fund that has been handing the investments of the most politically extreme lobbying groups. After a typical Hollywood schmooze-fest, the drunk producer and his friend-bodyguard find the 2 filmmakers dead in Solomon's home with Russian Spetznatz agents looking to finish the job. They hadn’t counted on the friend/bodyguard being ex-SEAL . . .

. . . A senior MI5 agent who arranged the hit is trying to find out what happened in Uppsala because he answers to the Sheik of Qatar who seems to be pulling all the string and the Sheik ain't happy.

The hedge fund boss, Standing, is a committed globalist, bent on bringing down the US in order to remake the world according to his vision. To do so, he uses a Chinese directive he stole called ‘unrestrictive warfare’. The Chinese feel they will have to face down the US, but can’t match US firepower head to head and devise a plan to attack the US across multiple fronts by taking out the power grid, the internet, transportation, the stock market, and more to paralyze the US economy and will at home. Standing decides to start with multiple massed attacks on American safe havens starting with a coordinated attack on dozens and dozens of movie theaters.

Harvath, now aided by The Troll from Foreign Influence whom Harvath got the Charlton Group to hire, track a cell to LA where they are leading a massive attack on US airports. With the aid of Solomon’s SEAL bodyguard, Harvath learns of who hired the Russian killer team who gives up the MI5 agent who in turn gives up the Sheik.

380 pages . . . 24 hours. Think I liked it? Full Black start fast and picks up speed with each chapter. Some readers might not like some of Thor’s pontificating and what might be considered judgmental preaching. For example, justifying Harvath as judge, jury, and executioner (chapter 24), a Cliff’s Notes version of the concept of globalization (actually thought this was informative as I’ve never really thought much about it) vs capitalism (Chapter 32), the US right or wrong (Chapter 35). But even those rip right along without missing a beat.

Make no mistake, this is a right wing, testosterone-laced, political action thriller and one’s personal politics shouldn’t be the reason for picking this up or passing. Action thrillers are about action, politics be damned. Authors stays on my power rotation based on ‘what had you done for me recently.’ Thor has been an appointment read ever since The Lions of Lucerne, and except for one hiccup (Athena Project), remains entrenched in my power rotation.

East Coast Don

Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock

This is a real town, or rather a collection of decrepit shacks and trailers, in southern Ohio, just SW of Chilichothe, maybe 70 miles straight south of Columbus (home of THE Ohio State University) and probably a half hour north of Portsmouth, which sits on the Ohio River. Yes, it really does exist even though this is entirely fiction.

Pollock has assembled a series of interconnected short stories about the people who live in and around Knockemstiff, a place where “the hillbillies wouldn’t watch a TV show that had blacks on it.” Best I can tell, it begins in the 50s or 60s and runs up to about the 1990s, but the presentation is not chronological, nor does it need to be.

We open up a recount of Vern, a loud, uncouth papermill worker, his wife and 7 yo son Bobby at a drive-in theater. This is where Bobby sees his dad pick a fight in the canteen can with some bigger guy and damn near kill him right there in the toilet. The vic’s son, older than Bobby, tries to intervene and Bobby does his level best to keep the other kid out of the melee. On the way back to the car, Vern says to Bobby “You did good.” Bobby would remember this as “the only goddamn thing my old man said to me that I didn’t try to forget.”

Pollock then takes us through random acts of the locals. Like the 15yo kid who wanders along a creek, witnesses incest between neighbors slightly younger than he, decides he wants in, whacks the kid, takes the girl, drowns her, stuffs them in a small cave, and continues on with his life.

Those are just 2 of the 18 stories in this book. Characters go in and out of the tales, but each chapter is an end unto itself. Considering the behavior and actions of the locals, one would think that the inbreeding comes from the same tree that doesn’t branch. These people are some of the lowest, most degenerate, disgusting, dirty, mean, criminal people on the planet. They eat the 4 primary food groups: processed cheese, toast, baloney, fish sticks followed with a dessert of Oxy washed down with anything liquid that is handy. And if it isn’t Oxy, they might be sniffing Bactine from a plastic bag.

“Forgetting our lives might be the best we can do” sort of sums up what each of the characters do with their time. They all seem to “crave junk food the way a baby craves a tit.” And it’s not just the characters that seem to have risen out of the brine of the earth’s belly because “the damp gray sky covered southern Ohio like the skin on a corpse.”

As the decades pass, the locals fall prey to their own misdeeds like the guy with the metal plate in his head, the kid who sniffed too much junk and now does little more than scratch at his scalp, the 2 teenagers who keep trying to get a third laid (so he would be constantly berated by his dad for being a virgin), Vern has had 3 heart attacks and sits stuck to his fake leather easy chair, some grandfather who is still reliving Korea but refuses to wear adult diapers. One slowly decaying slug has an epiphany of sorts when he realizes, “that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.”

Pollock apparently grew up in the region and worked the paper mill and other hard labor jobs, but has worked his way into an MFA program in creative writing at Ohio University in nearby Athens (full disclosure: I have degrees from both Ohio U and THE Ohio State University). One would have to consider that if the author gets high praise from Chuck Palahniuk that it would have to be pretty strange . . . and addicting . . . but still very strange.

So, should one willingly choose to pick up a book about desperate souls whose only glimpse of hope is tied up in movie mags who shiver in a nothing town of tilted trailers and abandoned cars hard by the dump, who get so sick from eating real food that they have the squirts in an alley only to get humiliated by local cops, all for some Oxy stolen from a nursing home? Only if you are afraid of being drawn into this sometimes violent and downright shitty world where Robert Earle Keen’s ‘Merry Christmas From The Family’ could be the God’s honest truth. If so, you might be missing one of the more literate presentations of (yes, I’ll say it) literature based in “a place people had grown up in, but never felt like home.”

East Coast Don

Feast Day of Fools

This is the third of three novels with Sheriff Hackberry Holland as the protagonist. Hackberry, or Hack, is a very interesting but fault-laden hero. A veteran, not of Vietnam, but of Korea, he’s got a bad case of PTSD. At least he’s gained some measure of control over his alcoholism and lust for prostitutes. But he continues to struggle with nightmares and flashbacks to the war. His past intermittently haunts him, and having treated hundreds of cases of PTSD, Burke does a pretty good job of representing that condition. This book is a direct follow-up to Rain Gods, which was previously and favorably posted in the blog. Hack is now nearly 80 years old, but still serving as the elected sheriff of his county. The most evil guy you’ve ever heard of, Preacher Jack Collins, reappears. He was presumed dead at the end of Rain Gods, but now he’s back. Like Burke has done before, he throws a myriad of psychopaths at the reader, each with a different take on the current drama, whose story lines eventually crash into each other in unexpected ways. Hack’s deceased wife is a constant presence for him and serves as a nice source of tension in his interactions with Deputy Pam Tibbs, who previously was nearly killed by Collins, and with Anton Ling, one of the main players in the story. Ling provides Burke with the mechanism to write about Mexicans who sneak into the U.S. and the hardships they face in doing so. The action unfolds in the stretch of flat barren lands that spans Texas and Mexico. Burke does a good job with surprising changes in alliances among the characters, none of whom strike me as being “normal” folks. You don’t need to know more – it’s a good read.

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

'Faceless Killers' was Henning Mankell’s first Kurt Wallander mystery but achieved international best seller status and was later the motivation for a BBC TV series and played on PBS Masterpiece Theater. While the storyline was very interesting and compelling, the writing was poor. I later learned it was translated from Swedish to English so perhaps it’s the translation that is lacking.

The mystery is set in Ystad, Sweden where the main character, Kurt Wallander is lead detective and interim Police Chief while his boss is away on a long holiday. Wallander is in his mid forties and disappointed where life has taken him. He struggles with loneliness because his wife unexpectedly left him and his close ties with his daughter have been severed. He has to deal with an aging, possibly senile, father and his attraction to the new female district attorney who happens to be married. Plus, he's drinking too much and putting on weight due to a steady diet of pizza and fast food.

The story begins with an elderly farmer’s discovery that his neighbors, also elderly, have been murdered. The husband has been gruesomely tortured and killed and his wife left for dead. Before she dies in the hospital, her last word is "foreign." With anti-immigrant sentiment running high already, the last thing the police need is for this to slip out to the media, but someone in the department leaks the information and suddenly refugee camps in the area are being firebombed. When a Somali refugee is killed, seemingly at random, Wallander and his staff have two highly charged cases to solve.

Yet Wallander has difficulty focusing on his work with all his personal problems. He spends much of his time brooding about the state of the world and the state of his society and he is sympathetic to the anti-immigrant mentality. He's concerned that just about anyone, even undesirable characters, can come to the country and request asylum. And, the system is ill equipped and underfunded to monitor and locate all the refugees. But tracking down the murderer of the Somali refugee is his job and he does it, even with all his personal distractions.

This book was given to me by my daughter’s friend who picked it up on the recommendation of a West Village boutique bookstore owner in NYC. As I read it I struggled with the writing and that overshadowed the message. (You know the feeling you get when two pages stick together and you are on the third or fourth line of the new page and you think, ‘I must have missed something’? Well, that kept happening…..but in the middle of the page.) But the longer it’s been since I finished this book, the more I find myself thinking about the substance of the story. From the few Europeans I know, I understand the immigration issue is a growing concern and is burdening their economies. I know holidays are very important in the European culture but are often resented by those left behind to cover. Mankell seems to point out several growing social issues but offers no solutions other than we are all in this together and must carry on. Perhaps that’s why the popularity. Now I’m sufficiently interested to try another Henning Mankell novel, hopefully a better translation next time.

Just One Look by Harlen Coben

Ordinary day. Grace Lawson drops his kids at school, picks up some art supplies and some pics from a roll of film she dropped off last week. While sitting at a stoplight, she notices a photo of 5 college students from a recent era. She shows the pic to her husband; he sure looks like one of the people in the photo. He looks, makes a call a bit later, walks out the door and disappears.

An assistant US attorney is told the death of his sister in a fire wasn't an accident. The police aren't much help, and a guy skilled at killing with his hands just got out of the joint. A lady whose kids attend the same school has a hobby - flashing her accountant neighbor - but one day sees a stranger ducking out of the accountant's house. And there must be 3 or 4 more strange coincidences that all happen when Grace gets this picture.

About 15 years ago, Grace attended the concert of rocker Johnny X. Gunshots were fired and the resulting stampeded, the so-called Boston Massacre, killed 15 people and left Grace with a huge concussion and a limp. About 2 weeks of Grace's life were summarily erased that night.

Grace doggedly pursues minor clues that eventually seem to tie the disconnected deaths together. But, to rob a line from Lee Corso from GameDay on ESPN, "Not so fast.' Coben does one of the more jaw dropping reveals in the very last couple pages, none of which were expected. Holy cow did most of the reveal come from out of nowhere even if he had been dropping hints for over 300 pages.

And that's what will keep me coming back to more Coben. Can you say Power Rotation? I sure can.

East Coast Don

Eye of Vengeance by Jonathon King

I started reading King's Max Freeman series, all (so far) of which have been favorably reviewed here. This is King's first standalone novel.

There's a skilled sniper working in South Florida. Veteran crime reporter Nick Mullins sees the results first hand when he witnesses the murder of a convicted pedophile during a routine prisoner transfer.

Now Nick has some serious demons. Three years ago, after a quarrel, his wife died in a traffic accident, killed by a drunk who is now being paroled. Nick went off the deep end for a while, but rehabbed by working, leaving his Cuban housekeeper to raise his daughter. Another parolee gets cut down in from of the parole office. Then two more.

The sniper turns out to be a SWAT team member, recently back from a tour as an Army sniper in Iraq. After some digging, soul searching, and the sharp eye of the newspaper research maven, Nick figures out that the sniper is using Nick's stories of mayhem as his observer choosing targets. But the police and the Secret Service don't buy it. They think the sniper is planning to off the Sec'y of State when she comes to Florida to make a speech. Of course they are wrong.

I really like the Max Freeman series and thought I was getting another to read on a recent trip. Nick Mullins was an intriguing character, but not as good as Max Freeman. Thank goodness that King has more Freeman stories still on the shelf, waiting for me to read.

East Coast Don

Bitterroot by James Lee Burke

I always thought Burke's main character was Dave Robicheaux, a cop in rural Louisiana. Now I've met up with Billy Bob Holland in this 2001 book.

Billy Bob is a former Texas Ranger and now a lawyer is some backwater Texas town who talks to the ghost of his former partner whom Billy Bob accidentally killed while chasing some drug mules out of their jurisdiction in Mexicon. His longtime friend and former Seal, "Doc" Voss ran away from life with his daughter when his wife died, settling outside of Bozeman, Montana. The doc invites Billy Bob up for the summer. Everybody in town hates the doc cuz he is more of an environmentalist in a town that favors progress. Not only is some company doing nasty things in some mines, but the Bitterroots are home to a white supremacist group, a 'retired' mob chief, and a sociopath that Billy Bob put in prison only to see him paroled, Wade Dixon.

To intimidate the doc, some whack jobs rape his daughter but all that does is freak him out to the point of being accused of murdering one of the perps. Billy Bob tries to help out but mostly succeeds in pissing off everyone be they perp or police or Wade Dixon.

In the end, the bad guys and strange women meet their maker, the doc and daughter reconcile, Billy Bob stops screwing locals and his investigator long enough to do some camping and fishing with his sone.

I've come to like the Robicheaux thread of stories, but I actually thought Billy Bob was a bit like Robicheaux only way more annoying, to me and to the other characters. Maybe if I'd read a Billy Bob Holland book first, I'd think differently. Next time I pick up Burke, I'll make sure it is about Deputy Dave.

East Coast Don

The Litigators by John Grisham

‘The Litigators’ is a good effort by John Grisham. He entertains with the drama of human desperation and hypocrisy and with the thrill of young idealism fighting for the underdog against foreboding big business.

David Zinc is a Harvard educated lawyer who burns out at a large downtown Chicago law firm and finds himself working in the poor suburbs at a crummy, ambulance chasing two lawyer ‘boutique’ firm. The partners at Finley & Figg are grouchy Oscar Finley and slick, unethical Wally Figg, both just scrapping by in their careers and in their lives. David tries to add some organization and direction to the firm but the partners are preoccupied; Oscar with an unhappy marriage and Wally with get rich quick schemes and the bottle. Wally’s latest scheme involves suing a mega pharmaceutical company for wrongful death caused by one of their cholesterol lowering wonder drugs. With no trial experience by any of the Finley & Figg lawyers, Wally signs with a large Florida based tort law firm and makes plans to ride their coat tails to fame and fortune. The large pharmaceutical company, hires David’s former employer and prepares for battle. With little or no proof the drug in question actually caused people to die, the Florida tort firm withdraws and leaves the underfunded, under experienced boutique firm to prove their claims in federal court against an army of seasoned litigators. Threatened with malpractice and sanctions for filing a frivolous law suit, Oscar has a heart attack as the trial opens and Wally goes on a bender leaving young David as the sole plaintiff’s attorney. With limited funding for expert witnesses, the plaintiff claims of wrong doing are skillfully unraveled by the crisp, professional performance of the defendant’s lead attorney. David does manage to save face and sanctions for his firm by discrediting the pharmaceutical company on some minor points.

Meanwhile and on his own time, David meets a Burmese family whose six year old son is deathly ill from lead poisoning believed ingested from Chinese made toys. David and his wife become emotionally attached and invest in tracking down the villainous toy company. He also helps a group of illegal immigrant workers get justly compensated by an unscrupulous constructional company. David discovers real satisfaction in defending the helpless whether his clients or his coworkers.

I’ve read most everything John Grisham has written and own most of his works in hard cover. Upon completion of each novel my thoughts are always the same; his very best work was his very first novel, ‘A Time to Kill.’ I obviously enjoy all his work but I wish he would again write something as classical as his first that I equate to ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

Three separate events make up the backstory to Nightwoods: one horrific night for Luce just after graduating from high school; the murder of Luce's sister Lily by her dirtbag of a husband; the death of old man Subblefield who owns the decaying old hotel where Luce works as the sole caretaker. The time is early 1960s in the North Carolina mountains.

That horrific night was the catalyst for Luce to turn her back on the world and live a near monastic life of solitude and near silence in the mountains. Lily and Luce were raised (a term more ironic than accurate) by a couple of young narcissists for too young to be having children. Their mom just took off and their father was entirely disinterested. The death of Lily means that Luce is the sole surviving relative of Lily's preschool twins that DCFS drops off on Luce's doorstep. Now Luce doesn't really like kids, but she will love them despite the state's doctors calling them feebleminded, and being told not to turn her back on them, to hide the matches, and don't let them near chickens. These kids have been scarred and while Luce wants to know how and why, she is willing to let the kids warm to her on their own terms.

Lily's killer, Bud, beats the charge in the state court in Raleigh and decides to seek a new life as a bootlegger and dealer at the far end of the state. As luck would have it, he ends up in the town near where Luce is delicately and decently trying to bring the children out of their trauma-induced shell. Old man Stubblefield left the old lodge, a rundown bar, some bottom land near the lake, and plenty of unpaid taxes to his grandson who, once he learns his way around, takes a liking to Luce and respectfully tries to court her while attempting to gain some acceptance by the children who watch silently while rocking on the lodge's porch or while building fires or breaking chicken's legs.

Bud is sure that Lily somehow got some money of his to Luce or into the kid's possessions and fueled by booze, starts to make his play. But once he has broken in the lodge to look, he is surprised by the children. Startled by seeing Bud, and fearing for their own well being (they must've seen Bud kill their mother), they pack up necessities like okra, matches and kindling, some fruit and peanut butter, borrow a neighbor's horse and head up into the mountains in November to get away from Bud leading to a search party, camping rednecks, a black hole of a quarry, rattlers, bears, and an early season snowfall to tie up the lose ends of the story.

Frazier is as famous for his stunning debut novel (Cold Mountain) as he is for the $8million advance for his less than stunning 2nd effort (Thirteen Moons). This is one part departure for Frazier (it's 20th century instead of 19th) and one part return to what worked in Cold Mountain, where he alternated chapters telling of Iman's walk across NC to get to his home and of Ada's struggle to survive as an outsider in the mountains until Iman returns from the civil war. Here, he flips back and forth between Bud and Luce with each chapter. Both Bud and Luce are fascinating characters in entirely different ways.

Frazier's writing is incredibly lyrical and you want to reread sentences just because they practically sing out to you. And therein lies the problem. The pacing of the story runs as slow and as thick as the sap of the pine forests so eloquently described by Frazier. For 200 pages, Frazier DETAILS the comings and goings of mountain life that is mired in post world war glow with little attention to what's going on beyond the reaches of the scratchy local AM radio station's narrow broadcast radius. When 3 subplots (Luce/Stubblefield/kids, Bud, and the deputy sheriff) come together, a literate, if plodding version of some latter-day Faulkner tale becomes a must-read. But in the end, I was kind of let down by how the story closed, coming full circle back to the delicate, quiet life that Luce had cut for herself.

For those who choose to read this because of Cold Mountain, don't expect a revisit to his recreation of the horror of post-civil war NC. At least you won't need a dictionary of 19th century English for Nightwoods. What you will need is patience to let the story slowly unfold as well as be prepared to appreciate the all too frequent passages that light up this vaguely dark tale set in some southern gothic town that none of us will ever find on any map.

East Coast Don

Avalance: Lessons of Love

This is a nonfiction work about overcoming loss and tragedy. Alfonso Ochoa was a successful Mexican industrialist who was also an adventurer. As he had done before, in 1991, he flew from his home in Guadalajara to the Bugaboo Mountains in Canada for helicopter skiing with his buddies. He left behind his wife of 17 years and their six kids, the youngest being less than a year old. He never came back alive. On the day of his death, Alfonso was the only one of the Mexican crew who wanted to get in one more run, so he joined some others for a lift back up the mountain while his buddies retired after a beautiful and exciting day. On the last run, there was an avalanche that killed Alfonso and 8 others. Only the guide somehow survived. Alfonso’s wife, Kris, is an American woman who tells this story. There’s an evil brother-in-law, Francisco Ochoa, who stole her businesses and her fortune. Although she knew it was against long odds, Kris sued the tour company that put her husband in harm’s way, but the Canadian courts did not find in her favor. Then, she was countersued and had to pay back the attorney fees for the very people that were responsible for her husband’s death. Real life can not only be stranger than fiction, but also crueler. Meanwhile, Kris had to raise her family, but she had to do so without her wealth. Each of the family members went through turmoil in the face of moves from Mexico to San Diego, not only changing schools, but also changing languages and cultures. But, Kris is far more than a survivor – her life is a testament to perseverance and faith. For an atheist like me, it was hard to identify with some of the passages when she referenced and emphasized her belief in God. But, she also wrote about using meditation and spirituality to keep her mind on track. She found her way into another wonderful relationship, a man who she completely loved and who totally filled the role of father to her six children. After some great years together, her second husband died suddenly from pancreatic cancer, so Kris was back in the midst of hardship without a partner to help her through. She tells the rest of her story, bringing you up to the present, regarding how she bounced forward another time. Sometimes, I thought the writing was a bit weak, but the story is gripping, one that you won’t put down. It is a remarkable, compelling, and true story of love, loss, and triumph.

Headstone by Ken Bruen

Rest easy, children. Jack Taylor is watching out for you.

Brine has threatened, intimidated, and manipulated some mates in boarding school to be his followers - members of Headstone. And he has a goth girl for a lover. On a mission. Make history. Have movie made about him. Get on Oprah. Never be forgotten. They start out with an assault on an old priest. Then they kill a Down's child. Other killings and maulings happen around Galway and The Guard thinks they are random. Jack, his sort of friend and ex-con Stewart and former Guard partner Ridge (the lesbian who married to a schmuck rich boy in need of arm candy) think otherwise because each have received a little gift in the mail. About the size of a deck of cards, they get their very own headstone.

Jack continues to fight his personal demons of his past as well as his inability at keeping any friendships ("We were never going to be friends, Jack, and you know I doubt we ever were."). His diet has the 4 major food groups (Jameson, cigarettes, black coffee, Xanax) to help with with 4-5 side stories. Like a creepy priest dressed in an Armani stole who represents a shadowy group inside the church trying to dress up the church's image with "smooth lies of an insincere priest." He hires Jack to find a renegade priest who supposedly ran off with The Brethren's money. Or Kosta, a crime boss who is indebted to Jack (from an earlier book) and will do anything for Jack, but expects the same in return.

Ridge is the victim of a anti-lesbian attack. Jack is assaulted, beaten, and tortured ending up in the hospital . . . minus two fingers. He asks Kosta for weapons. Sets up Stewart as bait. Then kidnaps the goth, applies his own torture to find out what Bine's plan is. So he and Stewart head out, armed to the teeth and scared shitless ("I'm bad tempered naturally. Fear makes me dangerous"). But afterward, Jack is wracked with some measure of guilt and heads for the bottles (Jameson and Xanax) looking for some solace because "they haven't invented the drink that wipes the slate clean of utter treachery."

Bruen liberally spices his books with current book, music, and movie references and this one Taylor suggests that Ridge take up some fiction and suggests a MRB fav - James Lee Burke. Smart guy. I've read a bunch of Bruen. Right now, I'd say this is my #2 favorite of his books.

Jack may limp and have to wear a hearing aid. But be glad he's on the case. When he's done, you are clean and Jack carries away your guilt and pain, when he does, "Elvis hadn't so much as left they building as stormed out with murder aforethought."

East Coast Don

Winterkill

This was a very good book. It’s apparently only the third in the series, and there’s no doubt I’ll read more. Winterkill is the term used for the number of elk that die during the winter season, mostly from starvation and the bitter cold. Game Warden Joe Pickett, from Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming, was out checking on the herd when, from a great distance, he saw his Forest Service supervisor, Lamar Gardiner, simply start shooting an entire herd of elk. Even though it was hunting season, the limit was only one animal. Joe, who had once arrested the governor for fishing without a license, began pursuing his supervisor with the intent of locking him up. By the time he got to him, the man was almost dead. He had been shot in the torso with two arrows which pinned his body against a tree. Before Joe could get him to a hospital, Gardiner died. It turns out there had been some unrest in the area over the Feds who ran half of the state via the Bureau of Land Management, and Gardner was a target for that unhappiness. Melinda Strickland was the new Forest Service official who had come to Wyoming to deal with the unrest, and she was focused on an odd lot of displaced people who had chosen a spot in the national forest to camp out. She was sure they were the source of that murder, and other problems. She was determined to evict them from the forest, a task Joe rightly thought was ridiculous, and he could not see the connection between the problems that Strickland claimed and the “sovereigns” who just wanted to be left alone. To complicate things, one of the sovereigns was the mother of April Keeley, the little girl who was abandoned about the same time Joe and his wife, Marybeth, lost a baby when Marybeth lost a baby because she was shot in the stomach while pregnant. It had been five years since that happened, and Joe and Marybeth had brought April into their home and loved her as if she was their own child, their third daughter. Now, Jeannie Keeley wanted her daughter back and the Picketts were not about to let that happen. Except, Jeannie gets a court order for custody of her daughter, and takes her to camp with the sovereigns. There’s one more very important character that fits into the story. Nate Romanowski is a mountain man, a former Special Forces guy, a guy who is totally tuned into his environment, a man who is the ultimate loner who has been living with little contact with other humans for many years. It was Nate who was first arrested for the murder of Gardiner. The clash of story lines takes the maniacal Strickland on a rampage against the sovereigns, setting up a possible Ruby Ridge/Waco scenario. Joe just wants to make sure his daughter is safe. C. J. Box is now in my power rotation of authors. Pickett is a great character and he is put in plot lines that are intense and very believable. This was a most entertaining read, one that I did not want to put down. I’ve already gotten the next one in the series, Nowhere to Run.

Animosity

This was my fifth David Lindsey book, his 11th book which was written in 2001. (Remember he also wrote Pacific Heights under the name Paul Harper.) Animosity was so interesting and so different than his other books. While the plot mattered a lot, this story was mostly driven by a fascinating study of characters. Ross Marteau is a sculpture who splits time between Paris and his home in San Rafael, Texas. He’s famous, and he’s made a small fortune by doing expensive nude sculptures of the beautiful wives of very wealthy men. His work is in demand and he is able to move directly from one commission to the next. The wealthy men seem to want to catch the beauty of their women before they change and age. Marteau has never been married and he’s had relationships with his models and his subjects, including the women he’s sculpting. If his art is criticized at all, it is because he has chosen to go for the money rather than attempt to be true to his art, as if he should sacrifice a comfortable life for the sake of his craft. The book starts in Paris as his relationship with the next lover, Marian, has fallen apart. They have been brutal with each other and their fights have been fodder for the French tableaus. But as Marteau leaves Marian, she does not take it well. She only exits his life after throwing a knife at him which imbeds in his shoulder and does him some damage. He moves back to San Rafael to begin work on his next commission. It is there that he is contacted by two French sisters with a new commission. He quickly becomes romantically involved with the older sister, Celeste Lacan, while delaying his other commission to take on the statue of the younger sister, Leda, a stunning beauty who has a most interesting deformity that will be a great challenge to his talents. But, all is not as it seems. The older sister is married and estranged from her wealthy and abusive husband. Leda is angry about her own appearance and the abuse her sister has put up with in order to get a stipend from her husband that supports them both. As the story evolves, Marteau learns that Celeste and Leda specifically chose him to do the statue because of their connection with one of his past lovers, his first model, who was a most destructive woman and the real love of his life. Leda turns out to be a most manipulative and scheming woman. The love scenes that Lindsey writes are very erotic, and the ending of the story was absolutely unexpected by me. Even knowing that, you won’t see it coming, I promise. This was a good book, a quick read, most enjoyable, and it gets a high recommendation from me.

The Affair by Lee Child

The Affair is the best Lee Child novel I’ve read. The setting is a flash back to 1997 when the Jack Reacher character is a Major in the Army’s military police. By flashing back, the author provides valuable character development for his famed Jack Reacher that I’ve felt lacking in his previous works.

Major Jack Reacher is ordered to Carter Crossing, MS, a small town near Fort Kelham. Fort Kelham is an Army base for training some elitist ranger squadrons. A young woman has been raped and murdered and Reacher is to be the Army undercover guy outside the base. He is to interact with the local authorities and subtly convince them that Army personnel are innocent of the crime, whether they are or not. Yet from Reacher’s record he has no history of subtlety. His approach has always been direct and his style ‘nothing but the truth.’ So, this assignment makes him think he is somehow a political scapegoat and his Army career may be in jeopardy.

Sheriff Elizabeth Deveraux immediately recognizes Reacher as the Army infiltrator when he arrives in Carter Crossing. She is a former USMC MP and had been expecting the tactic from the Army. She is also a beautiful single woman the same age as Reacher. Mutual professional respect and a strong physical attraction quickly advances to a sexual relationship yet they remain suspicious of each other’s motives. Reacher learns there were two other young women raped and murdered in Carter Crossing both Black and both ignored by the Army. Reacher also discovers a volunteer militia group attempting to protect the Army but unknown to Fort Kelham’s leadership. High level politics are at play.

Through further investigation Reacher learns the most likely suspect for the murders is Captain Reed Riley. He has the reputation for fraternizing with the prettiest young ladies, was stationed at Fort Kelham at the time of all three murders, and dated all three. He is also the son of U.S. Senator Carlton Riley, who is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Yet Reacher’s Army superiors keep feeding him evidence that points to Sheriff Deveraux as the murderer. Her military history and conditions surrounding her discharge come into question. Reacher must make his own judgments and act in his vigilante style to save face for the Army and bring the true villains to justice.

Lee Child has a true talent for building and maintaining suspense; holds your attention and compels you to read on. His Jack Reacher character is perilous not just for his infallible combat skills but for his confidence in his own judgments and eagerness to act on them, legal or not. He acts as judge, jury and executioner and we applaud him for it. Great fiction!

From East Coast Don:

Thought I'd add my $0.02 here rather than as a comment. I agree with Midwest Dave that this is one of the best Reacher books to date. I've read the entire series and like any series there are some hits and some misses. I'd be hard pressed to say which Reacher books weren't first rate, but Child's venturing back (like Vince Flynn did in his last Mitch Rapp book) was a welcome diversion from the Reacher as vagabond savior to the latest in a long line of locally oppressed. Actually wish Child would venture into Reacher's military past more often. This one is not to be missed. I still have the question I've posed in other posts - with all the Reacher books having been optioned to Hollywood, just who in the hell would play Reacher? Know any 6'5" 225-250# actors looking for a lead role as one serious alpha dog?

Louise's War by Sarah Shaber

Spring, 1942 in Washington, D.C. Louise Pearlie is a supervisory file clerk in the newly created OSS, the predecessor to the CIA. She's a late 20's widow from Wilmington, NC. Her best friend from junior college, Rachael Bloch, lives in Vichy, France with her husband, an expert on ocean currents and geography, especially north Africa - ground zero for an allied invasion. And they want out in advance of the Nazi's arrival in Vichy.

Louise learns of Rachel's plight and tries to find a way to get the OSS special projects folks to sneak the family out. She quietly asks her boss about moving them up the visa list. But fat guy that he is, he dies suddenly of a heart attack and the file disappears. Louise sets out trying to find the file. Failing that, she'll try to reconstruct the file. And just maybe she'll find out who took the file and why.

So our heroine tries to get her hands on info through the DC party circuit, Director Donovan's inner circle, friends in her boarding house, a mysterious boarder from Prague she has the hots for, all the while thinking the FBI is on to her little investigation.

Sarah Shaber is a local Raleigh writer who wrote the 5 book Simon Shaw series, all reviewed here. The cover blurb says this is the first of a new series by Shaber. The same blurb used adjectives like cozy, comfortable, and charming - all very accurate. This short book could easily read over a lazy weekend. Nice story, but I think I liked the Simon Shaw series better.

East Coast Don

The Day Before Midnight

Maybe this was a good thriller when it was written in 1989, but 22 years later, it’s an old story line. It had been a while since I read Hunter, one of my favorite authors (think Bob Lee Swagger), but I’ve reached too far into the past. It’s a story about terrorists taking over a U.S. based nuclear missile silo with the intent on starting WWIII, and coming out victorious so they can rule the world. In 2011, it may still be a possible thing, but we’ve heard variations on the theme too many times. Hunter does his usual great job in presenting interesting and believable characters, and the plot evolves in a plausible and rapid manner. Alas, it’s just too dated and trite.

Swan Peak

This is another Detective Dave Robicheaux story, but this time, he’s moved out of venue. Instead of the usual Louisiana scene, Dave and his wife Molly have taken time off for the summer. They’ve gone to Montana to hunt and fish on the ranch of a friend, and they’ve taken along Clete Purcell, one of Dave’s oldest and best friends. What Burke does so well is write about seriously emotionally damaged people. Both Dave and Clete have PTSD from their Vietnam days, and Clete’s is even worse than Dave’s. Clete has not gone the way of AA, cannot keep a relationship, and his violent tendencies keep him from staying in a job. He had one been Dave’s beat partner on the New Orleans Police Department, but after losing that job due to his unrestrained violence, Clete became a PI. Dave and Molly have taken Clete to Montana, hopefully to give him a chance to clear his head, to sober up. But, it does not work out that way. Burke writes so clearly about what it’s like to have PTSD, I wonder if he is not a sufferer of that condition. He writes with equal insight into alcoholism. The other important characters in this book are psychopaths, and Burke knows them well, too. This is a story about multiple murders that take place. First the college couple is found mutilated, then the older Hollywood twosome are killed in a truck stop. There’s more, and the cast of characters is good. As the book evolves, there are really so many bad people involved, that the serial murderer could be any of them, and the identity of that person is not revealed until near the end of the book. Burke uses the book to spin some of his own philosophy. So, in an attempt to get away from trouble, of course Dave and Pete walk right into it. There is a collision of truly deranged characters with those who are only partially bent. Burke has Robicheaux think, “I’m not sure I believe in Karma, but as one looks back over the aggregate of his experience, it seems hard to deny the patterns of intersection that seem to be at work in our lives, in the same way it would be foolish to say that the attraction of metal filings to a magnet’s surface is a result of coincidence.” In describing one of the psychopaths, at the character’s funeral, Burke writes, “Quince Whitley had probably been a misogynist, if not a misanthrope, and his mourners represented elements in our cultures whose existence we either deny or whose origins we have difficulty explaining.” Finally, regarding Dave’s struggle with sobriety, this main character says, “The desire is always there – in my sleep, in the middle of a fine day, in the middle of a rainstorm. It doesn’t matter. It’s always there.” I will keep James Lee Burke in my power rotation of authors.

Tropical Depression by Laurence Shames

So why is Murray Zemelman so depressed he is considering suicide? He's the Bra King - the leading producer of, you guessed it, bras. He's married to one of his models, spends his days looking at, designing, and marketing certain female assets. And he's taking enough Prozac to perk up a Clydesdale. So, instead of sucking down the carbon monoxide in his garage, he tears off for . . .

Key West where he pays 6 months advance for a penthouse and decides to take up fishing . . . no deals, no pressure, just he and the fish. Problem is, he has no clue how. Watching this Indian, Tommy Tarpon, gives him some clues. And he plays cards with a bunch of old farts and a Florida state senator. He also wants to see if Franny, his first wife now living in Sarasota, will consider dropping in.

But Murray is getting bored. He needs a deal. While chatting it up with the Indian fisherman, he learns that Tommy Tarpon is the last living member of a small Florida tribe, the Matalatchee. But he's not the only guy looking at a deal. Our senator accepted campaign money from a connected guy who wants to open a casino in Key West, but so far hasn't been able to deliver the goods and Charlie Ponte ain't happy. No he isn't.

Tommy is bitter toward the Whites, so Murray sees the deal he needs and starts the process to get the Matalatchee recognized by the US of A in order to partner up to open their own casino and stick it to the Man. Once that process starts, the Senator tells Ponte who tries to lean hard on Tommy Tarpon to accept him as his partner, but Tommy politely passes.

Franny comes down for the recognition ceremony, Tommy turns Ponte down getting Franny kidnapped, but Murray orchestrates a distraction at the exchange (a boat load of models in lingerie, of course) and they they retreat to a small island to hash out a plan to draw out the Senator and Ponte so that Tommy can protect his Sovereign Island nation.

My brother-in-law lives in Tampa and has read a number of Shames's books, recommending him to me and glad he did. Call Shames "Carl Hiaasen lite". Surely everyone knows humorist Hiaasen who writes about the rape of Florida by developers and crooked politicians. If the other books by Shames follow this trend, the sleezebags are transplants from the north and (surprise, surprise) politicians trying to get a piece of Key West.

And funny. Having just returned from a week at the NC Outer Banks, I would have to say that any of the Key West series by Shames are excellent examples of a beach read. Funny mystery? Mysterious humor? Who cares. If you like Hiaasen, you will like Shames.

East Coast Don

The Coldest Winter

I’m still in Korea and I’ve continued to read a bit more about the history of his country. This was Halberstam’s last book, the 21st of 21, a 10-year work that was finished in 2007. This is a nonfiction work. He had just turned in his final manuscript, when five days later, he was killed in a car crash in California where he was on his way to an interview for his next book. He was a journalist and author, one of our best contemporary historians (and I don’t think that’s an oxymoronic phrase). Much of this book was a bit too tedious for me, a tight and well-written history of “The Forgotten War,” the Korean War. It would serve as a great textbook on the subject. The best part was the end, the last two chapters, the epilogue, the author’s note, and an afterword by Russell Baker. Chapter 10 was entitled “The General and The President.” It beautifully reviewed the conflict between very unpopular Truman and nearly deified McArthur, the conflict leading to McArthur’s dismissal, and then McArthur’s famous farewell speech to a joint session of Congress. Chapter 11 was entitled, “The Consequences.” Halberstam’s analysis of Korea and the effect it had on the politics of Vietnam is insightful. His review of politics and policies of the Democrats and Republicans through the 50s and 60s was excellent. He wrote, “In a stunningly short time, South Korea had morphed itself into a dynamic, highly productive, extremely successful democracy. ‘I cannot think of another country, at least in recent history, that went so swiftly from an authoritarian system to a democracy on its own,’ a member of the party of Roh Tae Woo, a truly democratically elected president of Korea, once told Frank Gibney. In the South the great success had come because the top of the political hierarchy had been forced, no matter how reluctantly, to pay attention to the needs and aspirations of the bottom and middle of the society.” At a time that the middle class of America is feeling that it’s been sold out to corporate greed, and at a time of people occupying Wall Street as a demonstration against such, maybe Halbertson’s words will bring hope to their demands to be noticed and more fairly represented.

The Tehran Initiative

Simply put, this was a contest between the allegedly good forces of Christianity and the evil forces of Islam. The author repeatedly quotes the Bible and states that giving one’s life over to Jesus will allow you to be saved. During the story, so called good Muslims are saved when they accept Jesus into their hearts. Characters who are skeptical of Christianity are suddenly converted under skeptical circumstances. If you’re a militant Christian, and our history is abundant with them, or if you’re a Christian bigot, or if you just find yourself, for no reason at all, wanting to kick some Muslim butt, then this book is for you. Rosenberg does create good characters, and this book builds on the ones he wrote about in his prior six books in this series. He sets up a reasonable story line, but the Christianity theme is too thick. I was tempted to quit before I got halfway through this one, but I obsessively plowed through to the end. After reading several Rosenberg books, I’m ready not to read the next one.

To Try Men's Souls

I decided to throw a bone to the right coast, right wing, wrong-headed writer, East Coast Don, with whom I share this blog. Midwest Dave will get a pass on these current comments. The bone – a choice to read a novel by ultimate right wing guy, Newt Gingrich. The choice is born from the philosophy of learning from the enemy, i.e., Patton read Rommel’s book. I mean, I even searched out the works of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz in an attempt to understand why they thought we should invade Iraq. That effort only further convinced me that they were either delusional or just liars. But, I digress.

This novel was not much of a political work. Mostly, it was just some good propaganda about our first president and Thomas Paine, who was the best American propagandist ever and our first great battle correspondent. This story does a good job reliving the first six months of the revolution, from the Declaration of Independence on 7/4/1776 through the battle at Trenton which took place on 12/26/76. After an early victory in Boston, the Continental Army had one defeat after another until their unlikely victory at Trenton when they routed the Hessians. Newt (we’re on a first-name basis) presents the idea that if Washington had lost at Trenton, that the revolution would have been lost right then. I doubt that is true, but it would have taken a long while to recover from a defeat, if it had occurred. I clearly remember the stories about Washington crossing the Delaware to get to Trenton, but I did not remember the horrific conditions in which he did so or the battle-weary, sorry state of his troops who made the crossing with him. The battle showed remarkable heroism by Washington and his troops, no doubt. It was worthwhile to review the early details of the revolution and the difficulties that the colonists were facing. I thought Newt got pretty schmaltzy at times, especially with regard to the speeches that Washington gave to encourage the troops, but his leadership skills must have been impressive. It is also an understatement to say those were dire times. Overall, while it was far from being a great book, it was a good historical fiction and a good read.

Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott

Sam and Lucy Capra have a great life. Both work in the CIAs London office and are expecting a baby boy. Sure, he does some undercover work as a smuggler trying to track down a money launderer who works with some rogue governments, but his job is all about manipulating bad guys for information. Hasn’t been dangerous so far.

Sam has to present some updates at a company meeting when his wife calls in a panic telling him to get out of the building immediately. He does on the pretense of a bad cell connection and when he hits the street, the building blows up taking out the entire office at this location. And Sam sees his wife being whisked away in a car. The ensuing investigation focuses on Sam and his wife because they survived. But Sam is taken into custody to a number of different safe houses where he is questioned, beaten, and tortured. Only one conclusion makes sense. Sam may be clean, but clearly Lucy isn’t, meaning Sam was both blinded by love and used by whatever enemy she works for. It’s a cabal calling itself Novem Soles (9 Suns) bent in creating anarchy.

Essentially under house arrest in NYC, Sam works as a bartender and is watched round the clock. Combine months of that with being sure that Lucy hadn’t been turned, Sam works up a plan to shed his watchers, stowaway on a freighter to Rotterdam and start looking for Lucy and her captors.

In Rotterdam and then Amsterdam, Sam meets up with Mila, a member of the mysterious Round Table, who says she can help Sam but he has to help her first to save the daughter of some hot shot industrialist whose daughter has been kidnapped and turned a la Patty Hurst. Begrudgingly, he agrees and sets out on a roller coaster ride of bad guys, terrorists, murderers, blackmailers, and double crossers who get in his way, all the while being aided, guided, and mentored by Mila.

The grieving father makes weapons and he has a doozy. A process where a person’s DNA can be coded into a bullet making it a hand fired guided missile – the perfect weapon for an assassin or sniper. Sam finds computer files with 50 sets of DNA for the weapon.

My biggest issue was Mila. She turns up everywhere with the ability to get Sam out of any jam using anything from her telescoping club to a Glock to poison to the skills to hack into any network and connections virtually everwhere. I read her as a vehicle that allows Sam to make leaps of faith for the reader. The whole contorted plot just kept getting a bit hard to handle or believe. I know thriller fiction is supposed to be escapism, but a little bit can go a long way. Abbott is a 3-time Edgar nominee, but even with that pedigree, I’m guessing it’ll be a while before I look up another Abbott offering. Can’t please everyone.

East Coast Don

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

This is a non-fiction work about North Koreans. The author, Barbara Demick, was living in Seoul as the correspondent for the LA Times, and she interviewed six people who had successfully escaped from North Korea and made their way to South Korea. These people did not just sneak through the DMZ and cross directly into South Korea. Rather, they fled from Chongjin, a city in the far north, across the border with China. Demick reviewed the history of the peninsula and its partition at the end of WWII as a political solution to the conflicts with China and Russia. No one in the U.S. really knew what to do with this country which had been a colony of Japan since Korea was invaded in 1910. Japan lost their colony as a part of their defeat. Then, after only five years of peace, North Korea invaded the South, starting the 3-year Korean War. Demick described how, in the beginning, even into the early 60s, it looked like the North Korean economy would do much better than the South. But, their leader, Kim Il-Sung, and his son who took control in 1994, Kim Jong-Il, were focused on things other than what would best comfort their people, for example, developing their own nuclear arsenal. She described the propaganda machine that Kim Il-Sung created and the harsh methods he used to lock up his country, so no one could get in or out. This is a riveting tale of famine and loss, survival and success. The book belongs in our blog because of the incredible stories of hardship that have been overcome, all well-told by the author. By reading this book, I have a much better understanding of the problems of dealing with this truly rogue state. It helps that I’m in South Korea at the moment, but it would be a good read anywhere. I was able to ask our guide on a day in Seoul, a 50-year-old woman who is a native of South Korea, if she perceived a threat from the North. She nearly shook as she nodded her assent that she thought Kim Jong-Il was a dangerous leader who represented an unpredictable threat with nuclear potential. After reading the book, I understand why she feels that way. This one gets my highest recommendation.

The Blue Zone by Andrew Gross

The author has co-authored six books with James Patterson (Judge and Jury, Jester, etc), and he has some of his own novels. He’s probably best known for “Eyes Wide Open.” Benjamin Raab was a gold trader who had a most lucrative business that allowed him and his family to live elite lives. He seemed to be a dedicated family man, until his life fell apart. Suddenly, the FBI confiscated the contents of his office and charged him with money laundering for a Columbian drug cartel. His family which included a devoted wife, two daughters, and a son, were dumbfounded. They knew the head of their household as nothing other than an upstanding, honest, and dedicated man. But, all was not as it seemed. At first, Raab was going to fight the charges, but then he caved in and made a plea bargain. In exchange for admitting his own wrong doing and testifying against the cartel’s leaders, he and his family were put in the federal witness protection program. They even got to keep enough of the family assets to continue to live a lifestyle not much different than what they had before. But, uprooting a family is not easy for teenagers. The oldest daughter, an academic star who was living with her med school boyfriend in NY City, refused to go along. That meant she and the family, whose identify was being changed, could no longer see each other. But, outside the witness protection program, she was easily found and targeted by the cartel which was not about to let Raab go unpunished, even if they could not find and kill him. Besides, the witness protection program had been penetrated, and the agent who was in charge of Raab was brutally murdered, obviously to extract information. There were lots of twists and turns in this plot, which is normally a good thing, but in this book, perhaps there were a bit too many serpentine plot changes. It was a fast read and the characters were believable, even if the dialogue got a bit trite and ridiculous at times. I’ll probably give Gross another chance.

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

Why did I choose to read this book? For one thing, I’m in Asia (Korea) and I’ve been reading about Buddhism, two books not reviewed in the blog (The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D., and Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das). Yesterday, I visited a Buddhist temple, actually the headquarters for Korean Buddhism. The book was already in my Kindle library and the title seemed relevant. And, it has consistently gotten high marks by Amazon as one of the better historical fictions written this year. The book is about the hardships the Japanese suffered in the process of immigrating to the U.S., and of course, it also focused a bit on the hardships at home that drove them to seek a better life. This story focused on the women who were lured to America to find husbands, men who were terribly misrepresented to them by people who were paid by the number of women they could seduce into going. The time period covered was from the early 1900s through WWII and the internment camps. For most, it was a brutal journey at every step. The author was clever in presenting the information, and it was very readable. But, as an American history student, I knew about this period and the hardships of the Japanese – I didn’t learn anything new. If you’re ignorant to this aspect of American immigration, then it’s worth reading. I think the title reference to Buddha in the Attic had to do with leaving their culture and religion behind, hiding it away as a part of the effort to fit into a society that was so hard to comprehend and which treated them so badly. On the whole, it does not get my recommendation because it is too nakedly brutal. This was realism well done, not escapist literature.

The Dummy Line by Bobby Cole

This is a first novel for Bobby Cole, and he deserves to be rated highly in our blog. His venue is Alabama-Mississippi, the deep woods. Jake Crosby is a good guy who may have grown a bit distant from his wife, but he’s crazy about his 9-year-old daughter Katy. She’s a tomboy who gets to go with her dad on a turkey hunting trip, great for father-daughter bonding, except when they encounter the sociopath, Johnny Lee Grover and his rough pals. This wasn’t supposed to be a solo trip, but Jake’s hunting buddy decided spending time with his new wife was a better option for the weekend than getting up early and hanging out in a shooting house in the wilderness with another guy and his little girl. Thrown into the mix of characters are high school lovers, Tanner Tillman and Elizabeth Beasley, who need to find a remote site to spend some romantic time together. You can see the collision of story lines. Cole also blends in a mix of great cop characters, some good guys and one you love to hate. Deputy R. C. Smithson is a comic side-kick to Sheriff Ollie Landrum, the way Barnie Fife was to Andy Griffith. There was as much action in the first third of this book as in most of the books that we read. It was a good and entertaining vacation book. It gets my recommendation.

Out of Range by C.J. Box

The badge number of a Wyoming Game Warden is a ranking of their seniority in the system. Will Jensen is #4 and oversees the district that includes Jackson Hole. Paranoia and depression have destroyed his marriage before he finally ate a .44 magnum bullet. The state asks Joe Pickett to fill in until a permanent replacement can be found and he reluctantly agrees to the assignment.

When Joe arrives in Jackson, he quickly learns that he has stepped into a world of political hurt that seems to swirl around a planned development that needs one last signature, Jensen, to break ground. And Jensen wasn't going to sign as the plans blocked elk migration routes.

The development is the brainchild of Don Ennis who wants to not only put up million dollar homes but to also make the community part of the good meat movement, which raises their own stock, slaughters, and sells their 'pure' meat to the residents. With Jensen dead, Joe must sign off on a project that has the approval of the governor on down. The biggest mouthpiece against the project is the legendary outfitter Smoke van Horn who has his own issues with the wildlife folks, Jensen in particular.

Pickett tries to get up to speed on his new assignment by reading Jensen's log books, but the last one is missing. Now Joe has to make the rounds of the camps run by outfitters to check on licenses, permits, etc. so he packs up a couple horses and starts out for about a week. Once he gets to the state house in the wilderness kept for wardens, he finds Jensen's last log book and all the details about his slowly deteriorating mind.

He makes a wrong turn that takes him up a high ridge that, when he looked down on a meadow, spots Smoke placing salt blocks meant to lure elk for a easy shot by their mountain man wannabes. Joe takes some photos and continues on to the state house. That evening Smoke shows up and starts into it with Joe and knows that Joe will have to arrest him and he will then lose his license and livelihood. The next morning, Smoke shows up drunk, armed, and ready to take Joe out. As they face each other down, Smoke raised his gun, fires and Joe returns fire with his shotgun killing Smoke, killing the one man he's met whom he really understood.

Ennis thinks it easy sailing now until Joe says he won't sign off either so Ennis reaches out to the governor to add more pressure. After reading Jensen's log, he realizes that Ennis is behind Jensen's death and cooks up a scheme to get Ennis to admit to his crimes.

CJ Box was introduce to MRB by Midwest Dave with added support by WCDon. Add me to the list. I've read a bunch of man against the wilderness books and Box is added to my list with a single read. Michael Connelly wrote a cover blurb saying Box was in the mold of Tony Hillerman. High praise, but Hillerman took us deep into a foreign culture - Navaho nation. And the lack of that 'new world' link will, for the time being, keep Box a rung below Hillerman.

I did find one common thread. The bad guy is this book is a developer, just like Carl Hiaasen's books set in Florida. But I doubt that developers will show up book after book like Hiaasen. Also, I read an author's acknowledgements and have found a couple other titles used by Box in his research that I'll pursue.

Nonetheless, count me in. Box is a welcome addition to all of us here at MRB. Won't be long before the 3 of use will have run through them all.

East Coast Don

Abyss by David Hagberg

Kirk McGarvey is 18 months post assassination of his wife, daughter, and son-in-law and now trains newbies for the nuclear emergency response team. On a routine day of training in Miami, a nuclear power plant in Florida is hit by a highly trained operative, with inside help, who is attempting to start a meltdown. McGarvey and the local security manage to minimize the damage, but lives are lost nonetheless.

Eve Larson, a Princeton climatologist, has an idea. Sort of turn a windmill upside down, sink it in the Gulf Stream and let the currents spin the turbine and generate electricity. Can't miss - free energy with zero emissions that might even stabilize ocean temps thereby minimizing violent storms. She was there the day the terrorist tried to destroy the power station. If the damn thing works, oil, and all the people who speculate on future prices, are in for a big surprise. So the Saudis and the Venezuelans quietly back, through a number of back doors, a contract to make sure Dr. Larson's project never works out.

The US gov't can't overtly support her lest OPEC screw 'em, but they lean on an oil company who just happens to have an oil platform, due to be mothballed, to donate it to Dr. Larsen, tow it from the Gulf of Mexico around to the NE coast of Florida, rig it up to accept her impellers so that she can replace the power lost when the nuke plant went down. The terrorist prepares his team with plans to send the rig to the bottom of the gulf.

All the while a evangelical nutcase, who fancies himself running for President, takes on Big Nuclear Power as his calling, getting his flock to demonstrate against Dr. Larson and her project. Claims she is messing with God's plan. Multiple attempts are made on Dr. Larson, she has a mole on her staff, and McGarvey is there each time to keep the bad guys at bay.

I am wondering if I'm cooling on Hagberg and McGarvey. This was a long book, nearly 500 pages and there just seemed to be one too many implausible leaps of logic, at least to me. I think I'll have to really rethink whether I return.

This may be a first . . . an author dropping off my power rotation. Guess it was bound to happen sometime.

The Dead Room by Robert Ellis

Have you heard this story line before? Beautiful women keep disappearing, and the wrong guy gets blamed. In this case, the wrong guy is mailman, a true asocial weirdo who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he happened to have an interest in the last woman who was killed. Then, he was seen fleeing from the scene of her murder, so he must have been the one, right? The mailman happened to be the brother-in-law of a hot shot attorney who is simply embarrassed that he’s related to the guy. He just wants the matter to go away so his reputation and his family’s social standing won’t be tarnished. He hands the case to one of his rooky attorneys, Teddy Mack, a guy who hates criminal law and who came to the firm to do real estate law. Suddenly Teddy is in over his head with an ambitious DA who wants to be governor and sees this case as one that will bring him needed fame. Of course, Teddy turns out to be a man of integrity, so he won’t buckle under the pressure of his boss, the DA, and the press which wants to hang his client. It’s my opinion that you don’t need to read this book. The innocence of the mailman-bros-in-law was clear from the start of the book, and there were no unanticipated twists and turns – really a pedestrian effort by the author in plot and character development. I won’t give up on Ellis yet since I liked his first book and Midwest Dave is a big fan, but he’s got a strike against him for making my power rotation of authors.

The Informant by Thomas Perry

Just because you’ve been contracted by the Mafia doesn’t mean you may not end up in their crosshairs. It’s only business.

Not this time.

When Michael Schaeffer lost his parents when he was about 12, the local butcher took him in. The butcher was reasonably successful at his craft who took really good care of his best customers, the wives in particular. He taught Michael his ways and brought him up to be the best. In this case, the best was not as a meat cutter, but the best in the butcher’s part-time job – contract killer.

And Michael flourished. He scored his first kill at 16 and by 19 he was an independent contractor whose main employers were the various Mafia families who hired him to take out folks who had wronged the family no matter if the target was inside or outside La Cosa Nostra.

But, one lesson Michael learned was that business partners don’t cross each other. When one boss makes the unfortunate decision to have Michael snuffed after a job, Michael takes it personally. He kills an enemy of the boss, cuts off the head, hands, and feet for burial on said boss’s horse farm in upstate NY. Then calls the FBI and tips them off to the burial, landing the boss in prison for life.

Frank Tosca is a ruthless underboss in the old vein of Don’s back in the day. After about 10 years of the mob floundering around with his boss in prison, Frank is convinced that if the other crime families agree with him to kill The Butcher’s Boy (as he’s known by the mob), by doing so will give him the power to rise to the absolute boss of all the families. He arranges a meeting of the main 25 family heads at a dude ranch outside of Phoenix.

Frank had sent a couple slugs looking for Michael, finding him married and living near Bath, UK. Michael is none too pleased, kills them easily, and learns Tosca is behind the kill order. Michael heads back to the US and starts to track down Tosca, but has been out of the game for a decade and wants to know the current hierarchy, so he contact the Justice Dep’t organized crime wonk, Elizabeth Waring, who first deduced his existence about 20 years ago.

She doesn’t give him much, preferring to bring him in as an informant, which he declines. He whacks the next guys up the Tosca chain, a couple right under the noses of the Feds, and learns of the desert meeting. He arrives to find the 25 bosses surrounded by about 200 soldiers. He sneaks in (all those young soldiers had never seen him, only heard tales. It has been a while since he was active), learns of the consensus by the bosses, follows Tosca to his cottage, cuts his throat, and slips out past the coming FBI takedown of the conference; Waring found out where it was being held, too.

Michael finds out the mob is really pissed off. Now it's personal.

A normal guy might slink off to parts unknown, but Michael has decided to convince the mob that it is too dangerous to hunt him down and systematically crisscrosses the country taking out the heads and underbosses of the biggest families, and whoever is unfortunate enough to be nearby. As his butcher mentor once told him, "Anybody you kill by accident is just one you won't have to kill on purpose."

Waring knows the Mafia will come after him, probably hiring mercs to hunt him down and manages to offer witness protection, which Michael again ignores, preferring to continue to take out big shots. One team of mercs learns that Michael and Waring are connected somehow and go to her home near DC to hold Waring’s family hostage until Michael resurfaces.

Which he does.

I picked up this title from a trip to B/N a few months ago and got on the list at the library. Perry has about 20 titles to his name and this is the third of the Butcher’s Boy series (with Butcher’s Boy and Sleeping Dog). If I read Perry’s website correctly, the Butcher Boy books are spaced (copyright date) 10 years apart and the first won Perry an Edgar for debut novel. Stephen King said that Perry’s 2010 release, Strip, was a Top 10 Summer Read and he has had a number of NYT Best Sellers. Not that I know every crime writer, but this guy’s new to me and he really has got the chops. I think I like the concept behind this series, the plotting (OK, there are a few leaps of faith that may seem a bit far fetched), and the character development and will try to find the other 2 books as well as Strip. Hey, King’s opinion resonates with me as another of his must-read lists turned me to Olen Steinhauer and The Tourist.

East Coast Don