THE KILLING FLOOR (Jack Reacher #1) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published by Random House Audio
Originally published in 1997.
Read by Dick Hill
Duration: 17 hours, 47 minutes
Unabridged

Lee Child

I've been listening to the Jack Reacher series for a couple of years now, and I have been slowly working my way through the series in a random order. That's okay, though, because Lee Child doesn't write this series in any sort of chronological order. While this is book #1 in terms of when it was written, it comes as #8 in the current lists of Jack Reacher books and stories according to Jack Reacher's perspective.

For me, this book was particularly interesting because it filled me in on a frequently-mentioned event in Jack Reacher's life - the death of his brother Joe.

Jack Reacher decides to get off of a bus in Margrave, Georgia on a whim and ends up under arrest for a brutal murder in this town's small warehouse district out by the highway where Reacher got off the bus. 

Soon enough, Reacher proves it couldn't have been him and follows a pattern followed in almost all of his books - the man who is on the road and wandering in reveling in the fact that he has no attachments finds himself becoming attached to people and a cause. In this case, Reacher finds that this idyllic small town is not nearly as perfect as it looks and there is something very sinister going on...

The first Reacher book is a solid start to a spectacularly popular series. Dick Hill reads this book and does a great job with it. He seems to "get" Jack Reacher and is a frequent reader of his books.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Killing Floor by Lee Child.

THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL: SQUIRREL MEETS WORLD (audiobook) by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale

Published in 2017 by Listening Library
Read by Abigail Revasch and Tara Sands
Duration: 7 hours, 53 minutes
Unabridged

I am new to Squirrel Girl, sort of. Years ago, I had a middle school student on the autistic spectrum in my class with a comprehensive Marvel heroes book. He loved to look at that book rather than do his class work so I would "borrow" his book and find an interesting character and then talk to him about that character later on. Squirrel Girl caught my eye because, on the surface, she is ridiculous. All cute, fluffy and imbued with all of the powers of a squirrel. Doesn't seem like much when compared to the Incredible Hulk, does it? So, I told him my favorite all-time superhero was Squirrel Girl. And, to be honest, I liked the idea of a superhero that is not enhanced with over-the-top powers so she became my default answer to the question, "Who's your favorite superhero?" (asked by students who want to get off topic).

In reality, this was my absolute first experience with a Squirrel Girl product of any sort and I enjoyed myself immensely. We listened to this on a family vacation and everyone enjoyed it.

This book is firmly set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so if you are a fan of the movies but not real big on the comics you will do just fine with this book. 

Squirrel Girl has moved from California to New Jersey. She has a lot on her plate. She needs to make new friends, do her math homework and hide the fact that she has a long bushy tail and can talk to squirrels. But, she has a relentlessly perky personality and eventually she finds a human friend and befriends a whole lot of squirrels. And those friends will be helpful once Squirrel Girl uncovers a series of bad things going on all across her new hometown.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World is whole lot of fun as an audiobook. The readers, Abigail Revasch and Tara Sands, deliver an enthusiastic, chipper performance and Squirrel Girl's wide-eyed enthusiasm shines through. 

On a personal note, there is a character named Ana Maria in the story. She is Squirrel Girl's human sidekick, sort of like Lois Lane to Superman or Alfred to Batman. She is also hearing impaired and depends on hearing aids. My wife and my daughter depend on hearing aids, but not as much as the Ana Maria character does. They both commented that Ana Maria's comments about hearing aids and her first-person descriptions of her adaptations to deal with the problem struck both of them as very authentic and well-done. 

This was a very enjoyable audiobook experience. 

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL: SQUIRREL MEETS WORLD.

PONTOON: A NOVEL of LAKE WOBEGON (audiobook) by Garrison Keillor

Published by HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books in 2007
Read by Garrison Keillor
Duration: 8 hours, 22 minutes
Unabridged

Evelyn Peterson is the town iconoclast in many ways. She is an active member of many town institutions, but she also is one of the few that questions any of the cherished beliefs of the town of Lake Wobegon. But, she is also quite elderly and she has passed away in bed.

Her daughter Barbara, a cafeteria lunch lady and often the opposite of her mother, discovered her body and a note that details how she wants her body to be disposed of. This note kicks off the a great deal of the rest of the story. Throw in a woman who made it big in California returning to Lake Wobegon for her wedding, a visiting delegation of Lutheran ministers from Denmark, the discovery of a great number of family secrets that were held by Evelyn, a really stinky stray dog, a glider, a bowling ball urn and an Elvis impersonator and you have the recipe for a day that Lake Wobegon will never forget.

This book should have been great. Instead, it was often sad, sometimes poignant and only rarely held the warmth and humor of the other Lake Wobegon books. The biggest problem was the change of Barbara. It was as if she became her mother in just a few days. It was too much, too fast.

The audiobook was read by the author, Garrison Keillor. I don't think anyone else could have read it and made it work as well it did. He has a gift for telling a story, even if his usual gift for writing a story fell short this time.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: PONTOON: A NOVEL of LAKE WOBEGON by Garrison Keillor.

MARSBOUND (Marsbound series #1) by Joe Haldeman

Published in 2008 by Ace

Earth is just starting to colonize Mars and the Dula family was picked to go as part of a weighted lottery system. The story is told through the eyes of Carmen Dula, a 19-year old college freshman. 

The first part of the story is a technology-based sci-fi adventure. Lots of explanation of the technology to get to Mars, but at a layman's level and with an eye for the kinds of things that teenagers are concerned about - entertainment, potential romance, how annoying the slightly younger passengers are, and so on.

Carmen accidentally stumbles into one of the most remarkable events in human history - literally. A near-fatal fall while on an unapproved excursion away from the colony buildings initiates first contact with an alien species (this is not a spoiler, it is in the inside cover of the hardback).

At this point, the book changes focus into a clumsy first contact book. The motivations of some of the characters get more unclear and erratic. The plotting gets a lot more loose as well. Things happens in a more herky-jerky fashion and everything gets sped up. It feels like Haldeman got bored with the story and just had to finish it up. So much could have been done with this book if the detailed writing from the first half of the book had been brought to the second half of the book. 

Disappointing.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Marsbound by Joe Haldeman.

WORK DONE for HIRE by Joe Haldeman

Published in 2014 by Ace

Jack Daley is a former sniper turned down and out author in this near future sci-fi tale. But, he gets an odd offer to write the book adaptation of a movie before the movie script has even been written. Basically, the offer is to write the book and they'll adapt it a little or a lot to make the movie. And, he doesn't have to turn it in now, he can turn it in as first draft chapters as he goes along.

One of the more interesting features of the first part of the book is that it goes back and forth between Jack's story and the story he is writing - mostly in alternating chapters.

He also gets a second offer - from an unknown person that obviously knows his schedule and can track his movements. He has to kill someone with a sniper rifle (Daley was a sniper in a war, but not the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War) or his girlfriend will die. 

So, he goes on the run with his girlfriend. He uses a laptop to write his book and e-mail in chapters as they try to drop off of the grid. But, soon enough, they realize that no matter how far they go to get off the grid, it will never be far enough...

This was an interesting premise for a book but the final result is disappointing. The story he is writing comes to an unsatisfying ending because Jack Daley is in a hurry to finish it. I wonder if Joe Haldeman was trying to tell his readers the same thing about the main plot line because the ending was definitely an "Are You Kidding Me!" type of ending. It was ridiculous and was certainly not worthy of the first half of the book. I wonder if Haldeman had two partially completed books laying around and he decided to weave them together with the story about the book/movie deal. If so, he ruined two potentially great stories.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5 because the first part was so strong.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Work Done for Hire by Joe Haldeman.

BITTER RECOIL (Posadas County Mysteries) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

Published by Books in Motion
Read by Rusty Nelson
Duration: 6 hours, 55 minutes
Unabridged

Sixty-two year old Undersheriff Bill Gastner is recovering from heart surgery. He has been told to get out and exercise more and to get away from work. You see, Gastner has a lot of bad habits when he works. He doesn't sleep, he gets involved in things that get him hurt and he eats large, spicy burritos.

So, Bill decides to go on a camping trip and visit a former colleague, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, who has taken a job in the sheriff department of a different county in New Mexico - up in the mountains. But, while he is trying to sleep in a campground he hears sirens and sees lights so he decides to go check it out.

Soon enough, Bill is working with Reyes-Guzman and investigating a murder, looking into a smooth-talking hippie-type who quotes the Bible and brandishes a gun and eventually ends up questioning a priest.

Heck of a vacation, huh?

This was an interesting change of geography for the Posadas County Mystery series - away from the mostly flat deserts of the border area and into the desert mountains. Rusty Nelson's reading of the book was pretty good, except for any time he has to read Spanish. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Bitter Recoil by Steven F. Havill.