Shadow of the Solstice

 Shadow of the Solstice by Anne Hillerman is the first one of her nearly 20 thriller novels that I’ve read, although East Coast Don has already reviewed two of her novels, both of which take place in the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. This current novel mostly takes place in New Mexico, but a drug rehab facility in Phoenix, Arizona plays a significant role as well. The plots are based on very true stories, and Hillerman tells several stories including a planned protest of mining in the earth led by Caucasian psychopaths (they are actually planning to kidnap the female Secretary of the Interior), the relationship of a daughter with her mother who suffers from cognitive decline, and the family drama for a family over their 17-year-old son’s need for treatment of substance abuse (which is a fraudulent scam designed only to suck money out of the government systems which were designed to help with this issue).

 

The plot is good and the characters are compelling. This isn’t a great novel and I’d give it a 3+ out of 5 points. It’s an “airplane book,” one that would entertain you just enough during a cross country flight.

When Sleeping Women Wake

 When Sleeping Women Wake, the debut novel by Emma Pei Yin, is a historical fiction novel that is significantly different than most that I have read. It covers that 3 ½ year period during WWII during which the Japanese military occupied Hong Kong. It’s a story mostly about women who are attempting to deal with the cultural values of the Japanese and the Chinese that devalues women. In the face of hardship of war and the brutality of the Japanese, the Chinese misogyny seemed to have sufficient flexibility after all. The Japanese perspective was women were to be seen but not heard, that women had nothing to contribute intellectually or militarily beyond providing “comfort” to the male warriors. Chinese women were expected by the Japanese to bow to their expectations.

 Mingzhu was the mother of a successful Hong Kong businessman. Qiang was their daughter, and Biyu was their maid. Biyu was hired specifically to attend to Qiang shortly after her birth, and a deep affection developed between them, much more like sisters than anything else. In the occupation, Mingzhu’s husband was killed, so the women were mostly left to fend for themselves. Ms. Yin detailed their interaction with the forces in Hong Kong that resisted the Japanese aggression and the many brutal deaths with which they had to manage. It was the war that led to the women being painfully separated from one another, and in turn, how they managed their challenges individually and heroically. 

 

The characters and plot were all skillfully developed. Just as the author talked of the love that the women had for each other, she also told of their attempts to find love of a more classical nature. I thought the author brought the various themes together when she completed the sentence which started with the title of the book: “When sleeping women wake, mountains move.” If historical fiction is of interest to you, especially the war in the Pacific, and especially with parts of the populace that was impacted by the war you may not have previously considered, then this book is for you. It gets my strong recommendation.

Hard Town

 

 

Hard Town is Adam Platinga’s second novel and the first one that I’ve read. I had run out of my own audiobooks and found this one on Libby. I intend to give the author a significant compliment when I say that his book felt like a cross between novels by Lee Child and Don Winslow. The protagonist, Kurt Argento, is a retired Detroit cop who has found himself roaming aimlessly about the country, currently landing in a small Arizona desert town. While having his usual breakfast in a diner, he is approached by a young woman who has a two-year-old son. She said she had checked up on Argento, knew him to be a fair man, and she wanted his help to find out what happened to her husband when he disappeared two weeks earlier. Much like Child’s Jack Reacher, although he was initially inclined to avoid this woman’s request, Argento perceived something was going wrong in the town and he decided to figure out what that might be. Much like Don Winslow, there was involvement with a Mexican drug cartel although there was a very significant twist to the cartel’s involvement. People were dying and Argento was warned to stay away, and when he didn’t, it was a corrupt government agency that tried to kill him. One of the government killed his beloved dog, and that’s when the action really began. There was lots of fire power in the closing act. If you like Child and Winslow, you’ll love Hard Town.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

 The Lost City of Z was written by David Grann and published in 2009. The subtitle is A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. This nonfiction book is about the British Amazon explorer Percy Fawcett who had become obsessed over the tales of a great and wealthy civilization which had been lost or hidden somewhere in the great Amazon forest. Grann set up a great story by starting with examples about the enormity and the dangers of the Amazon. He also wrote about the prior many failed attempts to thoroughly explore it. As late as the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century, most maps of the Amazon were still left blank with the notation “unexplored.” For centuries since the original Spanish conquests, people had been fascinated by the legend of El Dorado, but no one had ever found evidence that it really existed.

 There is no question that Fawcett was maniacal in his attempts to find “Z,” the golden city that he was certain existed somewhere. During his prior excursions to find Z, he kept copious notes which the author then used to enrich his book. However, Fawcett also always kept secret the specific locations of where he had actually traveled. He did have contemporary rivals in the exploration business, notably Dr. Rice. Fawcett also had the advantage over other explorers of being seemingly indefatigable and being relatively immune to the many jungle fevers that plagued such explorers. These efforts were also incredibly dangerous with hostile Indian tribes hidden in the forest.

 

After wonderful background info about the various characters and prior exploration failures, the majority of the book was about Fawcett’s last journey which began in 1925 when he was 57 years old. He was accompanied by his 21 year old son Jack Fawcett and Jack’s best friend, Raleigh Rimell. When the trio was never heard from again, it set off decades of exploration by other parties who never found evidence of Fawcett or the lost city.

 

Grann does a remarkable job with his narrative. The reader learns about England’s Royal Geographic Society, as well as more details about Fawcett’s family life. Grann makes the adventures of Fawcett clearly come to life in a most dramatic fashion. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Vivian Maier Developed by Ann Marks

A rare venture into non-fiction. Found in the bookstore the same day as the Antietam book. 

One way I look for new books is to wander the displays at Barnes and Noble. A hobby of mine is taking pictures (I’d never have the arrogance to call myself a ‘photographer’). My partner in crime in this blog (West Coast Don) has also been known to pick up a camera. When asked what kids of pictures I favor I say sport, landscape, travel, and street.

Most folks understand the first three. ‘Street’ is an altogether unique form. Some call street photos ‘candid’ because the photographer sort of sneaks in a picture when the subject is unaware or is posed in their natural setting. The first photographer to popularize street photography is the legendary Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004). His book ‘The Decisive Moment’ remains the definitive treatment of the subject. Many others have followed his lessons. Google ‘street photographers’ for dozens of examples.

Found this book on a recent foray into B&N. The ’how’ of street photograph is not the subject of this review. Vivian Maier practiced her craft on the streets of mostly Chicago, LA, and NY. Born in France into a less-than-ideal family. Her upbringing was one of neglect, but somewhere along the way she picked up her first camera focusing mostly on French landscapes. She emigrated to the US as a teenager and for most of her adult life was spent as a professional nanny, sometimes as a live-in nanny. She cared for children from infancy through high school. Some short assignments, others were years in duration.

Soon she gravitated to the classic Rolleiflex viewfinder, the boxy ones with two lenses. You’ve seen them. Her nanny job was perfect. She’d wander all over town with kids in tow or in a stroller or while her charges were in school. She rarely was seen without her camera. She also liked taking self-portraits decades before the concept of a ‘selfie’ became commonplace; see the cover photo.

Now all that is fine. Plenty of people carry cameras. Marks' story is about how Maier's work was discovered. See, Vivian never really pursued her addiction toward being a pro or showing her work in galleries. She just took pics and hung on to them. Stored her work in boxes, made a note in some borders, even to the point of storing the exposed rolls of film but never developing them. Strange indeed. One more thing about Vivian – she was a hoarder. When she died in 2005, she had 7 garage-sized storage units stuffed with her belongings.

Now when the storage unit of a rental customer passes away and there are no heirs to deal with, the contents get auctioned off. People bid on the contents sight unseen, no unpacking. Maybe a box will have a treasure of some value. It’s a crap shoot.

Enter John Maloof. In his mid 20s, he lived in the neighborhood near the rental business and was bidding on junk in his plan to do a history of his neighborhood. Managed to get some boxes containing Vivian’s stuff including hundreds of photos and tons of undeveloped film. He had no idea what he had but decided to hunt down more boxes of her photos. Museums weren’t interested, not much interest from local colleges. Eventually he scanned and posted a whole bunch of photos on Flickr (the eventual full collection of her work that Maloof collected numbered nearly 150,000 photos).

Bingo. The Internet viewers went nuts about who was the photographer, that the photos were a significant artistic find revealing city life circa 1950s-1980s. Didn’t take long for Maloof’s discovery to become a hot topic in photography circles. Interest in Vivian’s work skyrocketed. Showings of her work were held in major cities worldwide. Maloof produced a documentary called Finding Vivian Maier that was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature (2015; see it for free on Plex TV). Numerous books have been written about her work, but to date, this book by Ann Marks is the only traditional biography. Couple sample pics I like:

 

Don’t run out and buy this book to see a compilation of her work; there are plenty of photo books (aka ‘coffee table books’) of her work. Marks assumes the reader in familiar with Maier's work and is interested in Maier as a person. The photo examples presented date back to her youth in France with rare examples of previously unpublished pictures that show how she developed her own style.

While I’m not a big fan of biographies, I did find this a fascinating look into the world of an unknown genius of the art world. If that’s your cup of tea, start your own adventure into the world according to Vivian Maier.

ECD

A Day in September: The Battle of Antietam and the World It Left Behind by Stephen Budiansky

I’m betting that of the various armed conflicts that the US have been involved, the Civil War is one that captures our imaginations. Budiansky is a writer of historical non-fiction. In this book he notes a bit of trivia I’d not considered: There has been more written about the Civil War than about the rest of American wars combined. Never considered that. He also notes that one of the most requested items by soldiers was centered around writing materials so soldiers could correspond with home. Hadn’t considered that either.

Given that kind of interest, be it academic or for readers, my guess is that most readers have a particular occurrence that catches their imagination. There are almost too many from which to choose. I grew up in Maryland. In elementary school, my dad and I went up to Sharpsburg for the day to tour the Antietam battlefield. Since then, Antietam has been my battle of interest. Been there multiple times and want to return. Something about Antietam.

This book isn’t a step-by-step explanation of the actions of Lee vs. McClellan. The book goes into some of the background of both the major players as well as the soldiers. One resource are the writings of one Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston physician and his son who was a union Captain (and eventual Supreme Court Justice) who was in the medical service at Antietam.

By reviewing copious letters written in the days before and after the battle, Budiansky has ‘humanized’ September 17, 1862 in a way I’ve not experience in other books. And he details things most of us wouldn’t have thought about.

Now we all (ok, maybe not ‘all’) know that the battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day in American history. Still is. Over the course of 12 hours:

·      there were 22,720 killed, wounded, or missing . . .(if you want to see something truly humbling, visit the battlefield on the first Saturday of December each year. Local historical types place luminaries along the roads of the battlefield. One for each casualty. Search for 'Antietam Illumination' for more information. I've been there. Looks like a cemetery where each tombstone is lit. The sight can be unsettling portrayal of the slaughter of that day).

·      That the casualties of the civil war exceeded that of all the known wars at that time . . .

·      In total, it’s estimated that cannon-fire continued mostly non-stop firing at a rate of 1 shot every 2 seconds . . .

·      around 1 million Minie-balls were fired . . .

·      at the end of the battle, if walking along the sunken road (aka ‘Bloody Lane’) one would not have touch the ground for all the casualties . . .

·      the water of Antietam Creek that flowed through the northern half of the battlefield ran red

·      that a particular personality trait of McClellan (‘no lack of confidence in himself’) contributed to how that battle was fought or remembered . . .

·      the stench of the battlefield from the evacuated bowels/bladders of human and animal casualties combined with the putrification of decaying flesh over the following days . . .

·      the courage of the soldiers suffering in the ‘acceptance of unendurable conditions’ to kill an enemy he didn’t hate, he just wanted to kill.

The public isn’t going to run out to buy a book like this. People who are interested in the civil war are the target audience. For those who choose to read this book, it’ll transport you to the middle of those ‘unendurable conditions.’

ECD

A Quest for God and Spices

 Lately, I’ve been reviewing books that were either historical fiction or nonfiction regarding the age of exploration. A Quest for God and Spices falls into the historical fiction category about ancient Italy and the developing spice trade that led to great riches in Europe. At the time, Catholicism was the dominant religion in Europe and the spice trade was initially entirely controlled by the Muslim world, so there was bound to be a clash of civilizations as the demand for spices in Europe had to be addressed. In addition to the clashes between Catholics and Muslims, there was also the schism in Christianity between the Roman Catholic church in Rome and the Greek Orthodox church in Constantinople. The churches were also involved in nearly every business deal that was made, expecting to get a cut of any profits. Finally, there was the struggle between different traders in each port from Genoa to Rome to Venice to Constantinople, and of course there were struggles among family members in each trading company. The story was further complicated by the Crusades. The Muslims had captured Jerusalem which the Christians thought was an abomination, so despite the failed attempts of Richard the Lionhearted to cast the Muslims out, more funds were being solicited to fund the next Crusade.

 In large part, Dean Cycon told this story from a business perspective as the forces of those various entities competed with one another. His protagonist was Nicolo DiCarlo, the younger brother in a family of Genoese traders. Nicolo was always the over-protected little brother compared to Antonio who had already been sent out into the world by their very successful father. Nicolo had enough of being so sheltered and he was looking for a way to make a name for himself in the business world. Interestingly, the European markets were being held down by their awkward mathematics, and the Arabic world had a drastic advantage because of their math, which was something Nicolo very rapidly mastered. It was while Antonio was away on business that his father saw a chance for Nicolo to get some of his own international experience. Nicolo was sent to accompany his uncle, a scholarly monk, on a secret mission to Constantinople which was the largest trading center in the world. In addition to doing some trading, the uncle Brother Mauro and Nicolo were to learn what they could about Presbyter John, who legend has it was a great Christian king whose empire was somewhere to the east of the land controlled by the Muslims. They wanted to solicit his help to conquer Jersalem. The problem was no one knew where Presbyter John lived or even if he was a real person.

 

The adventure took Nicolo to Rome and Venice, and then finally to Constantinople. One of the endearing features of this book was Nicolo’s excitement about all the news sights he was experiencing, as well as his efforts to work on trade deals with the church and other traders along the way. He really wanted to find the source of the spices so the Muslim middlemen could be cut out of the profitable trade. It seemed to me that the interactions with the various people that Nicolo encountered were reasonably presented. Those were brutal times, and mistakes in such deals could easily end in death.

 

If the time frame of the middle ages is of interest to you, then this book deserves your attention. Cycon provided details of life in those times that are often overlooked in the history books I’ve read. I must say I really don’t like the title, but I’m also not sure how to fix that while capturing the scope of the story that was presented.

The White Darkness

 The White Darkness by David Grann is a nonfiction work about Henry Worsley, an explorer of Antarctica. Worsely had a lifelong fascination with the exploration of Antarctica, especially the efforts of Ernest Shakleton in the first decade of the 20^th century. When an opportunity arose for Worsley to join one such expedition, he jumped at the opportunity. Remarkably, his wife always supported those wishes. The book details the hardships that were faced by the explorers. Then, Worsley led a second expedition of three men who were able to cross the continent. Finally, in 2015, he chose to attempt a solo crossing. 

I recall the news about Worsley’s solo journey. It lasted for 77 days, and like Shakleton whose team had gotten within 97 miles of the South Pole before they turned back due to a shortage of supplies, Worsley abandoned the effort not long before it would have been completed. He knew he was done and used his satellite phone to call for his evacuation. However, in the process of the rescue, it was determined that he had contracted peritonitis. He was flown to Puerto Arenas and was hospitalized, but his body was so badly deteriorated, he did not survive.

 

This was a great story. It was a rather short audiobook, only about three hours. If real life adventures catch your interest, the work of David Grann is for you.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder was written by David Grann. The book should be labeled as historical fiction, but given the research done by Grann and the wealth of information he had to read, it should essentially be considered nonfiction, except of course for the dialogue that was created to help the story along. In 1740, a large flotilla of ships left England and headed for the Caribbean to do battle with Spanish ships, but five of those ships were on a secret mission. Five of them peeled off from the flotilla and headed south. Their assignment was to steal whatever they could from Spanish ships, especially one that was loaded with gold and silver as it returned from robbing the Incas and Aztecs. They were to find their way through the Straits of Magellan, enter the Pacific, and perhaps eventually complete a circumnavigation. The Wager was the main warship in this secret group. Things went well until they got to the Straits of Magellan and were in the neighborhood of Cape Horn. They encountered hurricane force conditions and simply could not pierce through the horrible weather. They were lost and initially did not know they had actually entered the Pacific. Given the fierce weather, they had been unable to take bearings for weeks. Many lives were lost in the process, especially as the sailors began to suffer from scurvy and typhus. 

It turns out they got gotten through the Straits and were beached on a Chilean island which they named after their ship. As indicated by the subtitle, as the result of their debilitation and starvation, some of the crew mutinied against the officers, and those officers were abandoned on shore. A portion of the crew did eventually make it back to England, but the survivors told different stories about the cruelty of the officers. It was less than 80 men who survived from a crew that started with about 500 men. The officers were generally forgiven for their actions, and some of the sailors were hung as a penalty for mutiny.

 

I’ve always been fascinated by stories of sailing during the Age of Exploration, and this one meets that criteria. It’s hard today to imagine the suffering that the sailors incurred. Added to the issue of exploration was the colonization that was occurring especially by Spain, England, and Portugal. This was a very good story and I immediately downloaded another book by Grann which will be reviewed next.

Demolition Angel

 Robert Crais published Demolition Angel in 2000, but it’s one of his books that I missed until now. This is the novel in which he introduced Carol Starkey, a bomb technician for the LAPD. It was before the current story that Starkey was blown up while she was defusing a bomb when LA was hit by a relatively small earthquake. The earthquake produced enough of a jolt to set off the bomb. Carol’s heart actually stopped beating in response to the explosion, but EMT’s were able to get her heart started again and it saved her life. However, she was still badly damaged both physically and emotionally. Her partner had been killed in the explosion and she had a bad case of survivor’s guilt. She immediately began drinking to great excess. She was also addicted to cigarettes, consuming more than three packs per day. She sought therapy but was already on her fourth therapist after about two years of trying.

 

Meanwhile Carol was back on the job, usually successfully hiding the depression and anxiety with which she struggled. She had become a loner, and she was too damaged physically to consider dating again. She could not tolerate the idea of someone seeing her naked and actually touching her many ugly scars.

 

Crais described how unique were the people who became bombers and that despite the danger, the bomb techs also became addicted to their jobs. A new master bomber appeared on the scene, and he referred to himself as Mr. Red. He was exceedingly clever and impossible to trace, and then he was responsible for blowing up another one of Carol’s technical mates.

 

This was an eerie story about eerie people. Starkey was one of Crais’ best protagonists as he described her emotional attempts to deal with her injuries and her longing for a relationship she was too afraid to pursue. The ending to this plot was particularly gripping. This is another great work by Crais and it gets my strongest recommendation.

L.A. Requiem

 My blog notes indicate I read L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais in about 2009 when we first put this blog together, and ECD provided a great review of the novel in 8/2010. So 15 years later, I had no recall of the book until I picked it up, and was once again knocked out by Crais’ story. I refer you to ECD’s review, just search for it. The cast of characters, especially Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, was fantastic and the plot was riveting. This just might be Crais at his very best.

The Middleman

 The Middleman is the fourth novel by Mike Papantonio that I’ve reviewed in this blog, and I’ve given the author high praise for his earlier works, all of which had lawyer Nick “Deke” Deketomis as his protagonist. This novel is another great story with Deke, his Florida law firm, and a successful sociopath, Connor Devlin. Out of the blue, Deke was requested that he look into the family business by one of his law school classmates, Matt Redmond, who was concerned about the business being taken over by a character, Devlin, who he no longer trusted. The family business was a pharmaceutical company. Having been started by Matt’s grandfather as a successful chain of pharmacies, the company had evolved into a pharmacy benefit manager, PBM. Essentially, they were a middleman, the go-between that connected drug manufacturers, medical insurance companies, retail pharmacies, and consumers. Essentially, the PBM had a role in controlling the price of drugs, and in this case, it was insulin that was at issue. Devlin was driving up the cost of insulin and was using illegal means to do so. He was a charismatic man who successfully charmed everyone until they were in too deep to extricate themselves from his scheme. From a consumer point of view, the cost of insulin was being pushed beyond the means of many. Deaths were occurring within the companies that offered any resistance to Devlin’s plans.

 As he explained the reality of PBMs, the author presented a great cast of characters. The reader should know that PBMs are a reality which controls what medications insurance companies will authorize for reimbursement. There were family dynamics that were believably presented. Devlin was both a narcissist and a sociopath. As a psychoanalyst, I found myself reviewing the many people with character pathology that I interviewed and treated over the course of my career. I’ve known narcissists who were not sociopaths, but I’ve not known a sociopath who was not a narcissist.

 

The author brings this story about the trauma caused by this narcissistic sociopath to a satisfactory conclusion. The plot was well presented, so once again, Mr. Papantonio has created a story that gets my strongest recommendation.

Rapino/Amato by Charlie Stella

Charlie Stella has 10 crime novels, mostly based in various locales of the general NY city area, but elsewhere on occasion. For #11, he takes us eventually to the Rockies, mostly in and around Bozeman, MT. He’s taking bit of a risk by trading in the canyons of NYC for the mountains, but don’t let that bother you. Charlie is still Charlie - a superb storyteller, no matter where the story is based.

Charlie brings back this stone killer from Italy who featured prominently in his previous outing, Joey Piss Pot. In Joey, Charlie told his story with a bit of a wink given the frick and frack back and forth of the two main characters. Not this time. Stella's all business, keeping the yucks at a minimum. Giovanni Rapino, on the other hand, knows his place. He’s a hitman. Do the job, get out. If caught, clam up, do the time. At the end of Joey, Rapino was sent to Big Sandy, a KY prison of some note, to serve a seven-year sentence.

He's two years into his sentence when he is surprisingly transferred to a federal prison camp in SD. Compared to Big Sandy, this camp is a vacation. But only for a couple days when he is scheduled to meet with a Fed. No clue why until the Fed delivers the pitch: your history is perfect for our needs . . . work for us, go undercover, infiltrate a developing cartel operation in MT, gather intel, report back (frequently). Once the cartel finds out that MT isn’t good for business, the feds will set Rapino free and tear up his record. And if Rapino refuses? He gets a 1-way ticket back to Big Sandy. Rapino may not be totally sold, but it beats prison.

The cartels aren’t dumb. If he gets a foot in the door, the cartels will check him out. The Feds set him up with a new identity and a backstory dating back to Italy. Bye bye, Giovanni Rapino. Hello, Ruggiero (Reggie) Amato.

Amato heads off for Bozeman. At a Yankton, SD truck stop, he and a waitress, Brenda Lee of LA, find something in each other that clicks. She’s got no tie to Yankton and joins Amato on his way to Bozeman. They find a place to stay, she finds a waitressing job and Amato steps out to get the cartel’s attention. Which he does when he kills on the cartel’s advance men.

Stella takes us in and out of the lives of Brenda Lee and Reggie, the overbearing Feds, the various cartel scum, not to mention some rumblings back in NYC about the whereabouts of Gio/Reggie and the remnants of Joey Piss Pot that needed resolution, not to mention the fish out of water behavior of cartel, Feds, and mob personnel vs. the locals native to the outback of mostly rural Montana. Be prepared for a steady diet of coffee and cigarettes to go with the back-and-forth negotiations and threats that accompany this mix of cultures.

Strangers in a strange land, right? Plus, what’s a CI to do? Once he’s done the job for the Feds, that included elimination of any number of cartel members, he’s got to look out for himself and Brenda Lee. Always the chance the Feds may turn on him as a loose end that needs to go away.

Have no fear, children. Charlie won’t let you down. Count on him to take you on a complex and convoluted journey of promises, betrayals, and setups, of how a good guy (no matter what his history) and his girl juggle multiple players against each other as they claw their way out of all the messes presented. If Charlie wasn't an author extraordinaire, he'd be a master juggler able to keep all manner of weapons and chainsaws aloft.  In the meantime, this mismatched twosome manages to find copius opportunities to crawl all over each other in the sack, horndogs that they are. 

But look at it this way. Rapino/Amato can also be viewed as a criminal take on a romance novel (without the long haired buff blond guy riding a horse on the cover). Two broken people of disparate backgrounds, meet, fall in love, and overcome some unconscionable obstacles. 

Charlie, are you going soft on us?

Anyway, boys and girls, that is how you get and stay at the top of my power rotation of authors. Find any of his books. You'll learn quickly why I'm hooked.

 

ECD

Battle Mountain by C.J. Box

 

Nate Romanowski has lost everything… his wife, his business, his self-respect, his belief in government.  While Joe and Mary Beth Pickett agree to foster Nate’s young daughter and Sheridan Pickett takes over his falconry business, Nate goes off the grid to recharge and plan revenge against his nemesis Axel Soledad.  Soledad and his anarchist buddies are planning an attack on a group of power brokers and high ranking politicians who meet each year at a lodge in Wyoming called Battle Mountain. (Apparently something similar to this really happens.)  Nate tracks Soledad to this meeting point.  Meanwhile, much to Joe’s apprehension, Wyoming Governor Rulon has a special assignment for Joe.  Seems the governor’s son in law, an up and coming IT wizard and therefore, a soft, desk jokey has taken the governor’s challenge to shadow a well-known elk hunting guide in an effort to toughen up.  The governor panics when his son in law and the hunting guide disappear in the wilderness.  Joe is assigned to quietly find them.  Coincidently (a little too so) and unknowingly, Joe and Nate are separately headed to the same destination, Battle Mountain where things are sure to ‘get western.’

Great book. Great story telling. Great suspense.

I was fortunate to attend C.J.’s book tour session at the St. Louis County Library where Box visits annually to promote his latest completed work.  I think he said this was the sixteen time.  I’m always amazed how loyal and intense his fans are.  They call him out on every minute detail and encourage him to include more Nate Romanowski involvement.  Decked out in his black cowboy hat and shiny boots, he takes it all in stride with his calm cowboy demeanor.