An Evil Heart by Linda Castillo

I love Linda Castillo.  Not in a romantic way.  But as one of my favorite authors.

When people ask me for my favorite author, I don't have one, but I have many. And one of the best is Linda Castillo.  She and Dana Stabenow are always at the top.

She writes a compelling mystery and each new book in her Kate Burkholder series is as good as the first.  This is not true for all of the series that I enjoy.  One of the best parts is how Kate grows and changes over time.  This is also true of Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak.  The experiences they have is manifested in their characters and I truly love this.  The characters written by Jack Reacher and Stephanie Plum are pretty much the same in each book. 

In Castillo's newest book, An Evil Heart, Police Chief Kate Burkholder once again has a murder to solve.  A young, well liked Amish man has been killed by a crossbow and she needs to find the killer while still planning her wedding.  Murder investigations take whatever time is necessary and this adds a nice back story to the darkness of a terrible murder.

In typical fashion, Kate dives in to solving the murder and uses her knowledge of the Amish community to her advantage.  

I truly love this series.  As with most series, I suggest starting with the first book and reading in order. Sworn To Silence is the first one, so start there.

The Gatekeeper by James Byrne

 I volunteer at the library in Purcellville.  Recently I was shelving some books and found one that looked interesting.  This is a major perk when working in a library.

The book is The Gatekeeper.  The front cover had a quote praising it from Robert Crais.  He is a favorite author of mine so I took a chance and checked it out. I'm so glad I did.

The main character is Desmond Aloysius Limerick, called Dez.  He has obvious military training, but which one and where?  He is, in fact a gatekeeper.  The man who opens gates and holds them or closes gates and holds them for whatever operation is going on.  He has more than a "particular set of skills".

He saves a woman from being kidnapped and thereby discovers a plot to take over a section of California. This involves Russians, white supremacists, and the military...these are book topics I generally avoid like the plague, but in this case it all works.

It also mentions the Department of Energy and PG&E, both places that my brother has worked. We both like similar books so I texted him to get it even before I finished the book.  It is that good.  

The action takes place in about a week and is fast paced and with smart people and a lot of action. I liked Dez so much, that when I finished the book I went online to see if there was another one with him.  The ending suggested as much.  There is!  Deadlock is next on my list.  Think Jack Reacher, but shorter, tougher and very funny.

This book calls out for a new movie franchise.  I wish my son-in-law, Rob Yescombe, who writes screenplays, would option it!  But he doesn't write other people's ideas, only his own. In fact,  he has a movie in post production and I can't wait to watch it.  Make sure to see Grand Death Lotto when it comes out!

Dear Girls

   

I just finished Dear Girls by Ali Wong and it's f**king hilarious.  If my typing f**k bothers you, then don't read this book.  If you like reading books that make you laugh out loud and spit your drink down the front of you, then this book is for you.

Ali Wong is a stand up comedian, but also an actress and scriptwriter.  If you have Netflix, check out Always Be My Maybe.  It's really good.  She wrote it and stars in it.

When her father passes away, he leaves her a letter.  But there are so many things he doesn't tell her and now she'll never know.  So she writes this book to her two young daughters.  She writes that they can't read it until they are 21.  I'm not sure that will be old enough.  I'm also pretty sure they will read it way before then.

Don't think that this book is only the hilarious and slightly frightening parts of her rebellious youth.  She gives advice to her girls that you can actually let your kids read!

The Author is so honest about growing up in San Francisco and her wild child antics that she may have a hard time reprimanding her daughters in their own teenage years!  To be fair, she does anticipate their own rebellions.  She writes, " As long as you don't get maimed or contract life threatening STDs, I accept that some shit is going to go down."

As honest as she is about her past sexual experiences, and she is open and raunchy, she is touchingly honest about her love for her husband and the father of her two girls.  He writes an equally touching and honest afterword to the book.  He may not be as funny as his wife, but he respects her, seems wonderful and I would love to invite them both over for dinner.

We don't have kids living here anymore, so that should work.

How To Walk Away

   

I recently discovered a new author I like. Her name is Katherine Center.  I just finished her book How To Walk Away about a woman who did not walk away from a plane crash.

Her boyfriend coerced her into flying with him in a small plane to show her trust in him.  He had just finished his flying lessons and was ready to solo.  Margaret had a fear of flying, but wanted to please him.  In the air he proposed and she accepted.  Shortly thereafter he crashed while landing and she ended up paralyzed and burned.

Naturally she didn't look the same and he felt such guilt that he had to break up with her.

Family issues and overcoming obstacles get explored. There is angst, depression and happiness and it rings true to life. It doesn't hurt that there is a handsome physical therapist with a Scottish brogue.  Sadly, he doesn't wear a kilt.

I like that there are no miracles.  But maybe there is a miracle, one of forgiveness and moving on to a better life.  Perhaps that is what we should take away from this heartwarming novel.

Queen Bee

   

I just finished Queen Bee by Dorothea Benton Frank.  And by just finished, I mean five minutes ago.

I have long enjoyed her South Carolina Low Country Stories. She really gives you the flavor of the place and dives deep into the characters and their personalities.  A fabulous writer.

Queen Bee is the nickname of the imperious and demanding mother that younger daughter Holly lives with and cares for.  It is also for the bees that Holly cares for as a beekeeper and the glorious garden she plants for them.

It is not a romance novel, but some of the people find romance.  And not the romance that you think they might find, but in another direction you hadn't seen coming from the beginning.  It is not a comedy but there are quite a few laughs.  It is not a character study, but there are quite a few characters in this book.  There are many times that Frank writes a line that has me stop and want to call somebody and read it to them.  They are that good.

I really liked this book and it has happy and hopeful ending.  But I was terribly sad to get to the end.  Not just the kind of sad you feel when you finish a really good book and you will miss the characters you have come to care about. But sad because I will never again get to read a new book by one of my favorite authors.

Dorothea Benton Frank passed away this year after a brief illness and we are all the worse because of it.

A Borrowing Of Bones

   

I just finished A Borrowing Of Bones by Paula Munier.  It was a really good mystery and I highly recommend it.

On her last deployment, Mercy Carr was shot, her fiancé was killed and his bomb sniffing Malinois developed PTSD.  Yes, dogs can get that, too.  Mercy was able to retire with the dog, Elvis, and moved home to Vermont to heal.

But a mystery isn't mysterious without a puzzle to solve. While hiking in the woods, Elvis alerts on a pile of debris and finds a baby.  She gets the baby to the hospital but she soon disappears.

Mercy and Elvis find themselves trying to find the missing baby and her mother.  She meets Troy,  a U.S. Game Warden with a Newfoundland trained in Search and Rescue.  They join forces to solve the multiple, yet connected, issues that arise as Mercy uses her investigative training from the military.  This causes trouble for Troy as Mercy is a civilian and needs to stay out of the investigation.

This book is the first in a new series and I'm excited to see the next one.

Repo Girl

I just finished Repo Girl.  It is by a local author and it is always fun to read a book where you are familiar with the locations. But , in addition to THAT, Repo Girl was really good!

Andrea Sloan switched from being a waitress to a Repo Agent to make more money.  She has only been doing it for a few weeks, but she is really good at it and things are looking up.

That is, until the car she has just repossessed crashes into a deer. The resulting accident flings the previously unseen dead body from the back seat into Andrea's lap.  The naked and bloody dead body.  While fumbling with the seat belt, she ends up touching the gun that was jammed between the seats. When the cops show up she is covered in the victim's blood and her prints are the only ones on the gun.

Naturally, she is arrested for the murder.  Her bail is exhorbitant and paid by a shady character as a favor to her boss.  It seems that she is the only suspect, so Andrea has to find the killer before the trial.  She also needs to find a thumb drive that the victim had in his possession and that has disappeared.  Returning it to The Broker is the only way she has to pay her share of the bail.

I liked her friends, I liked her spirit, I liked this book.

I particularly like that Jane Fenton has a second book coming out soon.  I can't wait to see what trouble she gets into next.

Collecting The Dead

 

I have found a new series to love.  I read the second book first, which is usually a mistake. Then I went back and read the first one in the FBI Special Tracking Unit Series.  It is Collecting The Dead by Spencer Kope.

In this new and exciting series Magnus "Steps" Craig has special abilities that enable him to see where people have been.  A traumatic event in his childhood left him with synesthesia.  This is when one sense is felt by another sense, such as seeing colors invokes a taste.  Yellow may taste like lemon, for example.  For Steps, he can see the tracks or touch of people as a particular color and texture.

This sense can be overwhelming, so he has to wear special glasses to block the streaks and splotches of neon color taking over his field of vision.

But this special power can help him in tracking the lost child and even the tracks of a serial killer.  Each person has a specific color, so Steps is able to determine immediately if a dead body is the result of a serial killer, assuming he has seen the tracks on another body.  He has to pretend to find actual clues, so that he isn't considered a nut and his evidence gathering isn't dismissed.  A Special FBI Tracking Unit has been established so that Magnus and his partner, Jimmy Donovan can fly out to a murder or abduction that fits into their skill set.

Not only is this new series fascinating because of this unusual team, but Spencer Kope is a fabulous writer.  He gives you insight into the characters and the toll this job takes on them.  His books have moments of great tension, but they also has a lot of humor.   One example is a line that hit too close to home for me, " It's not that I am in bad shape, I can run ten miles with the best of them; I just prefer to do it a half mile at a time with twenty-four-hour breaks in between."

The second book in this series is Whispers Of The Dead.  It is also a wonderful book.  I probably read 50 to 100 mysteries in any given year, so when I recommend a book you should believe me. Read this series.  I can't wait for the third one.

Splintered Silence by Susan Furlong

  

I just finished Splintered Silence by Susan Furlong.  It is a murder mystery involving Irish Travellers ( also known derogatorily as gypsies), Marines, Cadaver dogs and PTSD.  There is a small resemblance to Linda Castillo's Kate Burkholder series.  Both books involve women who belong to a group of people belonging to a closed community that tends to keep to themselves and avoid outsiders.  Burkholder is a former Amish that is now a Chief of Police is a community with many Amish.  Brynn Callahan, from Splintered Silence, is a former Marine that left her Irish Traveller community in Bone Gap, Tennessee.  Both have experienced trauma from within their community and then got no support when they tried to get help.

It is also interesting that the titles in both series have started with the word Silence.  Both the Amish and the Travellers tend to avoid other people and try to solve problems within the community without calling in outside help, like the police.

Brynn was an MP and K-9 handler in the Marines and was deployed 3 times to Iraq and Afghanistan.  She and her service dog  were both injured in an explosion and Brynn was medically discharged.  She was able to get her HRD (Human Remains Detection dog) and has gone home to her Traveller community  after being fired from 3 jobs because of fallout from her PTSD.  There are not a lot of services for PTSD and even fewer for female service members.  She ends up relying on prescription drugs and alcohol to mask her symptoms.  Her dog, Wilco, has lost a leg, is now deaf and also suffers from PTSD.

Shortly after returning to her grandparents home, Wilco discovers a body in the woods behind the mobile home community where they live.  Soon another body is discovered by the dog near the mobile home park. The settled community, those that are not park of the Traveller clans, are outraged and use this opportunity to protest against them.  Wilco has been instrumental in recovering the bodies, and Brynn has to navigate the line between helping the sheriff find the serial killer and hurting her family by cooperating with the authorities.  It becomes personal when she discovers a connection to both of the victims.

The bodies and the violence of the protests are all triggers for Brynn's and Wilco's PTSD.

I like a good mystery and appreciate when I can learn a bit about a different culture. The incidents of PTSD were realistically and respectfully handled.  I'm looking forward to the next book in the Bone Gap Travellers series.

The Wake Up

I just finished The Wake Up by Catherine Ryan Hyde.  I wasn't sure I was going to like it.  It is not the kind of book I usually read.  But then I usually read mysteries and romances, and the occasional biography.  This book is a character driven novel about a man named Aiden who wakes up to the empathy that he had pushed down for most of his life.  In fact, he was abused and such an empath that he became terribly damaged emotionally and so shut off all emotions.  This interfered with his adult relationships.  Aiden called the return of his overwhelming empathic feelings the wake up.  He woke up to all the feelings he had pushed down and it changed his whole life.

He met and fell in love with a woman and then found out she had a young son, Milo, who had been abused.  Milo's way of dealing with his emotions was to lash out and hurt others, including animals.  It took a long time for Aiden to see the parallel to his own life.

The love and trust shown to Aiden as a child by his stepfather helped him to do the same for young Milo.  The emotional journey between man and boy over two generations was a compelling story.  It did not happen overnight and had ups and downs that rang true to life.  The Wake Up was a satisfying and hopeful story that I really enjoyed.

Rob Thy Neighbor

If you are a reader, you know what I mean when I say I get excited about a new book series.  This one is by David Thurlo.

 

The premise is that two former special forces guys move to Albuquerque and buy a pawn shop.  They both have permits to carry guns, as I assume most pawn shop operators do.  Because of their training, you really shouldn't mess with them.  But it is nice that people ignore this warning, because that is when the fun starts!

Charlie Henry and his friend and business partner, Gordon, are enjoying a barbeque at the home of some friends.  They hear gunshots and see the bloody arm of a neighbor trying to get over the block wall between the homes.  Charlie helps her over and he heads back towards the shooter when she says they are attempting to kidnap her husband.  Gordon runs around to cut them off and they end up rescuing the couple and getting hired to protect them until the police can catch whoever is involved.  There is a lot of action in this book and unlike many mysteries, Charlie and Gordon cooperate and get along with the police.

 

Rob Thy Neighbor is the third book in the Charlie Henry Series.  It was good enough that I immediately ordered up the first in the series.  Then I ordered the second.  I can't wait. ( I should have ordered both at once.  Now the library staff have to go back in the mystery stacks twice.  Sorry.)

Charlie Henry is Navajo and I love the bits of insight into Navajo culture.  In this way, it reminds me of a Tony Hillerman Mystery.  The first two books were written by the writing team, and husband and wife, Aimee and David Thurlo.  Sadly Aimee died and now David Thurlo is continuing the series.

 

If you like a mystery book with action, set in the Southwest, then you should like this series.  And Tony Hillerman fans will be glad to find another strong Indian protagonist. 

  

Among The Wicked

I just got Linda Castillo's latest book in the Kate Burkholder series.

What is it about getting the latest book in a series by a favorite author? 

It's sort of like falling in love again.  There's the love of familiar characters that you have missed, you're impressed by the author's skill in carrying you along in their story and maybe a bit of jealousy at the skill that you wish you had.

There are times you put the book down because you can't stand the thought of finishing the book so soon.  And then you snatch it up and rush through to the end.

Kate Burkholder is a Police Chief in a small town in Ohio.  She used to be Amish and this helps her and hurts her in her dealings with this private group of people.  She has ambivalent feelings of her time with the Amish and she tries to navigate her role as a police officer and a woman in today's world.  She is a truly interesting and complex character that you will grow to care about, too.  Start with the first book, Sworn To Silence.

Fall in love.

Orphan X

If you love Lee Child's Jack Reacher, and I do, then you will love Orphan X.  Orphan X is sort of like the scary child of Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne.  And it is "The most exciting thriller since the Bourne Identity." says Robert Crais, another fabulous writer.

The premise is that some deep, dark U.S. agency has been scooping up orphans that were growing up under awful circumstances and training them to be killers.  They are given lessons in multiple forms of combat and spy craft.   The story of how they train them to ignore pain is hard to read.  Each Orphan is given a letter for a code name. They are raised and trained by a handler and then given tasks, generally assassinations, to handle when they are deemed ready.

At one point Orphan X, known as Evan Smoak, balks at an assignment and then HE is targeted for assassination.  Thanks to the training he has received, he is able to avoid being killed and sets out to use the skills he has learned to protect those unable to protect themselves. Unlike Jack Reacher, who finds trouble by accident when traveling the country, Evan actively seeks it out.   After rescuing total strangers, Evan gives them a number to call and they are asked to give it out to ONE other person that may need his services.  That is how they repay Orphan X.

He may go months between his self-appointed tasks and he uses this time to keep up his skills.  He has many safe houses, cars and weapons, one of which is using computers to verify that he is truly needed and that it is a job that he feels is worth doing.

But the agency (whatever that is) has still targeted him and they are closing in on his assassination.

This is a fast paced story and really good.  It has already been optioned for a movie and Hurwitz has written the screenplay.  This is one movie I want to watch.

Unless they cast Tom Cruise, like they did for the Jack Reacher character.  Then I will pass.

But I WILL read the next book.  Because there  is another one called The Nowhere Man, but it won't be released until next year.

I can't wait!

Off The Grid

 

I just finished Off the Grid, the latest mystery from C J Box.  It is a Joe Pickett novel.  Joe Pickett is a Game and Fish Warden from Wyoming. He is a great Game warden and a terrible shot.  So his favorite weapon is a shotgun.

This book involves a bear attack and the tracking of the rogue bear, a terrorist plot and falconry, all in one great book.

Most of the Joe Pickett books feature Nate Romanowski, a former Special Forces operative that now lives off the grid and flies his falcons.  He has gotten Joe into trouble with his less than stellar view of some of the things the government does.  He has also saved Joe and his family from armed people with evil intent.

The main thrust of this book is a small group of idealists who are upset at NSA for the collection of Metadata, all phone, email and texting data, for possible future use.  He devises a way to fry the computers with an electromagnetic pulse and destroy all the collected data.   A Middle Eastern terrorist cell wants to steal the mobile machines made by this group and destroy airplanes, hospitals and even the electric grid all across the United States. 

It is up to Nate and Joe to stop them. In the middle of a Wyoming desert, with no cell service to call for help.  On top of that, Joe's daughter, Sheridan has been recruited by her college roommate to spend this particular weekend to help out the group.  So Joe and Nate have to rescue a bunch of college students and save the world.  No problem.  Game wardens are trained for this sort of thing!

All of Box's books are exciting and fresh.  His characters are compelling.  When I worked in a library I would sometimes get a man that hadn't really read a lot of fiction and he wanted a recommendation.  If he enjoyed the outside and nature, I would recommend C J Box and they would always come back and get the rest of his books.  A fabulous writer.

The Martian

 


I used to read a lot of science fiction.  I own all of Robert Heinlein's books and have read them all more than once.  I haven't liked any science fiction author as well, until I read The Martian by Andy Weir.  I took it on a recent trip and almost finished the book on the plane.

Astronaut Mark Watney gets stranded on Mars when the mission he is on gets scrubbed for bad weather.  He is hit by a piece of equipment and it punches a hole in his suit.  And his person.  The equipment also damages his bio monitor, so the rest of the crew thought he was dead and took off before their escape vehicle was blown over in the storm, trapping them all.

This takes place in the first chapter and the rest of the book is all about how this brilliant and funny astronaut survives all alone on a planet with no hope for rescue, until the next resupply ship is scheduled.  Mars is a long way away from Earth, so this means years.

I love all the detail in this book.  Granted the science sometimes left me behind.  I will admit to skipping some paragraphs.  This did not lessen my enjoyment in any way.  In fact, Weir's science knowledge and descriptions remind me a good deal of Heinlein.  He also was a scientist and used it for his books.

Weir worked as a programmer for a national laboratory at age fifteen and claims to be a lifelong space nerd.  He brings in such things as the Apollo flights and 70's TV shows to make a very funny and entertaining book.  Even though Mark is all alone, he keeps a log, so you know his thoughts and actions. 

Mark is a botanist and the crew were sent up some real potatoes for the Thanksgiving meal they were supposed to have on Mars.  He uses these and his "night soil" to grow a lot of potatoes.  I love the ingenuity on all the things he did to survive.  I hated that he took two steps forward and then things conspired to send him a step or two back.  There were a lot of nail biting, breath holding moments.

The whole world is aware of his fate and they are all working together to try to save him.

On my trip home, I discovered that the movie was on the list of programming on my flight.  Fabulous.  I watched it and they included all of the major points in the book, without too much in the way of changing things around to fit the shorter format.  Even though I knew how the book ended, I wasn't sure of what they would do with the movie.  But the movie held true to the end.  It even added an epilogue that I really liked that the book didn't have.

So my recommendation is to read the book first, almost always the best thing, and then watch the movie.  And take your kids.  Maybe they will pay more attention in science classes.  It could save their lives!

Food: A Love Story

 

I just finished Jim Gaffigan's latest book.  It is called Food: A Love Story.  Gaffigan is a comedian known for his jokes about Hot Pockets.  If you read his previous book you know that he has five kids and lives with his wife in a two bedroom apartment in New York.  I'm sure he sold a lot of books and has enough money for a bigger apartment, but they are still there.  I can only imagine they just have no time to look.

I find Gaffigan very funny and sometimes I laughed out loud while reading Food.  That is my definition of funny.  Lots of books give me a smile.  I laugh out loud at the truly funny ones.

Gaffigan is a comedian, so that means he travels a lot.  Therefore, he is an expert on food in every state and most cities.  He also confesses to being fat and many of his jokes are about weight and food.  I don't think he is that fat, but it remains part of his act.

He even jokes that one of the best things about living in New York is the availability of food to be delivered to his apartment, so he can get food without moving.  Those are two of his favorite things.

When Weight Watchers says that nothing tastes as good as thin feels, he disagrees.  (After all, he is married to a beautiful (and thin) wife and no longer has to stress over what he weighs to get the girl.)  Many of those things end in the word cheese, like Cheddar cheese and grilled cheese.  "Even unsalted French fries taste better than thin feels."    Gaffigan believes this level of sacrifice, eating unsalted fries because it is too much work to get up and find salt,  would make him a great contestant on Survivor.

Most of the book involves riffs on what the different states feel is their finest food.  I happen to agree with him that lobster from Maine looks like a giant sea scorpion and the only reason people eat it is because it is swimming in sticks of melted butter.

He seems to not like fruit, unless it is in a pie or covered in chocolate, and he really hates vegetables. He figures people only eat vegetables in some insane effort to be healthy and he only eats them in front of his children.  A man has to be a good example, after all.  I doubt he will let them read this book, as all parental arguments on healthy eating from his wife will end up with, "Well, DAD hates vegetables, too!"

If you want some light reading and a good laugh, I would recommend this book.  If you are trying to lose weight, or you think young impressionable minds might find this book and make every mealtime an argument, save it for your next trip out of town.  It might even let you know where to get the best food for that particular city.  Or send him a message on Twitter.  I'm sure he knows.

Personal by Lee Child

 


I just finished the book, Personal by Lee Child.  It is his 19th Jack Reacher novel.  I liked it because it did not follow the usual Jack Reacher formula.  This is where he hitches rides or takes a bus from town to town in the US.  On his travels he finds injustice and by stealth, cunning and brute force he solves the problem and moves on. 

Sort like a modern day Lone Ranger.  Who was that not-masked man?  Or maybe like the old Equalizer TV show starring Edward Woodward.   Only you can't contact him and ask for help.  Reacher is a former Army MP and can't just walk past problems he feels compelled to solve.  At times he tries to walk away and the bad guys drag him in to the middle.  Boy, I bet they wish they hadn't done that.

The nice thing about Lee Child is that he changes things up from time to time, so you don't have the same book, just with different problems.

In Personal, Jack Reacher is contacted via an ad in the Stars and Stripes.  He finds it on a bus seat and there is an ad for him to contact a former Army associate that he owes a favor.  This turns into some international intrigue with an attempted assassination of the French president and the possibility of carnage during an upcoming G8 meeting in England. 

It is fast paced and although there is a high level of violence, there is also a lot of thought used in the intricate plot lines and it kept me guessing.  I like that in a novel.  Don't want to know who did it and why until the author tells me.  As far as the violence, he TRIES to do it the easy way, but they won't LET him.

Two things I really liked.  One, there are two women he encounters on this journey.  One is age appropriate and one 20 years younger. At no time does he make the attempt to be James Bond and have intimate knowledge of these women.  Not that he is a saint.  He meets plenty of women in the course of his travels.  But in this book there was no point in the plot where it made sense, so he didn't. 

The second one is kind of fun.  Are you aware that a  lot of the future technology we saw in Star Trek is now coming to be a reality?  People are making a Phaser like device that can send lethal and non-lethal laser pulses.  There are hands free, voice activated communicators available.  There is even a small tri-corder type device that you can wave over food to detect harmful bacteria.  I'm impatient for the medical tri-corder.

Do you remember the Star Trek IV movie?  It is the one directed by Leonard Nimoy (Spock!) and the best of that generation of the Star Trek movies.    That is the one where they go back in time to get some whales to take back to the future.  In it they have to get a manufacturer to build tanks for transporting them and Scotty gets a local company to make transparent aluminum because it is so strong and lightweight.

In Personal they are using Aluminum Oxynitride as see-through armor for when political figures are speaking in public to protect them.  I looked it up.  It's real!!  There really IS transparent aluminum!  Did the writers know of the research or did they make it up and then someone tried to replicate it???  I don't know, but I would love to.

(The Air Force's transparent armor
Air Force Research Laboratory Engineers are testing a new kind of transparent armor - stronger and lighter than traditional materials - that could stop armor-piercing weapons from penetrating vehicle windows. The group is testing aluminum oxynitride - ALON a ceramic compound with a high compressive strength and durability. When polished, it is the premier transparent armor for use in armored vehicles. )

Even those who don't love Star Trek ( I'm sure there are a FEW people) will like this book.  I generally stay away from political intrigue, except for the early Tom Clancy books with Jack Ryan.  This would make a great movie thriller and in fact all of Lee Child's Reacher novels would work great on the big screen.  Child is a former TV director and has a good eye for what will work on camera.  But until they cast someone other than Tom Cruise as the six foot four inch tall Reacher, I will be sitting them out.

Hounded by David Rosenfelt

I frequently go online and request a bunch of new books from the library.  When it is my turn, there is a program called Library Elf that sends me an email to let me know the book is waiting at the library.  Recently, I picked up 16 new books.  How did they all become available at once?  They are all 14 day books, which means I have to return them within that two week period.  I already had 7 books left at home that were due in a week.  Oh, my.

I've been reading like crazy.  But the best I can do is finish one book a day and part of a second.  I refuse to have late fees, so I may have to return some and get back in line on the request list.

 

I did jump the line of my books that are due to be read in order to read the latest David Rosenfelt book, Hounded.  This is the most recent book in his Andy Carpenter series.  Andy Carpenter is an attorney who inherited a lot of money and only takes cases that he can't escape.  He is very good at not working.  Usually this is because the client is a friend or a friend of a friend.

In this book,  police Lieutenant Pete Stanton, and good friend to Andy Carpenter,  is framed for murder, oh and some drug trafficking, just to make it serious.  Stanton was investigating some deaths that family members believed to be murder, rather than natural causes.  Andy Carpenter believes that this may have something to do with getting Stanton in a place where he can no longer investigate these deaths.  Someplace like prison.

As with all Andy Carpenter mysteries, there is a dog involved.  In this case a Bassett Hound and his boy, all of whom need a temporary home.  Andy Carpenter runs a dog rescue and he and his girlfriend, and investigator, Laurie Collins take on the boy, the hound and the case.

Andy is a funny, kind of bumbling guy, who absolutely adores his girlfriend and all dogs.  He seems kind of hapless until he takes on the rare case.  Then he gets to trial and you can see him becoming a fierce  protector of his client and his interests.  Because he only agrees to take on clients he presumes to be innocent, we can cheer for him without worrying if he will use his amazing talents to free a guilty man.

There are a lot of series where the premise begins to get stale over time. It seems like the author has signed a publishing contract and has a deadline, so he plugs in a few new situations, changes a few names and writes the same book.  People buy it hoping the much beloved character moves forward, but it never happens.  This is not the case with David Rosenfelt.  I have never been disappointed in a Andy Carpenter book.

   

So buy the first one, Unleashed, and get started.  Yes, I know I get my books from the library.  But I read a book a day, here.  I CAN'T buy all new books!  But David Rosenfelt runs a dog rescue just like his character Andy Carpenter.  He has a LOT of dogs to feed.  He takes on a lot of large, older dogs that will need medication for the rest of their soon-to-be-pampered lives (see his non-fiction book, Dogtripping).  These dogs are hard to find homes for and he knows they will not be kept long in a shelter.

 

That has go to be in the top end of expensive.  I don't hear him asking for money to fund this adventure, so I presume he uses his own money. 

 

I don't know how much money he has amassed over his years working in the movie industry.  So my theory, based on nothing but my imagination,  is that he lives on that money and spends all his book money on the dogs.  Therefore, it in incumbent on all animal lovers to buy his books.  You get a great read and you save the life of a sweet dog.  Charity AND self interest!  How can you go wrong?

Destroyer Angel by Nevada Barr

 


I haven't read Nevada Barr in some time and I don't know why.  I really like her books.  She writes a mystery series about Anna Pigeon who is a ranger for the US Park Service.  I read them all for quite a few years and then got sidetracked by romances.  I saw her latest book and dived right in. ( Hey!  When did she get married?)  She encounters a lot of bad people in her official role as ranger in many of the National Parks, but this time she meets some kidnappers while on her own time. 

Don't you hate when that happens?

Anna is helping to test some equipment to assist disabled people to enjoy the outdoors.  Her friend Heath is coming along as the official disabled person, accompanied by her daughter.  The inventor and designer of the equipment is the focus of the kidnapping and her daughter goes along for the ride.  Three women, one disabled in a climbing accident and two teenagers against four kidnappers.  Lots of tension and violence.

Anna was out of the camp when the others were taken and spends the next few days following, taking out a few of the four kidnappers and attempting the rescue.  I hate it when the review tells the whole story, so just know that Anna isn't super human in her efforts, everyone has a really bad time and not everyone makes it out alive.  There is even a dog in jeopardy sub plot for you animal lovers.  Or not, if dogs in jeopardy scare you too much.

If you haven't read Nevada Barr in awhile I suggest you take another look.  It was a great read and I couldn't put it down.  I finished it in a day, but I finished nothing else!

The Last Kiss Goodbye by Karen Robards

I don't usually read paranormal books.  I like Sci-Fi sometimes, but for some reason I can't get beyond the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy paranormal stories.  There are a few authors
that I read anyway.   With some, the development of characters and the way they write about ghosts or psi powers is straightforward , so I don't spend my time saying, "Oh, come ON!"

Two authors I like are Nora Roberts and Kay Hooper.  And now, Karen Robards.  I have been reading her novels for years and she is an excellent author.  She writes mysteries with a bit of romance.  I like romance novels, but the characters have to be doing something other than falling in love.  Throw in a dead body or some hostage rescuing and I'm in.

The Last Kiss Goodbye is the second in a series.  The protagonist is Charlotte Stone.  As a child she was in the home of a friend when the whole family was murdered.  She hid and was spared, but survivor's guilt has driven her to become a psychologist and study the criminal minds of serial killers. 

On top of this, she sees dead people.  I know, I KNOW.  I started to put the book down about ten times and said, "I'll give it a few more pages."

In the first book, The Last Victim, she meets a living FBI agent to whom she is attracted.  One of the serial killers she is studying gets killed and now his ghost follows her around.  The two men vie over her affections, although the living guy has no clue about the dead guy.   She wants to want a relationship with the live guy, but the dead guy following her around interferes with that.  She finds herself falling for the dead guy/serial murderer.  Of course he is built and handsome.  A BIG suspension of disbelief.

On the good side, you and I both know that the evil ghost following her is really innocent and it will be proven in subsequent books.  He can communicate with the recently dead that she sees, particularly ones just murdered by the most recent killer they are chasing,  so he helps her in her official capacity as an consultant to the FBI/living guy.

IF you can get past the part where she turns down a living guy to have a flirtatious/romantic relationship with a dead serial killer, who can SOMETIMES pop into a flesh and blood person, you will find the mystery fast paced.  Even with all the plot points I had issues with, I still liked the book.  It kept me reading, when I wanted to stop and I may even read the next one.

Does he stay a ghost forever, is this the modern Ghost and Mrs. Muir?  Or can he pop into life and stay there?  Why are there so many serial murderers and what attracts us to these horrible unknowable questions?  Why did we like Dexter and want him to get away with murder?

Heck.  Don't ask me.  Haven't a clue.  I liked the book, though.