DWD's Reviews

Originally published in October of 2014. Audiobook published in February of 2016 Read by Tom Lennon Duration: 18 hours, 24 minutes Unabridged I have read or listened to a few books about the experiences of fighter and bomber pilots in World War II and those books drew me to this one. The book's main character is Steve Carmichael. Steve grew up on a ranch near Orlando, Florida and was a baseball player at the University of Florida.  The Detroit Tigers are interested in him but, a s a kid he learned how to fly a rattletrap biplane that his father purchased for a song and refurbished  and Steve decides to join the Army Air Corps as a pilot. He becomes a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot and is shipped off to England in 1943. The story follows his original crew that all trained together as they try to work their way through their required 30 missions. The descriptions of everything to do with the airplanes and the combat missions in this book are absolutely excellent. I felt like...

Set in Eastern Indiana in 1842, this short novel does a great job of talking about slavery for a grades 4-6 audience. The Caldwell family has recently moved to Indiana from North Carolina. They are Quakers. Nowadays, Quakers are famous for their anti-slavery stand and participation in the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. But, in reality, the Quakers are split in two groups. All are anti-slavery but some believe that you should not break the law by helping runaway slaves. Others believe that helping people in need trumps the law. The Caldwell family embodies this split. Sarah, age 13, is anti-abolitionist and is quite sure her father is as well. However, her new young stepmother is certainly an abolitionist. She is close with Levi and Catharine Coffin, two of the most famous members of the Underground Railroad network who live in Newport, Indiana (now called Fountain City) and Sarah witnesses her helping a runaway slave. Sarah is sure that her father is anti-abolitionist and thr...

Originally published in 2003 Coke vs. Pepsi. Kleenex vs. Puffs. McDonald's vs. Burger King. Stephen King vs. Dean Koontz.  There is a "name brand" that defines almost every field. Let's face it, in the literary world, Stephen King is the master of the horror field. Dean Koontz is clearly the second place guy, but he is second place. I have followed that pattern in my own reading. I have easily read two dozen Stephen King books and perhaps ten Dean Koontz books. Nothing wrong with Dean Koontz, just like there's nothing wrong with Pepsi, Puffs or Burger King. I was aware of the Odd Thomas series - they're in all of the book stores and the name certainly gets your attention. But, I never was tempted to pick the first one up and get started until last week. Odd Thomas is a twenty year old resident of Pico Mundo, a suburban town in the Southern California desert. Odd (yes, that's his real name) certainly lives up to his name. He is a gentle soul th...

Audio version released in January of 2016 by LLC Cherry Publishing. Originally published by Oceanview Publishing in August of 2015. Read by Rebecca Roberts Duration: 9 hours, 21 minutes Unabridged Hannah Parks is a survivor. She grew up in an incredibly verbally abusive home and watched her mother be physically abused by her father on a regular basis. But, one day, she fought back and now her father is in jail and she is married to a tech genius whose start-up has become a major corporation. But, Hannah and her husband have been growing apart. When she hears him dreaming about raping a woman and discovers a secret porn file on his computer she confronts him only to have him fly into a violent rage. She leaves him only to have him try to kidnap her. But, a man named Black intervenes. A man she doesn't even know kidnaps her away from the kidnappers and now Hannah's life really starts to disintegrate... If you love a book with a lot of plot twists, well this is your ...

Published in July of 2015 Cassie Dewell was the lead character in 2013's The Highway , a gritty novel with a truly creepy bad guy. Dewell is a young widow who lives with her wacky mother and her son. Dewell makes the move from Wyoming to North Dakota in Badlands .  This is a good move by all accounts - there is a substantial raise, a promotion in rank  and it lets Dewell get out of a bad work situation detailed in The Highway . A fracking operation in North Dakota. Photo by Joshua Doubek. Grimstad, North Dakota is in the center of the new oil boom. Thanks to "fracking",  it exploded from a little farm town to one of the fastest growing economic centers in the world. It has become the kind of town where anyone can get a job but no one can get a place to sleep and you have to wait for half an hour just to order at the local McDonald's. The local sheriff has a problem. He knows that gangs are moving in to sell drugs and run prostitutes and he's pretty sure tha...

Slow Going At First. Published in 2010. For a book that is all about how quickly the world's stock markets can be played by a few bad actors who don't particularly care about making money so much as they care about wreaking havoc, this book took a very long time to get started. Part of that is my fault. I failed to realize that I was in the middle of a series until after I had read this book. I had read the second installment in this series 7 years ago but I literally remembered nothing about the main character, Ty Hauck. In this installment, Hauck is in the suburbs of New York City. He is working for a corporation as a security consultant, meaning he investigates people the company may work with and gets involved with internet breaches and the like. Hauck's company is investigating an big-time investor with a hidden past. But, Hauck has a personal connection to the murders of a Wall Street broker and his family and soon finds a connection to a third murder that ...

Published in 2009. The year is 1665 and the English colony of Jamaica is surrounded by a constellation of Spanish colonies. The Caribbean is in a near-perpetual state of war as English privateers attack Spanish treasure galleons hauling literally tons of New World silver and gold to Spain. Charles Hunter is the captain of an English privateer ship named Cassandra (or, he is simply a pirate when Spain and England are not at war). He has learned that Spain has a fortress on a remote island called Matanceros to protect ships that attempt, but fail to make the trip to Spain. They cannot return to their port of origin alone. In fact, the less time they are alone and exposed to privateers, the better. So, Spain has built an impregnable fortress to protect such ships.  Michael Crichton (1942-2008) At least it is supposed to be impregnable. Hunter is very sure that he has figured out a way that the perfect team can infiltrate the fort and then take the ship that it is supposed t...