Category Archives: Reviews

Fiction, Reviews

‘Out of the Dark,’ by Gregg Hurwitz

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Coming up: a review of Gregg Hurwitz’s Out of the Dark.

But first, this urgent news update:

January 25, Deadline.com: EXCLUSIVE: Gregg Hurwitz, author of the best-selling Orphan X series, has inked what’s described as a “significant seven-figure deal” with publisher Minotaur Books for the next three volumes in the series. The next book in the series, Out of the Dark: The Return of Orphan X, hits shelves on Tuesday, Jan. 29.

Dave Lull just sent me the above item, and it pleases me no end, because there can’t be enough Orphan X books for me. No doubt the TV series will ruin the concept, but keep the books coming, Gregg.

And now for our book review:

Wetzel had read somewhere that Hollywood directors liked to hose down streets to make the asphalt sparkle on film. Washington was like that naturally, a black-ice kind of town—lose your focus and you’d slip and break your neck.

Any review of the Orphan X books requires a little orientation lecture, but that’s OK, because it’s fun to tell.

Evan Smoak is “Orphan X.” As a boy, he was “recruited” from a group home into the super-secret, ultra-deniable US government “Orphan” program. Under this program, smart, athletic kids whom no one would miss were trained to be the world’s most dangerous assassins and covert operatives. But gradually, under the direction of a bureaucrat named Jonathan Bennett, the program lost its focus and become badly corrupted. Jack managed to break free and, subsidized by income streams he can still tap (I never quite followed how that works), he now lives in secret in Los Angeles. His home is a luxury apartment, impenetrably secure, and from it he operates as “The Nowhere Man.” He’s a sort of a hero on call. People he helps refer him to other people who need a hero. One case at a time, Evan attempts to do penance for the sins of his earlier life.

He has one major existential challenge – Jonathan Bennett is now the president of the United States. And for several years he has been systematically been killing off the few surviving Orphans. But of all the Orphans, Evan Smoak is the one he is most determined to eliminate – though Evan has no idea why.

In Out of the Dark, Evan is busy planning the assassination of the president. A challenge, but he thinks he can carry it off. On top of that, he needs to save an autistic young man who, simply because of his naïve honesty, is targeted for murder – along with his whole family – by one of the most dangerous drug lords in the world.

All the usual pleasures of a great thriller are present in Out of the Dark – rising suspense, heart-pounding danger, lots of high-tech electronics and computer hacking. (Frankly I found some of the action scenes over the top, but I was happy to suspend disbelief.) But what sets the Orphan X books apart is the sharpness of the writing – great characters, crackling dialogue, moments of wit. As well as just good, well-crafted prose. It’s a pleasure to read Gregg Hurwitz.

Highly recommended, with cautions for violence, adult themes, and mature language.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Killer’s Mind,’ by Mike Omer

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(Sorry about the internet silence the last couple days. I’ve been down with some kind of stomach bug, and not much use for anything. I think I’m coming back now.)

Here’s an example of a book that had some flaws, but still earned my thumbs up through its various virtues. A Killer’s Mind, by Mike Omer had (in my opinion) some plotting problems, but the characters and the writing carried the project through.

Zoe Bentley is a psychologist who works as an FBI consultant, mostly profiling. She lives in Virginia, but is sent to Chicago to help the police with some serial killings. Assigned to accompany her is FBI agent Tatum Gray, a hunky fellow who immediately rubs her the wrong way.

In Chicago, someone is kidnapping young women, strangling them to death, and then embalming them and leaving them in posed positions in quiet spots. Zoe struggles to try to comprehend the mind of such a criminal, and it leads her to break the rules and earn the anger of the Chicago cops. But that brings her and Agent Gray closer together as they slowly learn to get inside this guy’s very twisted head.

What I especially liked about A Killer’s Mind was the characters. Zoe is an interesting main character – no super-cop, she’s a damaged personality with a shocking back story. In social situations she comes off as distant and curt, but she is not actually a cold person. She’s in fact so naturally empathetic that she has to raise emotional barriers to keep her sanity. Also I like stories where a man and woman hate each other at first sight, and then warm to one another. This is that kind of story.

What I had problems with was how Zoe’s character worked into the plot. We’re supposed to believe that an accomplished, adult professional woman would withhold what she believes to be material evidence in an ongoing homicide investigation, because she’s afraid of a repeat of childhood embarrassment. Author Omer works to make this plausible, but I never really bought it.

Still, all in all I liked A Killer’s Mind, and I’m likely to read the next volume in the series.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Ivory Vikings,’ by Nancy Marie Brown

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As I write this review, I have beside me an exact-sized, museum-authorized replica of one of the kings from the Lewis chessmen. Because as I read this book, I felt I just had to have one.

The Lewis chessmen are one of the most famous, and intriguing, archaeological treasures in the world. They’re surrounded by mystery – we know they were discovered on the island of Lewis in the Hebrides in 1831, but by whom, and exactly where, are the subjects of contradictory tales. They are 93 objects (one an ivory buckle), which include elements from several chess sets – including, probably, non-chess pieces. And in themselves they’re fascinating objects. Like the contemporary Icelandic sagas, they speak to us across the centuries with almost a modern voice. Each piece is a distinct individual, and their postures and gestures seem to be telling us something – though we can’t be sure we can read them across time and cultures.

Nancy Marie Brown’s Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman Who Made Them, was not exactly the book I expected from the title. And that’s good. Over the years, in my amateur historical reading, I’ve come up again and again against books that take one small piece of evidence, build a huge framework of supposition on top of it, and then declare that they have “proved” some radical new theory. This book is not like that. This is a good work of history with a somewhat grandiose title.

Author Brown examines the Lewis chessmen by category – Rooks, Bishops, Queens, Kings, and Knights. First she describes the pieces, and relates how their functions changed over the centuries, and how they worked under the rules of the 12th Century (when they were probably carved). Then she relates those functions to the history of what might be called the Norwegian Sphere of Influence during the early Middle Ages. We are treated to a pretty good overview of Scandinavian/North Atlantic history in that period, with an emphasis on Iceland and Norway.

In recent years the prevalent scholarly view has been that the Lewis pieces were carved in a workshop in Trondheim. Author Brown makes a good argument that the pieces were in fact carved by an Icelandic woman mentioned in the saga of Bishop Pall Jonsson of Skalholt: “Margret the Adroit.”

Her case for Margret is not watertight, but it’s a good, plausible one, worthy of attention. And in the course of the argument, she provides us with an excellent history lesson.

I enjoyed Ivory Vikings, and recommend it.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Winter Moon,’ by Dean Koontz

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The November sky was low, a uniform shade of lead gray, like an immense plastic panel behind which glowed arrays of dull fluorescent tubes.

Every Dean Koontz book raises the question: What will he try this time? His work spans sub-genres, and even entire genres. In Winter Moon, he switches into Lovecraftian mode, with an eldritch, evil, invertebrate monster – though probably not as ancient as Cthulhu.

In a near-future Los Angeles gradually sliding into entirely predictable chaos, Officer Jack McGarvey is nearly killed in a bloody shoot-out. After a long recovery and rehabilitation period, he works hard to maintain his native optimism – he assures his wife Heather and his son Toby that everything will be fine. But it’s hard to see how.

Then – an unexpected legacy. A man he hardly knows has willed him a ranch in Montana. When they visit, it seems like Paradise – a mountain retreat, far from the dangers and dysfunction of the big city. They happily move in and look forward to an idyllic life there.

But there’s something they don’t know. In the mountain woods, an Entity lurks. It is utterly alien – it has no understanding of people or even of terrestrial biology. And it doesn’t care. Its sole compulsion is to possess and absorb everything not itself.

Winter Moon scared the bejeebers out of me. Because this was Koontz and not Lovecraft, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t end in universal misery and perdition – and I was greatly relieved when the family acquired a Golden Retriever, always a good sign in a Koontz book. But I couldn’t figure out how the family could possibly escape. Which makes for high suspense.

Highly recommended, with cautions for the sort of thing you’d expect in this kind of novel.

I’m reading a Jane Austen book now. I felt like I needed a change.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Hideaway,’ by Dean Koontz

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Pornography is the new mechanics of sex without the emotional context: lust ceaselessly indulged, love eternally unmentioned. That is also how novels of the supernatural read to me when they make much of otherworldly horror but say nothing of otherworldly redemption.

So I wrote a novel that dealt with both sides of the equation, in the belief that the forces of darkness seem more real and scarier when they are one half of a balanced narrative that includes the forces of light—just as making love with a cherished partner is immeasurably better than finding satisfaction in a porn film.

The passage above does not come from the text of Dean Koontz’s novel, Hideaway, but from an afterword to this edition, in which he reminisces about the book’s reception. He tells us how it became the first of his novels to receive a substantial amount of hate mail – because it assumes the existence of God. And he tells how it got made into a film – and how he eventually lost the artistic control he’d been promised but managed to get his name (mostly) removed from the film’s advertising, so great was his disgust with the final product.

When Hatch and Lindsey Harrison go off an icy mountain road in their car, victims of a drunk truck driver, they end up in a freezing river. Hatch dies and Lindsey barely survives. But by good fortune, the world’s foremost center for “re-animation” is only minutes away. A dedicated medical team brings Hatch back to life – after a record time dead, and amazingly without visible injury.

In the flush of a second chance, the couple decides to rebuild their life. Their major decision is to adopt a disabled child, a beautiful, spunky, and smart girl named Regina. Their second chance seems to be both physical and spiritual.

But somewhere in the darkness, in a secret place, there lurks a monster – an evil young man with a supernatural link to Hatch. This man worships Satan, and lives to kill. Through their psychic tie, the two men became aware of each other – Hatch is horrified, but the monster sees in his family the perfect prey he’s been hunting for.

I’d actually read Hideaway before, but I’d forgotten it almost completely, and the suspense was unimpaired on this reading. And suspense there was. I’d call Hideaway a tour de force in the tradition of C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength – a story where good is portrayed in heartbreaking beauty, while evil is exposed in all its banality and repulsiveness. I hardly made it through this book, but it was rewarding. And essentially a Christian story.

Recommended, with cautions for grotesquery and intense suspense.

Fiction, Reviews

‘No Second Chance,’ by Harlan Coben

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Conner nodded, pleased by my response. I love him. He breaks my heart and brings me joy in equal measure and at exactly the same time. Twenty-six months old. Two months older than Tara. I watch his development with awe and a longing that could heat a furnace.

Harlan Coben has a winning formula for turning out thrillers that grab the reader. He starts with love – love for lovers, for spouses, and (especially) love for one’s children. Then he asks, “What do we fear the most for these people?” Then he takes that fear and distills it, producing at the end of the coils a spirit that burns like carbolic acid. And he applies that spirit to some innocent, fairly decent protagonist.

That, my friends, is how story-building works.

No Second Chance stars Dr. Marc Seidman, plastic surgeon, who wakes up in a hospital room to learn he’s been in a coma for weeks. He was shot in his own home, and barely survived. His wife, also shot, did not survive.

And his infant daughter Tara vanished like smoke

The police have no leads. Their best theory is that Marc himself engineered his wife’s murder, but that theory makes no sense, and they know it.

Then a ransom note comes to Marc’s wealthy father-in-law. He and Marc agree to involve the police, but they will regret it, because the cops get spotted, the kidnappers get away with the money, and Tara remains lost.

The next time a demand comes, eighteen months later, they leave the cops out. But Marc instead brings in someone from his past, a former FBI agent he dated in college and nearly married. Working with an old lover can be a complication in any endeavor – but this time it might blow up in all their faces.

I like most of Harlan Coben’s books, and I liked No Second Chance more than most. The plot is very complex, but it’s revealed in layers, which kept this old man from getting confused (I like that). There were also some intriguing side characters, like a former child actress turned stone-cold-hitwoman, and a mullet-wearing, NRA-member, redneck who turns out to be good friend to have in a corner (this book is a few years old. I wonder if Coben would have the nerve to include such a character in a novel today).

Highly recommended, with cautions for intensity.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘John Clum, Apache Agent, and It All Happened in Tombstone,’ by Woodworth Clum

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When, as often happened, one of the raiders lost his mount, he would proceed, running on his own feet, being careful not to set too fast a pace for the ponies.

Recently I saw an old Audie Murphy movie which, even within the canon of Audie Murphy’s ouvre, was fairly non-memorable. Walk the Proud Land was an attempt on Murphy’s part to broaden his range through playing, not a gunfighter, but a man of peace. That man, a genuine historical character, was John P. Clum. The movie failed at the box office in its time, but it succeeded in piquing my interest in a man I’d wondered about before. I knew John Clum as editor of the Tombstone Epitaph, mayor of Tombstone, and a staunch friend of Wyatt Earp. I’d also read he was a devout Christian. I’d been mostly unaware of his exemplary career as an Indian agent.

John P. Clum was a Dutch Reformed boy from a farm in New York state. Intending to enter the ministry, he attended Rutgers University, but had to drop out due to lack of funds. His education did earn him a job as a weather observer for the US Army Signal Corps in Santa Fe, New Mexico, however. This led, through a college connection, to his appointment as Indian Agent at the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona.

Clum was 22 years old when he arrived at San Carlos, not entirely sure what he’d find. In general, he was pleasantly surprised. He found the Apaches, by and large, decent (by their lights) and hard-working people, scrupulously honest, and historically eager to be friends with Americans (it was the Mexicans they hated). John Clum, Apache Agent, and It All Happened in Tombstone (a compilation of two books) begins with a narrative of United States relations with the Apaches, and it’s a sad and painful story. For every American willing to treat the Apaches decently, there seem to have been ten who, motivated by greed or bigotry, lied to them, cheated them, or killed them like animals.

Clum set about earning the Apaches’ trust, helping the decent ones and punishing  the (minority of) bad actors. In time he was able to set up a working self-government system. He was particularly proud of his efficient Apache police force, which operated with distinction and crowned its achievements with the capture of Geronimo (the only time – as Clum takes pains to point out – when he was captured without voluntarily surrendering).

In time, however, bureaucratic interference and changed Indian policies left Clum with no alternative, in his own mind, to resigning his post and leaving the reservation. The later history of his Apache friends is sad to read.

There is considerable pride in Clum’s account, along with great contempt for narrowminded and bigoted Americans who spoiled what might have been an exemplary peace. The only character Clum seems to hate more than these bureaucrats is the “bad Apache” Geronimo, whom he describes as a liar, a master manipulator, and a merciless killer. He is particularly offended that his friends ended up sharing Geronimo’s fate of exile and imprisonment, without the advantages that Geronimo enjoyed – celebrity status and income from souvenir sales.

The later part of his book is Clum’s own account of his career as mayor and editor in Tombstone, during the fabled days of the Earp-Clanton feud. He is staunch in his support of Wyatt Earp (who would seem, on the face of it, an odd friend for a good Dutch Reformed boy), and (regrettably) his account varies not at all from the well-known (and much-questioned) version told by Stuart N. Lake in Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal. What will be fresh for most western buffs is Clum’s own account of what he believed to be an assassination attempt against himself on a stage coach run, when he ended up leaving the stage and proceeding on foot, to be less of a target.

The book John Clum, Apache Agent was not written by Clum himself, but was edited by his son Woodworth Clum, from his father’s unpublished papers and reminiscences. The prose is not bad – generally avoiding the excesses of Victorian baroque. The main problem with this electronic edition is that it was obviously produced through OCR transcription, so there is the occasional misread word – as well as entire lines of text getting lost now and then. But it wasn’t enough to spoil the story as a whole.

If you’re interested in the Old West, John Clum, Indian Agent, and It All Happened in Tombstone makes interesting reading. I suspect Clum left out some of the juiciest – and/or most appalling – details, so the book is suitable for most readers.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Good Death,’ by Chris Collett

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I think I’m caught up on Chris Collett’s Inspector Mariner police procedural series now. All the books to this point have been titled (or re-titled; at least some were originally published under different titles) with names including the word “Lies.” Now they’ve come out with a new book that breaks the pattern – A Good Death is the eighth book in the series.

I found this one a tad stressful, because it dealt with religious people more than earlier books. One Christian and one Muslim family are involved and – predictably, in our times – the Muslims appear somewhat more admirable than the Christians. Though the author doesn’t take a hatchet to either side. Inspector Mariner makes a dismissive comment about “God-botherers” and one point, but that’s consistent with his established character. He doesn’t “get” religion – like most Caucasian Europeans.

A Good Death involves the investigations of three separate deaths. There’s the death in a house fire of an elderly Muslim patriarch – quickly identified as arson. This is complicated by the discovery of a second body in the ashes of the same fire.

Then there’s the disappearance of a wealthy young man, just before his wedding date. I figured out, if not the culprit, at least the motive (kind of), quite early on. However, oddly enough, I deduced it from the wrong piece of evidence. (Am I brilliant, or what?)

The Inspector Mariner mystery series is a solid one. A Good Death was not my favorite of these books, but in spite of my comments on the handling of religion, it was not offensive. Recommended, with the customary cautions.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Destry Rides Again,’ by Max Brand

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I’m the kind of buckaroo who’s interested in the books movies are based on. Even more, I’m interested in how the movies change the story, for better or worse. Recently, one of the digital broadcast channels ran both iterations of the film, Destry Rides Again. The 1939 version, a classic comedy-drama, starred James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. It was remade in 1954, almost shot-for-shot, with Audie Murphy and some actress nobody remembers (“Hey gang! Let’s do it all over again just the same, but this time let’s make it stink!”). When I read the Wikipedia article, I noted that the movies bore almost no resemblance (except for the hero’s name, and they even changed the first part of that) to the original novel by Max Brand. That intrigued me enough to get the book for my Kindle.

They did not lie. Max Brand must have thought he was getting money for nothing when they paid him for the film rights, because very little of his work made it to the screen. (There was an earlier 1932 version with Tom Mix, which is said to have been closer to the book.)

The story of the movie, briefly, is this. The town of Bottleneck needs a new deputy sheriff, so they call in young Tom Destry, son of a legendary former sheriff. Only when he shows up, he’s a disappointment. He’s meek and quiet, and does not carry a gun. The toughs of the town, led by the local saloonkeeper, laugh at him. The saloonkeeper is behind a scheme to buy up all the properties on a strip of land that cattle drives need to cross. Then he can get rich off exorbitant watering fees. Destry employs his charm and disarming manner to defuse violence for a while, but eventually things get out of hand, and he at last straps on his pistol and meets the saloonkeeper for a showdown. There’s also a love triangle involving Marlene Dietrich’s saloon girl and a virtuous girl, both in love with Destry.

The book Destry Rides Again could hardly be more different. Harry Destry is the hero, and he’s a wild, tough, uncivilized young man, even a bit of a bully. He’s convicted of a robbery he did not commit, and comes back a changed – and darker – character. Each man on the jury had a personal grudge against him, and Harry has a plan to get revenge on each and every one of them. However, he does not guess his true enemy, a purported friend who in fact set him up and profited by it. The pure faith of the girl who loves him, and a boy who idolizes him, combine to help him begin to see the futility of his ways.

One can discern certain points where moments of the book might have suggested the film plot. When the story begins, Harry doesn’t have a gun – but that’s because he lost it in a poker game. When he returns from prison, he at first makes out to be a broken man, and appears unarmed – but that’s only a ploy. Also, there’s an idol-worshiping boy in both versions.

Otherwise they’re entirely different stories, in entirely different spirits.

What kind of a writer was Max Brand? I’ve read one of his novels before, and this one impressed me less. The term “purple prose” might have been coined for this book. Here’s a snippet:

There was no answer from Cleeves. He never again would answer any man. His lips were cold. Until Judgment Day, a thousand trumpets might blow, and Hank would never reply. He whom a hundred thousand eyes had seen now had vanished. He was gone. He was away. Deeper than the seas he was buried, and deeper than the mountains could hide him. The impalpable spirit was gone, and only the living blood remained to tell of him, dripping down into the silence of the old shack, drop by drop, softly spattering, like footsteps wonderfully light and wonderfully clear….

And it goes on. Brand originally wrote this story as a magazine serial, and here you see the unmistakable traces of an author being paid by the word.

He also helpfully provides exclamation marks at the ends of narrative sentences on frequent occasions – so we’ll know when to be excited!

Destry Rides Again was amusing to read, but only as an artifact of its time. It is simplistic, overwritten, and improbable. Cautions for the occasional racial slur, too.

Fiction, Reviews

Big Men’s Boots, by Emily Barroso

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Prayer is like that fire causing the pot to boil. God does nothing unless we pray. He has chosen us to be his co-workers on the earth. Prayer moves His divine hand. You need to remember to listen to what God is saying when you pray–he gets bored with lists. If you listen He will talk back.

What drew me to start reading Big Men’s Boots was the setting of the Welsh revival in 1904-05. What could be more exciting on its face than a historic outpour of the Holy Spirit?

According to Barroso, Wales was primed for change. English landowners clashed with common Welshmen on every front. Labor unions were taking up arms. Welsh Nonconformists chafed against Anglicans, who spoke another language and seemed to have all of the power. Would rising up against the English businessmen bring equality and justice to the Welsh, or would it drive all jobs out of the country?

The story begins with three men praying over the body of a young man who had passed away three days prior. They hold nothing back in urging God to act, even calling the boy to rise in Christ’s name, believing their earnest faith will produce the miracle they require. Outside the window, the boy’s friend Owen Evans, 13, also prays. The whole community must reckon with their grief and what they believe as social trouble begins to brew. Owen’s growing faith and what appears to be a prophetic gift frame up the rest of the story.

I want to praise this book and recommend it without reservation. That’s what I want to do with every book. But I have to be honest and say I didn’t finish reading it. Because I didn’t finish it, I delayed reviewing it until now. It feels overly long. Historical novels have their own pace as do readers. Perhaps you would enjoy it more than I did.