DWD's Reviews

Published in 1993 by Books on Tape. Read by Mary Peiffer Duration: 7 hours, 42 minutes Unabridged I've been reading this series on and off again for the better part of 30 years. At one point I was trying to read them all in order but then it just got to be random books when I came across one. Lately, I'd forgotten all about them. But, I saw some sort of article about how the end of the series was imminent and I thought I would start the series all over again (I certainly didn't remember much of this one - just the fact that the burglar mentioned in the title growled as she ransacked the place).  Kinsey Millhone has been hired to find the sister of a woman who needs to have her sister sign a legal document so that a will can be settled. Kinsey starts her search and finds that the sister has disappeared. She traveled to Florida but didn't make it to her condo and no one has any idea where she really is. Kinsey digs further and finds that death and mayhem seems ...

Published by Random House Audio in 2012 Read by Dick Hill Duration: 14 hours, 11 minutes Unabridged In A Wanted Man , Jack Reacher is stuck in Nebraska. He is hitchhiking his way across the country to Virginia to physically meet the woman he met over the phone in 61 Hours . He has having a hard time getting a ride, though, because his nose is broken and it is taped over with a shiny piece of silver duct tape and it makes his already-menacing look even more menacing. He finally gets picked up by two men and a woman in a sedan and they are off to Chicago on the lonely interstate in the middle of the night. But, things don't seem right to Reacher. The woman is uncomfortable, he has caught the most talkative man in two obvious lies and they get stopped by two different roadblocks. Something is up. Meanwhile, the action flashes back to a old small town Sheriff and a young female FBI agent who are trying to coordinate a search for two men who are suspected of killing a person wit...

T here is a problem with a book about Gettysburg in which George Meade is the most likable character... Published by Blackstone Audio in 2012 Narrated by Peter Berkrot Duration: 15 hours, 20 minutes Unabridged It is easy to give a simple shorthand review of Cain at Gettysburg as an attempt to re-make the magic of Michael Shaara's classic Pulitzer Prize-winning The Killer Angels  from the Union point of view. To be fair, I will give more than a simple shorthand review, but I will be comparing the two books quite often. The title Cain at Gettysburg is a biblical reference to the story of Cain and Abel - the story of when one brother killed another. It is the first of many religious references throughout the book. Like the Shaara book, Cain at Gettysburg goes back and forth between the two armies as they draw together for the fateful Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863. While  The Killer Angels focuses on the senior Confederate officers, this novel focuses on the senio...

Originally published in 1966. Translated by William Johnston. Rodrigues is a Jesuit missionary from Portugal who has volunteered to travel to Japan. The leaders of Japan have recently turned against almost all foreign contact and have cracked down on Christianity. Stories have come back to the Vatican of Japanese Christians being brutally tortured and priests renouncing their faith.  Rodrigues is determined to face this challenge. He is genuinely concerned about the believers who are left without a priest and he is also sure that he will not fail if his own faith is challenged. He and a partner make their way into Japan and set up in a small fishing village. The local Christians are thrilled but, soon enough, the priests are discovered and Rodrigues finds out that his presence threatens the lives of his new flock and that his own compassion can be used as a tool against his own faith and that even the strongest believer can be pushed too far... Shusaku Endo (1923-1996) T...

Published in November of 2013 Legacy Publishing Echoes of War Drums: The Civil War in Mountain Maryland is a collection of newspaper and magazine articles written by the author. This sort of collection is, like most things, a good thing and a bad thing. What's good about it is the short format makes it an easy to book to pick up and read for a few minutes with the knowledge that you can walk away for a while and not have to remember any important people or plot points. But, there is a lot of overlap among the articles so the book can be repetitive if you are reading it straight through. I am not a native of Maryland. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I've never been to the region of Maryland that is featured in this book. But, I am an avid student of the Civil War so I read it to find out about an area of the country that had a front-row seat to many of the major battles of the Eastern Theater. It turns out this area had more value than just proximity. It was also a major s...

A Review of the Audiobook Published in January of 2017 by Blackstone Audio Read by Bronson Pinchot Duration: 12 hours, 11 minutes Unabridged The conclusion of the John Matherson trilogy does not bring a fairy tale ending to his story of post-EMP America, but it does answer an important question from both of the previous novels - just who has taken over the reins of what remains of the Federal Government? For those who don't know, an EMP is short for Electro-Magnetic Pulse. Nuclear weapons generate this pulse when they explode and these weapons can be fine-tuned to generate an pulse that will cover a large part of North America. The pulse completely fries modern electronics and in this book series the United States is thrown 100 years back into the past in terms of technology. John Matherson continues to lead his North Carolina community and they are having some success in re-establishing some of the technology that existed before the attack. They are slowly adding new co...