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OUT of RANGE (Joe Pickett #5) by C. J. Box

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Originally published in 2005. Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett has been re-assigned. Normally, he covers the area around the town of Saddlestring but he has been temporarily re-assigned to a plum location - Jackson, Wyoming - the home of the Grand Tetons and a well-known retreat for the rich and the famous. While Joe is thrilled for the opportunity, he is not happy about the circumstances behind it. A fellow game warden that he knew and respected suffered some sort of mental breakdown and killed himself. Plus, his family has been receiving ominous "breather" phone messages at all times of day and night... So, Joe Pickett goes off to Jackson only to find that this new assignment is extraordinarily complicated by politically-connected power players, trendy protesters and the investigation into the previous game warden's suicide and things are getting weirder and more complicated all of the time... I am reading this series in what seems to be an insane random order.

WORLD WAR II: AIR WAR: AMERICAN HERITAGE SERIES (audiobook) by Stephen W. Sears

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Published by Highbridge in February of 2017 Read by Paul Boehmer Duration: 2 hours, 47 minutes Unabridged Four P-51 Mustangs in formation over Britain. Stephen W. Sears used to write for the magazine American Heritage  and in that capacity more than 50 years ago he wrote a short and simple history of the air war over Europe in World War II. It was designed to be an introductory read for high school students. I am not sure if this audio edition is the same book, but it is serves the same purpose. If you are a casual student of World War II, the kind of person that watches an occasional documentary from the time to time, this is the perfect book. There are details, but not enough to drown the reader. Sears moves the story along at a brisk pace, but still slows down enough to tell a personal story to remind the reader that this was a real story full of real people. He is more likely to tell the story of the average airman than of the generals. Sears discusses the air war over

THE BODY BUILDERS: INSIDE the SCIENCE of the ENGINEERED HUMAN (audiobook) by Adam Piore

Published in March of 2017 by HarperAudio Read by Fred Sanders Duration: 12 hours, 56 minutes Unabridged Adam Piore describes the advances in medicine in a number of areas, especially (but not limited to) recovering from injuries, illness or dealing with genetic disorders. He starts out with a profile of a leader in the field of prosthetic limbs who has reverse-engineered the human leg and, for the first time, makes the idea of TV's "Six Million Dollar Man" seem like a real possibility. There is the amazing story of the engineer who created a device that allows a blind woman to "see" with her ears. Piore describes advances in experimental genetic engineering and muscle therapies that promise not only to help with genetic disorders but also may ultimately end aging as we know it. But, it's not just about the body, it is also about the mind. There are advances in figuring out what causes Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Parkinson's and those

1453: THE HOLY WAR for CONSTANTINOPLE and the CLASH of ISLAM and the WEST (audiobook) by Roger Crowley

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EXCELLENT! Unabridged Audio Edition Published in 2016 by Hachette Audio and Blackstone Audio Read by Simon Prebble Duration: 10 Hours, 56 Minutes When Rome was at its height, it split itself in half and created a second capital for the eastern half in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul). The eastern half survived the official "Fall of Rome" in 476 AD and continued on for nearly 1,000 more years until it succumbed to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. It was the seat of the Orthodox Christian Church and oftentimes stood as the bulwark against Muslim military advances into Eastern Europe. From the time of the first formal attack against Constantinople in 674 AD until it finally fell in 1453, the capture of this city was, at the least, on every Muslim leader in this region's "to do" list, if not an active goal. Once the Ottoman Turks arrive on the scene the Byzantine Empire is clearly on its last legs. The city is still defended by one of the most elaborate set

BEFORE SHE DIES (Bill Gastner #4) (Posadas County Mysteries) (audiobook) by Steven F. Havill

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Originally Published in 1996. Audio edition published by Books in Motion in 2002. Read by Rusty Nelson Duration: 9 hours, 17 minutes Unabridged Posadas County New Mexico Undersheriff Bill Gastner is having a bad night. He almost gets shot substituting as the policeman on duty at the local high school basketball game, the suspect dies in custody and then someone shoots and kills a deputy sheriff and nearly kills a reporter on the side of the road with a shotgun. The investigation begins in earnest following the slimmest of leads with Gastner and company looking for a killer before the only known witnesses dies and looking for another missing witness before the killer strikes again... This audiobook starts out like a rocket but the second act gets bogged down in the procedural minutiae of this police procedural. The third act picks up though and the book ends on a strong note. The reading by Rusty Nelson was solid except when he tries to read in Spanish. The author's S

WHERE IT HURTS (Gus Murphy #1) (audiobook) by Reed Farrel Coleman

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Published in 2016 by Blackstone Audio Read by Chris Andrew Ciulla Duration: 10 hours, 31 minutes Unabridged Gus Murphy is a retired cop whose life has completely fallen apart after the sudden death of his son due to an undiagnosed heart problem. His marriage fell apart, he quit the force and now works in a hotel as security and a shuttle van driver in exchange for a room. A low-level mobster-type seeks him out to hire him as a private detective to look into the brutal death of his son by torture. Murphy is not particularly thrilled to look into it and emphasizes that he is not a private detective. But, his emotions get the best of him because this mobster is also a dad who has lost his son so he agrees to look into it, figuring that he would uncover nothing. But, it starts to look like the police just gave a cursory investigation and missed some serious clues. When his "client" shows up dead, Gus Murphy knows that he has stumbled into something that he has to see thr