Author Archive
”Rebel Island,”By Rick Riordan
Bantam Books ($6.99 paperback, 330 pages)
It’s just a measure of how well endowed the mystery bookshelves are at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library that I am just now getting to read anything by Rick Riordan, a New York Times bestselling mystery author from my old stomping grounds of South Texas.
When the new library opened up, I reveled in the old books — S.S. Van Dine, Brett Halliday — that used to be hidden away in the stacks.
That’s my excuse for not being up on the latest mystery bestsellers, and I’m sticking to it.
But I’ve clearly missed some fun, because this latest Riordan opus has enough twists and action and interesting characters to definitely make me want to go back and peruse his previous work in the Tres Navarre private eye series.
In this case, Tres Navarre has officially given up his private investigation business to work as a full-time faculty member at the University of Texas at San Antonio (whence my nephew graduated — he’s now a Texas State Trooper). And Tres has just married his so-pregnant-she’s-ready-to-pop lawyer girlfriend, Maia, who happens to be a Chinese American.
“Blood Trail,”By C.J. Box
2008, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
$24.95 hardbound, 301 pages
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Here’s a book that probes some of the less-noticed wounds of America’s culture wars with all the delicacy of a 105 mm howitzer.
It’s part of a series of eight detective/mystery novels about a Wyoming game warden, Joe Pickett, who works directly for the governor — a Democrat, oddly enough — named Spencer Rulon.
In this story, someone’s killing hunters and mutilating their bodies in particularly nasty ways. With a state economy that depends so much on the hunting industry, Rulon gets Pickett involved in the hunt for the hunter who hunts hunters.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
“One Woman’s Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story,”
By Janis Karpinski with Steven Strasser (2005, Hyperion, $24.95 hardback, 242 pages.)
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If you’ve ever wanted to know what it would be like to achieve all you ever hoped, then to have it all ruined before your eyes, this book can fill you in.
Janis Karpinski is the ill-starred (ahem) general of the 800th Military Police Brigade, of whom a few soldiers apparently cooperated in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
This past Thursday, Karpinski spoke of these and other events at an event arranged by the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center.
Leading up to the Abu Ghraib scandal, she had a remarkable military career, of which her book supplies a comprehensive precis.
In 1960, during the Eisenhower administration, at the age of seven, she decided she wanted to be a soldier — after finding World War II mementos of her father in the attic of her Rahway, N.J., home.
“I put the the had on my little blonde head and stood up straight, feeling as tall and proud as my father had in the flush of victory after a great European war,” she writes. (P. 1)
Little did that child know how hard it would be for her to achieve anything like the military accomplishments she envisioned.
“The Black Hand: A Barker & Llewelyn Novel,” by Will Thomas
(2008, Touchstone, 289 pages, $14, paperback)
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At last, I find a new story and cast of characters after my own heart — albeit with a Sicilian dagger.
This is the fifth in a series of historical mysteries set in England in the 1880s. The heroes, Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn, would have been contemporaries of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson (no relation to yours truly, although that happens to be the same name as my father, and my grandfather was a doctor — of veterinary medicine). Also, Barker and Llewelyn bear a surface resemblance to the venerable duo.
But while Holmes shows his remarkable mental acumen (e.g., concluding people’s activities from pet hair on a pant-leg) regularly throughout a story, Barker, who plays the lead sleuth in this series, spends much of this story, at least, teaching his apprentice, Llewelyn, about the sociology of London’s underworld.
And that’s just fine with me.
“Spook Country,” by William Gibson(2007, Penguin Group, 373 pages, $15, paperback)
I confess that I’m one of many people who have not read William Gibson’s first novel, “Neuromancer,” so I had little more than the cover art and blurbs on which to build preconceptions when I sat down to read this book.
“Neuromancer,” according to Wikipedia, is one of the seminal works of cyberpunk science fiction, some of which I’ve enjoyed very much.
But “Spook Country” is not science fiction. In fact, it more resembles highly tech-oriented noir.
The book begins with a former rock musician — still famous in the story — named Hollis Henry, who is trying to get started as a journalist. In her first big assignment, she visits the scene of River Phoenix’s death with an artist who asks her to don a visor that looks like a welder’s face-guard. She then sees a three-dimensional virtual-reality recreation of Phoenix’s death scene.
This brings us into the concept of linking virtual reality with global positioning systems, creating the possibility of somehow inhabiting a world that is not at all what it seems.
“The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World,” by John Perkins(2007, Penguin Group, 365 pages, paperback, $15)
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If you had a hard time relating to Michelle Obama’s modesty with regard to American accomplishments, this book may surprise you.
In this tome, you get a crystal-clear peek at how rapaciously U.S. corporations have exploited and abused peoples and resources on every continent of the planet — except Antarctica and Europe.
Here’s a story told to Perkins by someone claiming to be “jackal” (a CIA-sponsored mercenary) named “Brett”:
“I walked into El Presidente’s office two days after he was elected and congratulated him.
“He sat behind that big desk grinning at me like the Cheshire Cat.
“I stuck my left hand into my jacket pocket and said, ‘Mr. President, in here I got a couple hundred million dollars for you and your family, if you play the game — you know, be kind to my friends who run the oil companies, treat your Uncle Sam good.’ Then I stepped closer, reached my right hand into the other pocket, bent down next to his face, and whispered,’ In here I got a gun and a bullet with your name on it — in case you decide to keep your campaign promises.’
”Indiana Jones and the White Witch,” by Martin CaidinBantam Books (paperback, 1994, 329 pages).Those of you who saw my review (which you can see HERE) of a previous installment in this series of adventures based on the George Lucas-Steven Spielberg movies may remember that my standards aren’t very high.
I don’t ask for much.
Just don’t bore me.
This one failed on that score.
Btw, these paperbacks were reissued this spring to capitalize on the latest movie.
“The Great Derangement:
A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, & Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire,”By Matt Taibbi(Spiegel & Grau, New York, $24, hardback, 270 pages)
This book has some real gems of insight — wisdom, even.
Check this one out, for example:
“When the government sees its people as the enemy, sooner or later that feeling gets to be mutual. And that’s when the real weirdness begins.” (P.132)
Unfortunately, such valid points are scattered thinly — and with considerably more verbiage — through 270 pages of smarmy, self-righteous, arrogance trying to masquerade as humor.
Don’t get me wrong, I did laugh at some of this.
”The Age of American Unreason”By Susan Jacoby
2008, Pantheon, $26
Hardback, 356 pages
My first encounter with the term “intellectual history” came within the past three years.
I was searching through the online faculty directories at area universities, trying to determine the specialties of various history professors, so I could get their expert opinions on a wide array of current events and places — from Appalachian poverty to Zambian politics, as it were.
I looked at Rhodes College’s Web page for Prof. Lynn Zastoupil. Under “Areas of Expertise,” it listed “European Intellectual History.”
“Cool,” I thought. “That would be a fun area to work in. Imagine researching, writing and teaching that all day.”
I have an uncanny ability to find the least remunerative fields fascinating and fun. The newspaper business, for example.
A century ago, I’d have been jumping into the buggy whip and horse-drawn wagon business with a great deal of enthusiasm.
So, Susan Jacoby’s latest book provides an unwelcome, sobering two-by-four upside the head for anyone who might think that the life of the mind is something the American public is ready to embrace on a large scale — after seven years under a president who can’t properly pronounce the word “nuclear.”
”Shinjuku Shark”By Arimasa Osawa
Translated by Andrew Clare
Vertical Inc.
Paperback, $14.95
285 pages
Both my kids have taken four years of Japanese under “Irigashi Sensei” at White Station High School, and I sincerely hoped I would like this book, the first English translation of a series of police procedurals that are extremely popular in Japan.
I do like the characters and the story, but the translation has serious problems.
The Shinjuku Shark is the nickname of the book’s hero, Samejima, a rogue, loner cop who won’t kowtow to his go-long-to-get-along superiors in the Japanese police hierarchy.
He has a beautiful rock singer girlfriend, Sho, who seems to be poised to launch into stardom.
The plot involves a gay, sadistic maker of illegal firearms and a mysterious serial killer who targets young police officers.
