1539. The Pain Scale by Tyler Dilts

The Pain Scale is Tyler Dilts’ second novel. I reviewed the first one, A King of Infinite Space, in 2/23 and stated then I would get to his subsequent works. In The Pain Scale, Dilts further develops his protagonist, a Long Beach police homicide detective, Danny Beckett. 

Beckett is just coming off a year’s leave due to a serious burn injury that he suffered on the job, and he is left to deal with the physical and emotional trauma of his wounds as well as chronic pain. (In my real job as a physician, having treated numerous chronic pain patients for the emotional struggles of disfigurement, disability, and chronic pain, I was impressed with Dilts’ understanding of this condition.) Beckett is further troubled by the earlier loss of his wife in a traffic accident, and since then, he has eschewed any new romantic involvements. Upon his return to the job, he is reunited with his former partner, Jennifer Tanaka, a curious character in herself.

 

Early in the novel, he used Beckett to scoff at the routine question that is put to all pain patients, which is how they would rate their current pain on a zero-to-ten scale. Zero means the absence of pain and ten is defined as the worst pain that one could possibly imagine. In a side note, Beckett comments that such a scale is really dependent on the imagination of the injured party. As a homicide detective, he has seen the worst of death scenes including torture and burn victims, and his own imagination about the worst possible pain encompasses such events. As the story unfolds, he struggles to distract himself from his pain and he finds that his focus increases when the murders he is investigating are more complicated and horrible. Left to himself without a means to get away from his chronic pain, he can’t be distracted from his own condition. He drinks too much, apparently as an unsuccessful means of managing his pain, and he eschews any new romantic involvement due to the loss of his wife in a fatal car accident.

 

The primary crime involved in Dilts’ second book is the murder of a congressman’s daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. The crime is complicated enough and gory enough to give Beckett the distraction he needs, but his career is at stake if he can’t prove that he is able to do his job despite his severe chronic condition.

 

This is a very good story with a most compelling protagonist. It gets a 5/5 in my own rating system. I’ve already acquired the third book in the series, A Cold and Broken Hallelujah, and I hope to get to it soon.

1538. Forfeit by Dick Francis

Dick Francis was an award winning and prolific (and bestselling) crime writer, particularly during the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. In 2015, I reviewed one of his books, Come to Grief

, and rated that highly. Since then, I’ve usually been reading more contemporary writers, but then I stumbled across this one, Forfeit, published in 1969, and decided to have a look. I remain convinced that Francis knows how to write a good story. 

Francis particularly wrote about the horse racing scene, and this story took place surrounding a famous steeplechase event in England. Burt Chekov, a horseracing writer fell to his death from the seventh floor of his office window at his office. He was nearly dead drunk at the time, and his death was understood to be a suicide. But James Tyrone, a writer from a rival paper, The Blaze, was suspicious that there was an underlying gambling scandal that Chekov was about to uncover, and he became determined to find the truth of this matter. Meanwhile, Tyrone was also taking care of his severely handicapped wife. Just a couple years after their marriage, she contracted polio, and she became dependent on an iron lung machine without which she would die. He objected to putting his wife in an institution where she would merely be warehoused, but that required all of his funds, so he was always running short of cash.

 

Tyrone was a great protagonist who faced the great hazards of organized crime and a beautiful woman who seduced him as part of a blackmail scheme. Francis pulls together the various subplots to a most satisfactory end. I’d give it a 4/5 rating – definitely worth your time.

1537. The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham

The Boys from Biloxi is the 8^th novel by John Grisham that has been reviewed in Men Reading Books, although it was Grisham’s 49^th book. However, I should point out that he had already published 23 books by the time the blog was started in 2009. He is a master at legal drama, and he’s at his best in this book. This is a multigenerational story of two families of immigrants who find their way to the Mississippi coast. The families are quite poor and struggle for existence until the prohibition days. The liquor business was protected by the local sheriff’s office, and as those businesses began to thrive, corruption grew. Gambling and prostitution became part of the life in Biloxi. For decades, no one seemed willing to challenge that way of life. People, those in power and regular citizens, turned their heads with regard to such goings on.

 

The two families, who had been close for decades, headed in a different direction in the 50’s and 60’s. While one family owned and developed the underworld businesses, the other developed lawyers. By the 50’s, as the fathers were headed in their different directions, they still lived in the same neighborhood, the first sons of both family grew up together and played childhood sports together in the 60’s. However, each boy learned to idolize his own father, and as the boys hit the end of high school, their worlds diverged. One father ran the largest crime syndicate on the coast and the other became the District Attorney who was determined to shut down the abundant crime in Biloxi. The struggles of the fathers with one another, and the increased struggle between the sons was the meat of this legal thriller. This book gets a 5-star rating from me.

#1536. A Cold Day For Murder by Dana Stebanow

Murders in the tropics or in the Alaskan interior both need to be solved. Kate Shugak is an Alaskan native who left (betrayed?) her ancestors by attending college and then law school to join the district attorney’s office in Anchorage. Roughly a year or so ago, the resolution of a case sent Kate back to live deep into the Alaskan wilderness where she shares a small but mostly comfortable cabin with her dog Mutt. The “Park”, roughly 4X the size of Denali, is home to a small and scattered population of highly protective Alaskan natives. They certainly don’t appreciate it when Outsiders (defined as anyone who doesn’t live within the boundary of The Park) try to tell them how to live and manage The Park.

A new-ish Ranger from Ohio has been making noises about expanding the few roads within The Park to make it more accessible to tourists (and the $$$ tourists spend). Locals disagree. After a local council meeting with the townspeople, the Ranger disappears. By the time the book opens, he’s been missing for 8 weeks. And his daddy, an Ohio congressman, has squeezed the FBI to investigate. DC calls the Anchorage office who gets an investigator from the District Attorney’s office to look into the missing son/ranger.

That was two weeks ago and now he’s missing, too. The DA’s office knows Kate lives in the Park and sends someone to convince her to start asking questions, which she begrudgingly accepts. The trail goes all over the area local to the disappearances. Family, friends, drunks, poachers, Outsiders, and Park hermits show up in various situations, mostly with an alibi.

Stebanow has been reviewed by us here at MRB. She’s an Edgar Award winner who lives on the border between civilization and the Alaskan bush. Her stories are direct and quick. I’m not sure if the quick read is because her books aren’t all that long or because she’s such a good writer that the time passes quickly. One of the terrific selling points is the way she manages to make the Alaskan wilderness a vital character of the story. Sort of how George Pelacanos makes Washington, DC a vital plot element in his books.

Pick up most any Kate Shugak books to be transported to a world most of us will never get to because that land is just so remote. Add that to a story web that has multiple criss-cross trails, enough to make you run out of fuel from all the running around on her Arctic Cat snowmobile.

 

 East Coast Don

#1535. Blind Fear by Brandon Webb and John David Mann

 Blind Fear is the third novel in a series by co-authors Brandon Webb and John David Mann about their protagonist, Finn, a Navy SEAL who had been falsely accused of some murders by his corrupt bosses. He had escaped from them in Iceland and had landed in Puerto Rico eight months earlier where he had been lying low while continuing a stealth internet search that he hoped would free him from the fake charges. Meanwhile, he had been befriended by a blind grandfather and his two grandchildren. They were all living together in Esperanza (Spanish for Hope) on the small island Vieques which is just a few miles from the main island. The island is an idyllic location, and the opening scene is one of 10-year-old Pedro and 6-year-old Miranda touring their small island, mostly swimming from the shore and enjoying the safety and beauty of their home – that is until they were inexplicably kidnapped.

 The authors skillfully developed the character of Finn who risked his own capture if he were to openly join the search for the grandchildren. Meanwhile, the reader was treated to a history of the islands, and then they were also the victims of a terrific hurricane. This turned out to be another story about trafficking, but it came from a different angle since it was kids who were being trafficked, not just young women. The negative side of this story was both very dark and very believable.

 

After having been enticed with this book, I’m going to have to go back and find books one and two in the Finn series. Good characters, excellent plot, a very good mystery. I strongly recommend this novel.

1534. City On Fire by Don Winslow

Don Winslow’s novels have already been reviewed seven times in the  blog, so you know that we are fans. City on Fire is his newest novel, the first of a promised trilogy. This is a mob book, not about the big boys in NYC, Chicago, or Vegas, but in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s not like major league baseball, but more like the minor leagues. Still, Winslow tells the story of crime families who are at war with one another over the usual territorial rights they struggle with. It’s a story of loyalty and betrayal, of love and hate. It’s a story about the internal struggles within each crime family as they jockey for power within and outside the family. Perhaps this is the minor leagues of the mob, but that does not diminish the real life and death struggles faced by the characters that Winslow writes about. Thrown into the mix is the story of a stunningly beautiful woman from Barstow who escapes a hopeless family situation by fleeing to Las Vegas where she is out to find security for herself, and then she stumbles into the mess in Providence. If you’re into reading about crime families, then this novel is a must.

#1533. Go Find Daddy by Steve Goble

Mifflin County Ohio (a real Ohio county) is roughly midway between Cleveland and Columbus. Ed Runyon is comfortably settling into life near Ambletown (a fake Ohio town) with his girlfriend/artist Linda. His new life, after a bad scene as NYC detective, is as owner/operator of Whiskey River Investigations. His small PI firm with a special interest in missing children cases, but like most all PIs he pays the bills with wayward husbands and bounced child support checks.

Office Brandon Gullick has been found dead outside a barn on the property of one Donny Blackmon – a noted blogger specializing in guns and hatred of all things connected to law enforcement. He hates cops. Gullick was beaten and shot. A handgun from Donny’s arsenal of sidearms was found at the scene along with a partial fingerprint of its owner. Pretty open and shut case for the Ambletown police. And you can bet that law enforcement will pull out all the stops to catch the man who killed a brother law enforcement officer.

But Blackmon has flown the coop. Off the grid. Hiding. And he has a quite the following from his blog meaning plenty of like-minded folks willing to help Donny evade capture. A reward has been posted and there’s even been a second reward posted for Donny’s head, a bounty of $500K by a shadowy group known as Blue Fury (gonna go out on a limb and say we'll hear more from Blue Fury in future Ed Runyon books). Donny has left his wife and young daughter Cassie to fend for themselves as best they can.

This is where Ed gets called in. Donny’s wife wants Ed to find him. But not to bring him in. She only wants Ed to deliver a letter she’s written to Donny. The letter is asking Donny to please contact her. In the couple months that Donny’s been living off the grid, daughter Cassie has been diagnosed with a childhood cancer so she’s imploring him to make contact.

Ed’s not interested in the case because every cop in Ohio is looking for Donny. Not to mention numerous other PIs and bounty hunters are in search of the chance at a cool half million dollars. But Ed has a soft spot for kids with problems and he takes the case for Cassie. The question is what will happen first. Will Donny get captured by the law? Killed by bounty hunters? Or will Cassie’s disease become more aggressive?

After my previous review of an Oceanview Publishing book (Killer Story with a distasteful protagonist), I ventured again into Oceanview. Having read Steve Goble’s two previous Ed Runyon books, I felt safe in the notion that our boy Ed Runyon will be true to form from Oceanview. Flawed but decent PI getting the job done. A linear plot with a few twists right up to the big reveal. Quality PI story. That’s what I’ve come to expect from Oceanview, their bread and butter. The kind of fun aside in the book is Mifflin County Sheriff Baxter who never met a metaphor he couldn’t mangle: ‘coming down there faster than a split log’ or ‘painting a barn that’s already been knocked down.’ After a couple of those, I couldn't wait for the next Runyon-Baxter conversation.

And I learned a new word: widdershims, as in “One would go clockwise and the other widdershims.” Had to look that one up.

available 11 Jul 2023. Thanks to Oceanview and Netgalley for making an advance reader copy available.

ECD

#1532. The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci

Another David Baldacci thriller, The 6:20 Man.

The title is a reference to the train that Travis Devine took every morning into work in Manhattan for a large and very successful investment firm. He had come to the investment game rather late in life, having been an Army Ranger until he took an early out after some gruesome work in the Middle East. He used the GI Bill to finish his MBA. The reader learns that he is really a domestic spy and the firm where he is working is suspected of significant fraudulent trading. Like so many younger people trying to climb up the halls of wealth in NYC, Devine was living in a shared apartment with others of apparently similar circumstances.

 It seemed that all parties involved came from highly dysfunctional families which allowed the author to invent a story with twist after unexpected twist, twists that continued right to the end of the book. Lots of people die in this story who seem to have no connection to one another. I’ve come to expect this circuitous plot line from Baldacci, so I just sat back and enjoyed the run, however unbelievable it seemed at times. Devine was a good character, and Baldacci surrounded him with a good cast of characters. It was an entertaining story, a good vacation read, that I’d give a 3.9 rating.

 

 

West Coast Don

#1531. On The Sly by Wendy L. Koenig

Wendy L. Koenig is the author of numerous works ranging from speculative fiction both past and future, for young adult and children to poetry. On The Sly is her first entry into the world of contemporary mystery thrilling fiction. Sylvia (Sly) Wilson is a 24 year old bar owner who finds the murdered body of an ex-cop upon unlocking the place on a September afternoon. 

I like a mystery story to get to the body quickly and Ms. Koenig doesn't disappoint. The pace is very readable; the details enough to imagine the scene without thinking "OK, OK, enough about the room, get on the story". She uses one particular literary device to mark the days passing that I found charming and unobstrusive. 

The plot combines Hitchcockian elements, the accused civilian caught up in a murder plot, with police- private investigation conflict. The author avoids many tropes that prey upon the genre and presents us with a bright, original lead character. Sylvia tells her story in the first person in a voice I found so engaging she might have been talking to me in her bar Smugglers on a quiet late afternoon.

Thanks to the author's agent for sending me a copy of On The Sly for this review. 

review by Curt Remarks

#1530. Killer Story by Matt Whitten

Petra Kovach. 1st generation immigrant whose parents came over from somewhere in eastern Europe. They settled in eastern LA. Here grandfather was killed accidentally in a drive-by shooting when she was young. At around 8yo, she managed to the case reopened with an impassioned plea in a letter to the editor of the LA Times. While getting the case reopened, the killer was never identified. At this tender age, she decided that journalism would be her future.

As a teenager, she was a camp counselor and developed a close friendship with Olivia Johnson (Livvy) that they maintained after that summer. One connection is that both lost important people in their lives. Petra's grandfather and Livvy's mother. Petra goes on to UCLA and starts her career in print journalism. Livvy eventually enrolls at Harvard where she is a oddball. An unapologetic conservative amongst the liberal majority that inhabits Harvard. Livvy's stepfather works in the Swedish consulate in Boston and has an older brother, Eric, also in Boston area. As a freshman, Livvy dates the star football player, has a fling with a professor, and ends up being the victim of a vicious attack in her dorm room. The prof is arrested, tried and found not guilty. He's dumped by Harvard and the public hasn't forgotten about the killer professor. This happens 2yrs prior to the opening of the book.

Petra's career path has been bumpy, but she hasn't forgotten about Livvy and is desperate to track down the killer. Petra's been fired from two middling newspapers and she is trying it again at a second tier paper in Boston. And that ain't going well either. As the book opens, Petra's job appears to the on cutting board due to budget cuts. But Petra uses Livvy's story as a means to extend her stay with the paper and her editor agrees to let her put her efforts into the case. Petra suggests a podcast to accompany her newspaper reporting.

And here's where things get interesting. She has a competitor at the paper, Natalie, whom she despises. Her boyfriend (a tech startup whiz) who is sort of her moral compass. In the process of her 'pursuit of justice'  she manages to . . .  to reveal any or everything she does, or pisses off, or is entirely illegal would spoil the story. Let's just say that journalistic ethics takes a back seat to the pursuit of (aka: obsession with) this cold case by opening doors that needn't have been even touched and damaging the lives of anyone in her way. All in the name of getting content out on her podcast. The popularity of the podcast explodes from being a local story all the way to CNN.

I have to say that there were multiple times that I said to myself, "Good Lord. Just quit. Move on to the next book." Because I didn't like Petra. She's conniving, manipulative, cloying, annoying and obsessed with the case and the sudden popularity of her podcast; damn anyone who gets in her way. But I stuck it out against my better wishes. Yeah, we find out who actually killed Livvy. That's always important in any attempt at reviving a cold case, but that's almost secondary. More importantly, we find out the consequences of Petra's actions to herself and to the people she stepped on all in pursuit of the almighty click count. 

After finishing the book, I thought my review wouldn't be all that favorable. Then I started thinking that maybe that was the author's point. To present a main character so utterly devoid of ethics that the reader has no choice but to despise her. If that was the point, then Whitten was successful. As I was reading, I started wondering if Whitten was setting us up for a new character series to which I would've said, 'Nope. No chance of reading a Petra Kovach #2.' Once finished, I realized #2 isn't gonna happen. 

I hope.

I like to check up on the author. Whitten is a TV writer for such shows as House, Law & Order, CSI: Miami, JAG, The Glades, Homicide, Judging Amy, and more. His works have been nominated for Emmy and Edgar awards. One of his past books (The Necklace) is in production by Hollywood. The guy can write and weave a compelling story. Methinks getting us to despise Petra was his intent right from the start. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Oceanview Publishing for making an advance copy available. Regular readers will know that I'm an unapologetic supporter of the Oceanview Publishing. While reading the book, I was thinking that this might be the first hiccup for Oceanview. But the further I get from the book, the most I think that the author was skillfully playing with us with his portrayal of Petra. Even so, I still don't like Petra Kovach.

ECD

 

Michael Connelly, Daniel Silva, C. J. Box , Louise Penny - a second look at various books

Various books listened to:

I’ve continued listening to audiobooks which we’ve already reviewed just for the pleasure of listening to old mystery/thriller masters like Daniel Silva and Michael Connelly. 

For Silva, I just finished listening to both The Unlikely Spy and The English Assassin which were the first two books in the Gabriel Allon series.  In the second one, Silva broadens the picture of the international ring of assassins with the character Michael Keller. These books were among the first ones that were reviewed by me in 2009 when this blog began, and ECD reviewed the second one more thoroughly in 2011. And now I've added The Confessor to the list, and this one might be Silva at his very best. Silva takes us back through the history of the Catholic church's lack of action during the holocaust when the church essentially supported the slaughter of jews by the Germans and helped hundreds to thousands escape punishment by hiding in convents and gaining passage to South America. A new pope is intent on correcting those wrongs, but Crux Veritas, a secret corrupt society within the papacy which was bent on assassinating the pope before his planned appearance for an apology at the synagogue in Rome (an apology that happened by John Paul II in 1998). In April 2023, I reviewed A Death in Vienna again, the fourth one in the Allon series. In Chapter 17, the account of Allon's mother of her survival experiences in the Holocaust was told in audio form for Vad Yashem, the memorial in Jerusalem for the survivors of that horror. Now, I find myself debating which was really the best of Silva's novel, and this book deserves mention in that debate.

For Michael Connelly, I’ve recently listened to The Black Echo, The Black Ice, The Poet, The Narrows, Echo Park, and The Overlook. Given that those books have already reviewed, sometimes by more than one of the men at Men Reading Books, it is unnecessary to review them again.

I've added C. J. Box's first Joe Pickett book to the list of audiobooks revisited: Open Season, which I reviewed in 2011, thanks to Midwest Dave. Listening to the book was a great way to remember Pickett and his introduction of the main characters he would follow over the course of his books. I think I'll get the second Pickett book, Savage Run, just for more fun. (See my original review from 2011, and the addendum written now, in 2023.)

I listened to the Louise Penny novella, The Hangman, reviewed here in 2015, during my morning walk. One hour and 22 minutes of such a skillful story told in audiobook form. What a delight. The second Gamache novel was A Fatal Grace, originally reviewed here on 12/1/13. I've listened again, and I'll restate, "what a pleasure." I just got through The Cruelest Month, which was reviewed in 2014, and I've added to that time review. Please search for that. This story was masterful. The book in Penny's series was The Brutal Telling was originally read for this blog in 12/13. It may have the most complex plot as Penny shows her skill at taking the reader down one rabbit hole after another as she writes about  Gamache's efforts to solve the murder of a woman with a bow and arrow. She also perfectly describe the struggle that painter Peter Marrow has with his narcissism and the damage it causes to his relationships.

My point is merely that there’s a reason certain authors have made it to the top of our list of great 

 story tellers, and it’s a pleasure to take the time to read them again.

#1529. Liquid Shades of Blue by James Polkinghorn

#1528. The Narrows by Michael Connelly

The Poet was published in 1996, which is when Connelly introduced FBI Agent Rachel Walling, but the sequel, The Narrows was not published until 2004 with at least nine other books published during that span of time. He is incredibly prolific, and in The Narrows, we get to see Agent Walling again. Although it’s hard to really choose which of Connelly’s novels are the best, it’s my opinion that in The Poet and The Narrows, we see him at his finest.

 

For me, The Narrows was another dog walking audiobook. I did provide a brief ravingreview on 6/10/10, but after a 13 year hiatus, I decided to listen in an audiobook. So, if you want that review, search for it in this blog. You won’t go wrong by reading this one.

 

West Coast Don

#1527. The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown:

Warning, this is another example of my stumbling away from our usual genre of murder mysteries and thrillers.

 

As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, I too rarely read lay literature. But there have been several recent pulls to have a look at the work by Brene Brown, including a recommendation from author Eliot Peper. Peper tends to write in near-future scenarios. I’ve read all of his ten books and enjoyed this ride. He also writes a blog that I follow. I recommend that you google him and take a look at his blog. It was in his blog that he strongly recommended Brene Brown’s audiobook, The Power of Vulnerability.

 

I think most readers may be more familiar with Brown’s body of work than me, and I feel enlightened by having done this listening. As a researcher into such topics, she covers a wide band of information about the psychological issues that are faced by people in this American society. Rather than choosing a specific topic, I’ll say that anyone who reads this particular book can’t help but take on another serious self-appraisal. She cleverly demonstrates her own vulnerability in a way that is disarming and engaging, thereby encouraging the reader to take some changes.

 

Two brief quotes about topics I’ve thought a lot about:

 

“Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.”

 

“Faith is a place of mystery where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see.”

 

I think the definition is the clearest and cleanest such definition that I’ve seen. I continue to struggle with the word “faith” and I’m reserving the right to think about that for a while longer.

 

Much to my wife’s delight (who was already very familiar with Brown’s work), when she asked me what I thought about the book, I said I’m ready to dance. It’s been since my mid high school years that I’ve had a phobia about dancing, an activity that brings my wife great joy. She was thrilled to hear that I’m willing to give that a go. I’ll write to Dr. Brown to let her know how this works. But her point is that life is short and there are lots of ways to feel pleasures in life that we may be afraid to partake in. It’s time to test my boundaries in that regard. However, my wife’s next comment was that she now hopes I’ll join her in her shopping activities – but of course there’s a limit to how much Dr. Brown can do and I doubt that I’ll ever find enjoyment in shopping.

 

West Coast Don

#1526. Cultured by D.P. Lyle

This is the first novel reviewed in this blog by D.P Lyle, and Cultured is the sixth in the Jake Longly Thriller series. On one hand, this is an important story about human trafficking. As the result of my wife’s volunteer work on this cause, I’ve learned something about the size of this enterprise worldwide, and the targeting of young women in the U.S. who one might assume are immune to such outcomes as this. Unfortunately, it’s far more common than us typically naïve American men would care to believe. On the other hand, the first half of this book contains an excessive amount of what amounts to junior high school dialogue. I nearly gave up reading the story until after the halfway point when the immature dialogue mostly came to an end at the same time the plot picked up.

 

Jake Longly is a retired baseball player who earned enough money to buy a restaurant, Captain Rocky’s, which is on the beach in Gulf Shore’s Alabama. The bar is a happening place where Jake’s role is to be a face man, not to really run the place. His manager is Carla Martinez who knows how to run a bar and turn a profit. Jake really lives the life of a drunkard’s dream. His girlfriend is Nicole Jamison and she is one hot and smart woman. She likes to do work for Jake’s father, Ray Longly who is a private investigator. The group of friends includes Pancake, a 300+ pound computer wizard. The author repeatedly talked of Pancake’s ability to consume massive amounts of food all on Jake’s tab. Ray is a tough guy and he does not approve of his son’s post-baseball lifestyle, but Jake continues to help Ray out on his cases apparently because Nicole likes that action.

 

The action begins when the mother of April Wilkerson, Clarice, gets Ray to take the case of her daughter who has come up missing. The trail quickly leads to Jonathon Lindemann, founder of The Lindemann Method (TLM) which is meant to make people rich and to provide them with all pleasures possible in life. Essentially, TLM is a cult which drafts college age girls to work at his enterprise and provide sexual favors to all of the TLM members. The cost of membership is $120,000, so nearly all college age girls could not afford to join. Lindemann’s right hand person is Rhea Wilson. This is a story about wealthy people who make poor decisions, sex trafficking, beautiful women, money laundering, and a ponzi scheme. As noted above, after character development, the pace of the plot picks up at the halfway point.

 

So, the novel is one of good news and bad news. As noted, it’s a very important story that is too little understood in the U.S., and nearly intolerable juvenile dialogue.

 

 

West Coast Don

 

#1525 Rock With Wings by Anne Hillerman

Picking up where her father Tony Hillerman left of, this is daughter Anne's 2nd mystery based in the 4-Corners region of the US that is the home of Navajo Nation.

Officer Bernie Manualito pulls over a car for speeding. With each question, her 'perp radar' is heightened because the driver seems more and more agitated. When she asks the driver to open the truck, he promptly offers her a bribe. Cash and a rifle in the trunk. Seems odd to be offered a bribe for just a speeding ticket. Maybe that bucket of dirt in the truck means something. She issues the ticket and has the car impounded for a more detailed search. When the impound and ticket are entered into a law enforcement database, the FBI is notified. Doesn't take too long for the FBI to tell the Navajo Tribal Police to back off. The driver is on their radar for issues far exceeding speeding. 

That sets the basic scene for the story. But it isn't an overwhelming problem. Manualito and husband Officer Jim Chee have planned a weekend camping in Monument Valley (of John Ford and John Wayne fame). Wile there, Jim will try to help a clan cousin get his tour bus service up and running while Bernie explores the park. First day, the local Navajo police station asks for some help with a nuisance group in the Park. A Hollywood studio is filming a zombie flick and the accounts manager has gone missing. Would Jim be able to find her? Sure, why not? He's there.

He manages to find the girl. She wasn't really lost at all. While heading back to their cars in the failing light, Chee trips over some rocks that, on a closer look, appears to be part of a grave. Burials on Native land are forbidden so Chee has another chore. While checking with the film crew, there's a security guy who takes his job a bit too seriously, a couple of teenage groupies who want a pic of the Zombie Queen, a German couple camping who've lost some keepsake jewelry while dispersing ashes of a deceased parent, a philandering producer up to no good. Ain't one thing, it's another.

And that's just on Chee's plate. Looks like he's staying while Bernie gets called back home because her wayward younger sister isn't keeping a close eye on their elder mother. Keeping her family unit as close as she can is getting to be a full-time job given her mom's failing health, her sister's love of beer and partying that could conflict with her attempt at getting into a Native American art school, and the constant intrusions by local coyotes and feral dogs. Plus a colleague's wife is hoping Bernie can convince her mother to teach the art of weaving. If it ain't one thing it's another. Family issues alone pry her mind away from that speeder, but so does the slowly developing encroachment of wind power to Navajo Nation land that seems to be inevitable.

For just her second novel, I thought Hillerman deftly juggled all those different little stories in an eventual (near) singular conclusion. I do recall that the Tony Hillerman books were firmly based in the Navajo culture and that for all the mysticism, skinwalkers, totems, etc. surrounding the stories, the root cause of the crime du jour was no different for the Navajo or the biligaana (whites)  - money, power, drugs/alcohol, jealousy know no racial or ethnic bounds. The same applies here. Lots of little details that are seemingly unrelated told in a gentle  and engrossing progression. No slam bam mega shootout or twisted conclusion here. It ends pretty much like you'd expect, with Jim and Bernie comfortably home at the trailer they inhabit beside a small river in the desert SW. 

BTW. If you are wondering where the title comes from, it's the term for a specific rock formation near Shiprock, NM that has some spiritual meaning for the Navajo. And legendary Lt. Joe Leaphorn continues to recover from being shot in the previous book (Spider Woman's Daughter).

#3 Song of the Lion is next up.

ECD