DWD's Reviews

Not Up To The Standard Set By His Other Books Published by William Morrow in April of 2013 This is my fifth Andrew Gross novel. Unlike in his other novels, the characters in No Way Back  failed to connect with me. The hallmarks of an Andrew Gross novel are all present here: an easy writing style, a quick-moving plot and some sort of shocking event that causes the main characters' lives to spin out of control. But, unlike the other books, I found myself to be lukewarm to all of the "good guys" and the sinister plot that held the bad guys together to be forced. In No Way Back the reader meets Wendy Gould, a married suburbanite who almost has a one night stand with a handsome  piano player after she has had a horrible fight with her husband. She stops it before they progress to the actual deed and while she is in the bathroom re-arranging her clothes a stranger enters the room, argues with the piano player, tosses a gun to him and then kills him. Wendy steps out,...

Great Near-Future Sci-Fi Military Action! Published by The AudioComics Company in 2012. Multicast performance Duration: 1 hour, 28 minutes Unabridged. Titanium Rain  is a near future military adventure story about a group of physically enhanced American and British fighter pilots and their missions against an Imperial Chinese government over mainland China. This AudioComics production of Titanium Rain is an adaptation of the 2010 publication of volume 1 of a graphic novel series of the same name by Josh Finney. Finney adapted the graphic novel for this multicast performance done in the style of the old-time radio show, complete with multiple actors, top-notch special effects and a soundtrack especially written for this production. The listener discovers that China has suffered a military coup thanks to their Communist leader being killed by an Islamic terrorist. The general who took over China has proclaimed himself to be a new Emperor, has started a de-Westernizatio...

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2013. Read by Edoardo Ballerini Duration: 13 hours, 45 minutes A photo of Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884) taken circa 1861. Most history books mention the plot to kill Lincoln as he was travelling to Washington, D.C. for his inauguration in February of 1861 with just a sentence or two, if they mention it at all. This is unfortunate because a more in-depth look like this book provides can give the reader a real feel for the fluidity of the situation when Lincoln took office. Daniel Stashower's The Hour of Peril begins with a solid biography of Pinkerton's life (about 2 hours or so) that may just be the most interesting part of the book. The book eventually moves into a discussion of the Presidential election of 1860 and the Secession Crisis that Lincoln faced as President-elect, including the danger that both Maryland and Virginia would secede and leave the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. to be surrounded by two Confederate ...

Inspired by a true case of abuse of power by the EPA Published March 12, 2013 by Putnam I really enjoy C.J. Box 's Joe Pickett series but I freely admit that I, sadly, just sort of forget about these great books. There's no reason for that because this series is every bit as good as the ones I never forget about (Michael Connelly and Robert Crais) but I just do. Breaking Point is an excellent addition to the series. The book features a local landowner and his family who are told by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that they need to stop construction on their property in a subdivision at the edge of Saddlestring, Wyoming because it is a "wetland" even though there is no water and no spring on it. They are given a few days to return the property to its pre-construction condition or face stiff fines ($70,000 per day). The property owners are given no way to appeal the decision and no one will discuss the problem with them from the EPA. When the fa...

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2006 Read by Ron McClarty Stephen King Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes I am not sure who the person was at Simon and Schuster Audio that decided to record Stephen King's short stories as separately packaged stories, but I think it was a stroke of brilliance. I am leery of listening to a 30-40 hour audiobook for a taste of King's special brand and I am equally leery of a short story collection - I get tired of mentally shifting gears so often. In this short story, Richard Sifkitz is an overweight graphic artist (he specializes in book covers and advertisements) who was told by his doctor that he needs to lose a little weight and eat better because his cholesterol is too high. The doctor compares his cardiovascular system to a road maintenance crew and says that Sifkitz is working his crew to death and soon enough it will start to fail. Sifkitz resolves to work out and buys a stationary bike. He paints a simple painting of a...

Adapted from the graphic novel series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven Published by GraphicAudio in 2013 Multi-cast performance Duration: Approximately 6 hours. NOTE: This review was written before the Marvel Studios movie of the same name was released. Clearly, this comic series inspired the movie. For me, this novelization is superior to the movie. At the start of this review I want you to know that I am a fan of comics, but not a fanboy (and I use that term with affection since I am a fanboy of other things, just not superheroes). I watch most of the movies, read a few graphic novel collections from time to time that are several years old that I find in my local (and excellent) public library. I talk comics with a friend of mine who is a serious fan, but I am not. I have never been to a comic book store. I have no t-shirts with superhero logos. The only superhero movie I own is the Adam West Batman movie. However, I am a huge fan of the work that GraphicAudio ...

Published in 2012 by Houghton Miffllin Harcourt Publishing Company I have had Scott Weidensaul's The First Frontier for longer than a year, buried in my legendary pile of books (actually, I am more organized than that, they are all in 4 milk crates) but when I heard an interview with Wiedensaul on the John Batchelor radio show I was reminded to dig it out. Weidensaul is to be commended for a very thorough job of researching the history of the relationship between the natives and the European colonists. The records are scant, the spelling is haphazard and so much of it is buried in myth and politics. He starts with the disposition of the American Indian population prior to the arrival of Europeans. The limited history of pre-Colombian contact is discussed (with the Vikings and various fishing fleets) and the discussion of the similarities of differences of the various American Indians arrayed along the Atlantic coastline is quite interesting. But, as Weidensaul's...

Published in 2013 by iUniverse J.L. Witterick's My Mother's Secret is the true tale of  Franciszka Halamajowa and her daughter Helena who are  native Poles trying to survive the German occupation of their country. They speak German since Franciszka was married to a German (the father of Helena) but she left him to return to Poland before the war. Helena works in a German factory and is dating the manager, the son of the owner. She and her mother are somehow scraping by even though the war is a daily reality for them and German soldiers have been known to park their vehicles right next to their house and officers have even come over for dinner. Oh, and they are also hiding two Jewish families and a German soldier who refuses to fight, keeping them all fed and unaware of each other. German soldiers in a Polish village in 1942 or 1943 Witterick tells this story in a spare writing style that emphasizes the matter-of-fact way that these two ladies took in families that...

"That's the trouble with a situation like this - you just don't know who is who." Published by Highbridge Audio in 2012 Read by Ray Chase Duration: 11 hours, 35 minutes Thomas H. Cook's Streets of Fire is set in Birmingham, Alabama in the spring of 1963 during Martin Luther King's famed "Birmingham Campaign" that featured the Children's March, "Bull" Connor, boycotts and fire hoses being turned on demonstrators. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.  Photo courtesy of  Library of Congress,  Prints and Photographs Division, AL-898-5 Sergeant Ben Wellman is called away from taking detailed notes on Martin Luther King's speeches at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (one of many policemen that were used as spies who filled notebooks and turned them in to their superiors) to investigate a dead body found in a shallow grave in an abandoned ball field in Bearmatch, a black neighborhood. Generally, the all whi...

Unique twist on the traditional Western but fails to deliver Originally published in 2001. Riders of Judgment is the third in the "Danny Duggin" series. The first two book are Death Rides a Chestnut Mare and the second is The Shadow of a Noose. The trilogy is about Danielle Duggin, the crack shot daughter of a master gunsmith who was gunned down by a ruthless gang led by Saul Delmano, the rich and spoiled son of a man who has led his own gang for decades. Danielle transforms into "Danny" and starts to hunt down the 10 men in the gang that killed her father. She has a list of names and is slowly working her way through it, marking them off as she kills them. She is joined by her twin brothers in her second book. In the third book they are down to one last name: Saul Delmano. Saul Delmano is hiding in Mexico, protected by the government of Mexico because Delmano's father rules the valley he lives in and polices it and shares some of the spoils with c...