The Five by Robert McCammon

You see it on the back of any music CD (in about size 2 font):

Nomad - vocals, guitar

Ariel - vocals, guitar

Terry - keyboards

Berke - drums

Mike - bass

George - road manager

The band. Five musicians with a logical name. On tour starting in Texas, then westward to San Diego, ELay, and finishing back in Austin. Playing their music on the fringes of the music biz.

But it looks like they are breaking up. George has been asked to go into business back home in Chicago in his cousin's audio supply and setup shop. Terry wants to go home to Oklahoma and repair vintage keyboard equipment. The rest? They just want to rock. Nomad wants to kill this waitress (Hi, my name is Laura and I'll be your server) because she's asking too many lame brained questions about the band, telling them that her daughter is terrific on her guitar. Yeah, right. Who cares? We're outta here. Pile in the Scumbucket, their van, and drive to the next gig in Amarillo? Waco? George'll get us there in time for this lame interview by a car salesman (GoGo) to use on this weekend movie show on cable he sponsors. GoGo's advice? Know your role. Bite me. Back in the Scumbucket. PO'ed Nomad suggests they all write a song, one last ditty as a group. Some take it more seriously than others. Nomad's the least committed.

Rolling across the desert, something sets Nomad off and he jumps out and wanders down a dirt path that ends up leading to what appears to be a blackberry farm. The pickers are gathering for lunch and get fresh cold water from what appears to be a young teenaged girl. Each worker seems genuinely touched after a few words or a hug from this girl. She says to Mike, "Welcome." and he thinks she really means it; not some meaningless tossed off phrase. "Welcome."

Some no name Texas dirt town is home to Jeremy Pett, ex-marine, ex-father and ex-husband (courtesy of a runaway truck), no mission, no purpose, carrying the guilt of a mission in Iraq. He was a sniper; good one, too. His target one day was described in detail to him and his spotter (whom he'd save later during a no-win shootout, earning him a silver star). The target was transporting IED supplies. See him. Kill him. Bring back a piece of clothing as proof. He was told everything except one minor detail. The target was maybe 12 years old. Back home, suffocated by guilt and preparing his suicide, he hears this loser rock musician on TV damning the Iraq war and the baby killers wearing the colors of the USA. That punk has no clue. But Sgt. Pett now has a mission. Atone for that kid by killing that jerk wad musician. Goes by what? Nomad? He's dead, that's what he is.

Sweetwater, TX. Mike is gunned down at a gas station by a long range shot. Yeah, they have a tour to finish. Near Tucson, George is shot twice and lands up in the ICU. The FBI is called in and travels with them (his monikor? Tru). Now they are national news. At the Stone Church festival, they are introduced as "The band that won't die". CD's, t-shirts, iTunes. all selling like mad. Whack jobs are coming out of the woodwork itching to pull a trigger.

They make the turn to come back east. Terry has made contact with a reclusive keyboardist from the 70's and wants to stop in and see this guy in his box canyon shack/studio/keyboard heaven. FBI guy is nervous, wants to get moving. They are too exposed, but Terry pleas for some more time. Nomad flips (again) and goes outside followed by the fibbie. One shot hits Tru in the elbow. Next shot mortally wounds Terry. The voices in Sgt. Pett's head say "kill the hippie girl" (Ariel), but when cornered, Ariel willingly reaches out to Pett asking him to take her, but spare her friends.

The last show of "The Band that won't die" in Austin is free to anyone wearing the band's t-shirt. The final song is the one Nomad said they should all have a hand in. One performance, no CD, no encore. One time.

I've said it before. McCammon is one of my very favorite authors and I've read them all (except 2 early books). Stephen King said this is McCammon's best ever and who am I to quibble with Stephen King. I wanted to post a few quotes, but when I finished the book and looked back, I must've folded down the corners of probably 50 pages. Your loss. This incredible book about loss and shared and individual sacrifice is beyond compare. Pick it up and be prepared to be mesmerized by McCammon's eloquent and artistic prose. God, this guy is good. Thank goodness I won't have to wait long for his next as The Providence Rider (part 4 in his Matthew Corbett series set in the early 1700's) is due for release in the spring.

"So welcome to the world, and everything that's in it.

It'd be a poor world, described in just four minutes.

You got to get out there

and see what's in it

don't let life make you crazy.

I wish you safe travel . . . courage . . . you can find it.

Try and try, grow and thrive

Because no one here gets out alive"

At that last show, hearing that last song live, is a young girl, suffering with anorexia after her father's death. Touched by the song, she picks up her guitar the next morning for the first time since her father died, eats breakfast and reminds her mom to wear her "Hi, I'm Laura and I'll be your server" badge to work.

East Coast Don

The Sentinels: Fortunes of War

I’m not sure where I learned about this book, the author’s first of two in what I guess is intended to be a series of books about “The Sentinels,” but after reading it, I’m not enthused about reading the second. The start was ominous and intriguing. A group of wealthy German industrialists in 1932 decided to take advantage of the growing popularity of Hitler. They were sure they were more powerful than Hitler and could control what he did, and they disagreed with at least some of his social agenda. But, they wanted to use his message of the need to rearm Germany as a means of enriching themselves. They did not plan on Hitler’s power outreaching their own, and as the war was obviously coming to a bad conclusion for Germany, they wanted to get their own collective wealth out of the country so they could continue to influence the world in the way they saw fit. Of course, if Hitler discovered their plans, they would have been executed.

Meanwhile, there were six doctoral students at Stanford, all from wealthy families, who were studying the money trail of conflict over the course of human history. They developed a thesis called “the power cycle” in which they felt confident that by watching specific expenditures of nations, that they could predict new conflicts, well in advance of the conflicts occurring. By so doing, they thought they could avert wars. And, they quickly saw what was happening in Germany, and they realized that if the industrialists could escape with their wealthy, that they would simply start the next dangerous cycle. They set out to steal enough of the industrialists’ money as a means of controlling their use of wealth – but of course, these were dangerous men to steal from.

The plot was okay, but not really too gripping. The characters were interesting, but the dialogue was weak. In the end, the story just did not capture me.

Trophy Hunt

Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett was fly fishing with his girls, 12-year-old Sheridan and 7-year-old Lucy, when a horrible odor lead them to the carcass of a dead moose, one which has been dead for a couple weeks. The moose was surgically mutilated, and even more remarkably, no scavenger animals had been eating it. Then, some cattle also ended up similarly dead, and no animals preyed on their bodies. Then two humans were killed, both old cowboys were murdered and carved up. C. J. Box uses the usual cast of characters including Joe’s wife Marybeth, her mother, Missy, Missy’s fiancé Bud Longbrake, and others. Corrupt Sheriff Bud Barnum is a great foil for Joe. Given the complexity of the crimes, the FBI and State cops are called in, all of whom Joe has had some trouble with in the past. Like his other books, Box kept Joe on a straight ethical path despite the very grey problematic areas with which he is confronted. Once again, it is a good story, and it makes me eager for the next novel, which is due out any day. The only thing different about this book was that the author took us slightly into the paranormal, or at least he presented characters like Nate Romanowski, the falcon-loving naturalist, who can reliably perceive real information in very nontraditional ways. And, Sheridan seems to be developing some of those same talents. It will be interesting to see what he does with that material in future books. Thanks to Midwest Dave, Box is in my power rotation of authors.

Defending Jacob

This is William Landay’s third novel, a well-conceived story. Andrew Barber is the assistant district attorney, the hotshot prosecutor who has handled all the hard and controversial cases in Boston for the last 20 years. His foil is the next prosecutor in line, Neil Logiudice, to whom Andy has repeatedly tried to educate on the finer points of prosecuting a case, but Neil just does not quite have the panache to learn. Andy has been in a longtime marriage to Laurie who is a wonderful woman, and she has unconflicted love for her husband and their one child, a junior high school kid, Jacob. But, Jacob is not a normal kid. Although the family seems functional, Jacob is a nerd, a geek, mostly a loner, and he has a temper. As a preschool kids, when the teachers weren’t watching, other little kids who were near Jacob would get injured. But, as Jacob got older, any evidence of ongoing difficulties was not apparent to his parents. Then, a fellow eighth grader was murdered, and Jacob quickly became the presumed guilty party, especially to Neil and the DA, but not of course to Andy and Laurie. After Jacob has been charged, Andy is forced to admit to Laurie for the first time that he lied about his family history. It’s not that he never knew his own father, it’s that his father is in jail for murder. And, his grandfather was also a convicted murderer. Had Jacob inherited the “murder gene?” Although there was some genetic matter that Neil could have tried to use, the matter never was used in court, for reasons that you’ll have to read about. The character development was excellent, and there were twists in the plot that I did not see coming. I’ll just say that this book was dark, and all well-written stories don’t have to have a happy ending. It’s a tribute to the writer that I did not anticipate the way he brought his story to a conclusion.

Taken by Robert Crais

As one of the most reviewed authors here at MRB, it's probably a good bet we all will like what ever Crais writes or we wouldn't keep coming back to him. And this entry in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike lineup is no exception. Actually, this one may be his best yet. Midwest Dave went to a signing Crais was doing in his hometown and scavenged up (signed!) copies for each of the Don's and himself so I'll have to keep the plot summary brief to not spoil their fun.

Nita Morales is doing OK running a printing/silk screening business, but she stays a bit below the radar being an illegal, having arrived when she was an adolescent. Her daughter, Krista, hangs out with an Anglo that Nita doesn't much care for. When Krista disappears for a week, she assumes it's because of Jack. But then a ransom call comes in for a measly $500 and assumes its a scam Jack cooked up. Nita contacts Elvis to find Krista and get her out from under Jack's influence.

Very quickly, Elvis learns that Krista and Jack have been inadvertently swept up in a human trafficking ring with at twist. Coyotes bring people up through Mexico (Hispanics, Koreans, Indians, Asians; anyone who will pay them to get across the border into the US). But it seems now that there are hijackers (bajadores) out there who steal the illegals while in transit (making for a number of potential gang wars), lock them up and call relatives in the US demanding a small ransom for their freedom. When a payment is made, another call goes out asking for more. Once the families are unable to keep paying, the bajadores simply kill the abductee and dump their body in the desert. These bandits have a couple hundred on hand at any time and stand to make a tidy sum.

Elvis decides that the best way to get Krista back is to pose as a competing bajadore looking for Koreans. Joe Pike will be his back up and enlists the help of a professional mercenary he knows named Jon Stone ("a military consultant under contract to the US government and certain multinational corporations approved by the US to employ someone like myself." In other words, "He's the best shit-hot troop at this stuff to ever grace the earth; none finer, none more deadly, ever! A man among men.")

Well, that plan goes south and Elvis also gets taken (thus the book's title) leaving Pike and Stone to track down the shadowy Syrian behind all this mess.

And you just know, with two guys like Pike and Stone out to save Cole, the girl, and as many of the hostages as they can (allow me to steal a recent movie title) that There Will Be Blood.

To go any further into the story's details and twists would not be received well by my reviewing partners. I know I can safely say this: once you start reading, don't have anything else planned. I could have easily read this over a weekend. Crais wrote this one in a non linear fashion with each chapter focusing on a different set of characters at varying points of time - one chapter could be about Elvis 5 days before Krista was taken and the next could be about Pike 2 days after Krista was taken. I probably didn't describe that well, but once you start, it will make perfect sense.

Bottom line? This is the 18th posting of a book by Robert Crais. It may be down the list chronologically, but I rank this one as Crais' #1.

East Coast Don

Wild Thing

This is the second novel by Josh Bazel, and I raved about his first, Beat the Reaper, one of the best books written in 2009. Wild Thing is an equally wonderful ride. There’s an early Tom Robbins quality to his prose, which I find particularly appealing: bold observations, honest revelations, sometimes saucy language but not too much, all built around a fanciful, and possibly plausible story. Bazel actually weaves real science into the story, which he challenges with paper tiger arguments. (I think I’m using that reference correctly.) I started this one evening, and then got up early the next morning to finish it – definitely a book that caught my interest, and just as I could hardly wait for Bazel’s second book, now I’m equally eager for the third.

To start with, meaning going back to Beat the Reaper, the main character is Pietro Brnwa, although here he’s known as Lionel Azimuth. Pietro was a Mafia hit man, who had circumstances go a bit differently than planned. There was a death in a shark tank, and then the loss of his beloved Magdalena Niemerover, events which led him to rat out his Mafia boss and got him into the Federal Witness Protection Program. The Feds paid for this guy to go to medical school, and he became a doctor, and as expected for an assassin and martial arts master, he choses a less than common path as a physician. Despite the history of sociopathic behavior, he is steadfastly ethical in all that he touches. He starts out this book as a cruise ship doctor where he’s just been biding his time, bedding select passengers, and continuing to heal from the loss of Magdalena. Then, he gets hired off the boat by Rec Bill, a megabillionaire, to investigate the possibility of a real life, Loch-Ness-monster-type sighting at White Lake in Ford, Minnesota. Is it real or a scam? Rec Bill sends Brnwa/Azimuth and the lovely paleontologist Violet Hurst to figure it out. Bazel throws in a bizarre and enjoyable group of characters for his sometimes whimsical tale. His biggest surprise character comes at the halfway point, and I literally laughed out loud when the person was revealed. To tell you much more would give away too much. I loved this book.

The Shot by Phillip Kerr

I guess it comes down to, "What would you do?"

Tom Jefferson is a Korean war ex-POW. Upon release, he is sent to a hospital in Japan to recover, meets up with a stunning caretaker, courts her, marries her, and takes her to the states. They settle in Miami where she finds work in the state democratic party helping get JFK elected. He works as a consultant doing what he learned in the army.

He was a sniper.

And one of his best clients is organized crime. They are not happy that Castro has sent them all packing in the name of a socialist state. That puts the mob in the uncomfortable position of siding with the FBI and CIA in wanting Cuba back the way it was. The mob hires Tom to assassinate Castro.

The Chicago mob is working hard to deliver Illinois for Kennedy, who is widely known for his bedding most any woman with a heartbeat, especially Marilyn Monroe. To make sure that Kennedy fulfills his campaign 'promise' to the mob for delivering Illinois, the mob has numerous audiotapes of the future president bedding any number of star struck ladies. While Tom is conducting his research on Castro, his mob contact takes Tom to his place to listen to a tape, maybe even a tape of JFK and Monroe. They have some drinks, get the tape recorder ready to run, and listen to JFK getting it on with an unknown woman.

Tom's wife.

Who ends up dead a few days later.

If you were a trained sniper and found out just who was shagging your now dead wife, what would you do?

Tom goes to ground, walks out on the Castro hit and changes his target to the president-elect. Using some former contacts, he learns of Kennedy's schedule up until the inauguration and starts to scout out locations. The mob ain't happy about him stiffing them on the Castro hit and sets a retired FBI agent and his team on Tom's trail.

Tom's best bet is Kennedy's visit to Harvard just after the new year. With the help of a couple of pro Castro ladies, they manage to spirit 2 freshmen out of their dorm room for a ski weekend and then set out to wait for Kennedy's visit.

(I'm going to guess that most readers aren't going to rush right out to get this 1999 copyright - that's code for SPOILER ALERT).

Tom and his partner, another pro Castro sympathizer, set up for the shot. They open the window, Tom sights the bridge of Kennedy's nose, pulls the trigger and 'click' as the firing pin strikes nothing. That's because the only shooting that day is with a film camera.

They easily walk out of the dorm amongst the crowd, leaving their equipment hidden in the dorm room to be found later by some government types. The film finds it's way to Cuba where Castro's security chief packages it up with a letter to the head of the CIA telling him that they got close once and if the US invades, they will get even closer the next time.

Interesting concept and reasonably plotted. But I found this clever story to plod along far too slowly for my tastes. Halfway through, I knew this was going to be a lesson in discipline. The only thing that kept me going was to see how Tom was going to nail Kennedy for nailing his wife. Kerr has a pretty substantial body of work, but I'm not very likely to venture back. But consider that the Bay of Pigs did occur, it offers a different take on Nov 22, 1963. Oliver Stone would be proud.

East Coast Don

The Overlook

In this 2007 Harry Bosch novel, Harry is called out on his first case with the Robbery-Homicide Special Unit. There’s been an execution above Mulholland Dam. The victim was a physicist who helped calculate the doses of radioactive materials that were used to treat gynecological cancers. That meant he had access to materials that could be used in a dirty bomb, and this particular guy had access to the supplies at 30 different medical facilities around Los Angeles. With the potential threat to national security, the FBI was called in, as was Rachel Walling from Homeland Security, Harry’s one-time lover. But, Harry also has a life-time problem with federal agents, and he is not about to roll over when they try to take the case away from him. The feds’ interest is in the dirty bomb, Harry’s is the homicide. They find the dead guy’s beautiful wife hogtied on her bed at home, naked, but otherwise unharmed. A picture was on her dead husband’s phone, suggesting that he was being forced to cooperate with the terrorists, or his wife would be killed. There are good plot twists, and I did not see that last one coming. This one is good, entertaining read.

The Litigators

David Zinc is a Harvard law grad, 31 years old, now working in a huge, multinational firm in downtown Chicago, making a lot of money, and hating every moment of it. His grandfather was a successful lawyer in Kansas City, and his father sat on the Supreme Court in Minnesota. David was bred for being a lawyer, so he can’t just walk away. But, David was exhausted and he wanted out, and he had no idea how to do that. One day, as he arrived at the office in the morning, he “snapped.” He set foot on the 93rd floor of his building, and then turned around and dove into the elevator before the doors could close. He ran to a nearby bar where he turned off his cell phone and proceeded to get polluted. He had no intention of ever returning to Rogan Rothberg again, but what was he to do? He had saved a little money, but he still had a wife who was trying to get pregnant, and he had a mortgage to pay. So desperate on the day of his “snap,” after he had been drinking all day long, he got in a cab to go home when in his fogged-over brain, he saw the address for a law firm on the side of a city bus, and he directed the cab driver to take him there. He stumbled into a two-man firm of ambulance chasers, literally. Finley & Figg. They were lousy attorneys and made very little money, certainly not enough to support David, which is what he got around to proposing. Then, when David returned there the next day, slimeball Wally Figg chased down another of his get-rich-quick schemes. He thought a certain hypercholesterol drug was causing side effects, including sudden death in some patients. Only thing, Wally had not done any research that would have shown him this was a good drug, even if the pharmaceutical company, the third largest in Big Pharma, had made other drugs that were not and had settled those cases for big money. The small firm could not afford to put on the case, so they teamed up with a big tort law firm that promised to front their expenses in exchange for a huge cut of their fees. But, when the drug proved to do what it advertised, lower cholesterol without killing people in the process, the tort firm waltzed away. The drug company did not want to just let it go. With thousands of lawsuits lining up against them across the nation, they wanted a decisive victory against the first case being brought against them, Wally Figg’s case. For reasons you’ll have to read about, first Oscar Finley and then Wally Figg were unable to appear in court, leaving this mess to a very unprepared David Zinc who had not seen the inside of a court room since Moot Court in law school And who does the big pharma company hire to defend itself, none other than his old firm, Rogan Rothberg, which has endless resources, the most capable and ruthless attorneys, and a good case. They want to scare off anyone else who might want to take them on.

The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

‘The Winter of Our Discontent’ was John Steinbeck’s last novel and was written in 1960. It is about morality and how he felt American morals were decaying at that time. The book has a very solemn tone, a real downer. Yet it has a very powerful message, one that I find myself thinking about long after I’ve finished it. So if you are up for some dark introspection, this may be the book for you.

Ethan Allen Hawley lives in a small Long Island coastal town in the house of his ancestors. He is the descendent of New England shipping captains who once sailed the seas and brought treasures from faraway lands thus making them the wealthy aristocracy of the area. Ethan’s father lost the family fortune and Ethan lost the family grocery store, the last the Hawley’s businesses where Ethan is now a clerk. The old house filled with family heirlooms is the only material remains of his ancestors. His wife, Mary and their two children, Ellen and Allen, live in the old house with Ethan but often remind him what a failure he is: no car, no television, no family vacations, and no sense of adventure.

Mary has inherited $6000 from her brother and wants Ethan to invest it. But failure has made Ethan risk averse and he sees corruption all around him. The town leaders are all on the take and are positioning themselves to personally profit from the town’s planned expansion. Danny Taylor, his childhood friend and now the town drunk, holds a piece of property that developers are desperate to get control of for their future airport. The local banker approaches Ethan for help in getting the property away from Danny. The town vixen, Margie Young-Hunt visits his store a little too often and provides temptation both sexually and in business. She introduces Ethan to a food wholesaler who offers kickbacks to clerks rather than the owners. A bank clerk across the alley from the store gives Ethan a lesson on how to rob a bank and get away with it. Meanwhile, both of Ethan’s children enter a national essay contest to hail America’s greatness with a prize of notoriety and college tuition.

After many sleepless nights and several discussions with the canned goods in the grocery, Ethan slips off his moral high horse. The current owner of the grocery store is an illegal Italian immigrant who has grown to trust Ethan implicitly. Ethan anonymously turns him in to the immigration authorities and an investigation ensues. The store owner gives the store back to Ethan as the Italian prepares to be deported. Ethan gives Danny $1000 of Mary’s money for rehabilitation that he knows Danny will spend on booze and drugs. Danny deeds his property to Ethan before committing suicide. Ethan makes plans to rob the bank across the alley but is interrupted at the last moment without suspicion. Ethan visits Margie during one of his restless nightly prowls of the town but can’t bring himself to betray Mary. With financial success finally in his grasp, Ethan learns his son, Allen has won the national essay contest but was then disqualified for plagiarism. Ethan already guilt ridden slips into despair in the face of another failure, the failure as a parent.

This is the second time I’ve read this book. I read it before as a teenager, many years ago. It taught me some things about life and made me think about what kind of person I wanted to be. It scared me to think that just one or two bad choices could end so miserably. I think this was Steinbeck’s true gift; his ability to make his fictional dilemma your own. So while I don’t necessarily recommend you read this book (the critics have really torn it apart over the years) I do recommend you read something you read as a teenager. Maybe one of the classics you had to read for English class that impressed you in some way. It’s worth the trip to see what you’ve learned.