DWD's Reviews

Entertaining, but not his best work. Fitzhugh specializes in filling his books with absurd characters in absurd situations. This is my third Fitzhugh book and I have to rank it in second. It is funny, but at times his characterization of New Yorkers as oblivious and callous to the violence that can be inherent in that city is even a bit much for me. Bill Fitzhugh The premise of Pest Control is that a down and out exterminator who has come up with an entirely new way to control pests is confused for a professional hit man - a top level hit man. Soon, other top level hit men are swarming after the exterminator in an effort to eliminate the newest "star" in the hit man world. The overall premise is funny but the book somehow fails to hit the high level of promise that this reader anticipated. That said, this would be a heck of a good movie if you get the right actors involved. If you've never read a Fitzhugh novel, I'd recommend Cross Dressing ...

For fans of Kuralt, this will be a treat! Originally published by Audioworks in 1997 Read by the author, Charles Kuralt Duration: 1 hour, 9 minutes Abridged I hadn't thought about Charles Kuralt for years - until I ran into Charles Kuralt's Summer . Kuralt pulls summer-based items from his reports from CBS News and reminds us (this listener anyway) that we've missed his folksy approach on the reporting on everyday life in America since his passing a few years ago. Kuralt lays it on a bit thick from time to time but he avoids being too schmaltzy as he reports to us about Maypole dances in Minnesota and tubin' down the Apple River in Wisconsin. The best reports are on side two, where he focuses on the Fourth of July. He travels to Gettysburg and Independence Hall, New York City and Brazil and takes us along for an emotional ride. Although he takes a lot of his audio from his actual television reports, only once or twice did this listener feel that he was missi...

Fun story, but not completely resolved Published in 2008 by Rodale Books. Mark Milhone's memoir is about his self-described "Year from Hell," which included marriage troubles, a reconciliation with his dad and a road trip to pick up a used BMW he purchased on E-Bay (who does that?) is a fun, sad read. Millhone tells his story about the death of his mother, the death of his first dog, the near-death of his newborn son, the dog bite his oldest son suffers and the deterioration of his marriage. So, does he resolve these issues? Not really. He tells his story in an entertaining manner. His relationship with his father is strengthened (as a kid, his father sent his number one man from the office to take him to see The Empire Strikes Back because he has no time for his family) but the other issues are not fixed, there is just a renewed resolve to work on them. Nonetheless, it's still a fun read - good for a summer trip. Lots of parts to read and discuss w...

My first Elvis Cole novel - not my last Originally published in 1995. I heard Voodoo River   as an audiobook way back in 2005 - it was not my first choice but I gave it a shot and I was very pleased. The story was convoluted but had a real feel to it. Elvis is tough, but not Superman. The situation was complicated but not impossible. I seem destined to be perpetually out of sync with Elvis and the real order of his series. Voodoo River is #5 in the Elvis Cole series. In Voodoo River , Elvis leaves Los Angeles for the Louisiana bayou country in search of the birth parents of a Hollywood starlet who is in need of some medical information. Soon enough, Cole finds himself in trouble with the local crime boss who has a special use for alligators.  If you are familiar with the series (as I now am) this book is pivotal as it is where Cole meets Lucy . For Crais (the author) this is a homecoming of sorts since he was raised in Louisiana.The audiobook was well-read and the reade...

A good read, not Morrell's best work. Originally published in 1993. No one writes better than Morrell when it comes to the "fugitive" novel - one man hunted by many in a cross-country chase. David Morrell In Assumed Identity , a military intelligence deep cover operative has been accidentally exposed and an operation goes sour. Soon, the operative is being blackmailed and chased by an attractive reporter and the unwanted attention causes the operative's handlers to "terminate" a number of people and the operative comes to believe that his own life is in danger as well. Throw in a damsel in distress (actually two) and a James Bond-esque villain and the chase is on! Unfortunately, a great story is slightly marred by the protagonist's constant internal psychobabble about who he really is (he confuses himself with the various personas he's become over the years). An even bigger problem is the ultra-rich villain. He's a parody of the...

Not your traditional piece of historical fiction Originally Published in 1973. Nominated for seven Pulitzer Prizes in literature over his career, Allan W. Eckert brings us the little-known true story of Daniel Boone's court martial in Kentucky during the American Revolution. The bare facts are that Boone and a great portion of the fighting men from Boonesborough were captured by Shawnee raiders who took all of them back into modern day Ohio and eventually some were taken to Detroit to meet with the British Lt. Governor Henry Hamilton, known as the "Hair Buyer" for his policy of buying scalps of settlers. Boone behaved so strangely during this entire episode that when he finally escaped the Shawnee he was brought up on charges and court-martialed. Daniel Boone (1734-1820) The Court-Martial of Daniel Boone narrates the court martial and not the actual events. Eckert tells the story much like a modern courtroom drama. Boone had an unorthodox defense st...

A great introduction to the Civil War Ulysses S. Grant First, I need to tell you something about me. I am a Civil War buff. I can go into long expository speeches about nearly any topic of the war at the drop of a hat. I think it is a great moment in TV when the local PBS station shows Ken Burns' Civil War mini-series. The movie Glory is my favorite movie and I personally own more than 80 books on the Civil War. I love to debate any number of topics about the war and I truly believe that it is the pivotal moment in the history of our country in any number of topics including race relations, the growth of government power and the growth of the industrial might of the United States. Don't Know Much About the Civil War is a very solid introduction to the Civil War, the issues and events that led up to the war and a much smaller section on the results of the war. Davis has a very approachable, easy to read style and I would gladly hand this book to anyone who was a C...

Perry Mason plays fast and loose with the law in a deadly case 2 CDs 1 hour 31 minutes Dramatized for audio by M.J. Elliot. Based on the book by Erle Stanley Gardner. Voiced by the actors of The Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air. The Case of the Velvet Claws was the very first Perry Mason book, published in 1933. This radio dramatization is based on that book but, of course, it had to be adapted for the "radio play" format.  Erle Stanley Gardner   (1889-1970)  Perry Mason, Paul Drake and Della Street all figure large in this murder mystery that all began with an adulterous wife who wants to avoid political scandal. Eva Griffin, married to a powerful millionaire,  was discovered in a hotel with a married Congressman due to an un-related crime at the hotel. Spicy Bits, a magazine that specializes in reporting scandal, is on the trail of this potential scandal and Griffin wants Perry Mason to act in her stead and offer the magazine a bribe to drop th...

Enjoyable Published in 1996 by Tyndale House Publishers Synopsis: Like the cover says, The Life and Times of the Apostle Paul is "a colorful retelling of the world's most famous mission story." Ball is an amateur expert on the 1st century Roman empire and has personally led tour groups throughout the cities that Paul visited during his mission trips to Asia Minor and Greece. He covers Paul's life from early childhood in his work so it must be considered historical fiction since so many details of Paul's life and his trips that are included in this book  are not actually covered in the book of Acts or in his epistles. It is an enjoyable book - not a great work by any means but I enjoyed reading it and felt that I learned a little something along the way as well. The details on the life around the Jerusalem temple and about the cities Paul visited make it worth reading, even if you are not a great fan of Paul. I give this book 4 stars out of 5. This book c...

Published by Franklin Watts in 2007. I discovered this series earlier this summer and I've been looking at a few of them. My 4th grade daughter and I both love the series That being said, You Wouldn't Want to Be Tutankhamen!: A Mummy Who Really Got Meddled With is not quite as good as the rest of the series, which means it is merely the cleverest, funniest, most interestingly illustrated book that a child aged 9-12 or so can pick up concerning King Tut. I like the series because kids learn without having to read some of the more tedious books out there (such as the great majority of the history textbooks out there!) I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. Reviewed on July 7, 2009. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: You Wouldn't Want to Be Tutankhamen!: A Mummy Who Really Got Meddled with

Published by Tantor Audio in 2010. Read by Paul Boehmer. Duration: 11 hours, 57 minutes. Unabridged. Gary Leger lives Massachusetts and is forced to make do with a miserable job in a plastics factory with no real prospects of doing anything but making ends meet at a job that offers little for his very active imagination. A natural athlete with no interest in sports, Gary finds solace in long walks in the woods behind his house and in his dog-eared copy of The Hobbit . While on one of these hikes, Gary sits for a bit of reading and finds himself staring at a real life pixie who shoots him with a tiny drugged arrow that causes him to faint. When he awakens he is no longer in Massachusetts – he is in the magic-filled world of Faerie. Gary finds that he has been kidnapped from his own world by a leprechaun named Mickey McMickey in order to wear the armor and carry the broken spear of a long dead human king named Cedric Donigarten in an epic quest led by a grumpy elf named Kelsenellenelv...

Mostly interesting set of essays Published in 2010 by Templeton Press The theme of New Threats to Freedom is, clearly, threats to our freedom. This can be interpreted as America's freedom, Western freedom in general of the freedom of all people throughout the world. Depending on the reader's sensitivities, some of these freedoms may seem trivial (the freedom of ice cream vendors in New York City to sell their wares near city parks, for example) or may seem monumental (back to those same vendors - can you really ban a licensed business from selling his wares just because you don't want to hear your kids whine all day about ice cream?) The writing is generally high quality but there are a wide variety of styles, themes and issues that make this an uneven read. For example, Stephen Schwartz's essay "Shariah in the West" is mostly an essay about how Shariah is not a threat, but just a media-hyped bogeyman,  followed by a few paragraphs about how it might stil...

I have not cared much for Green Lantern,  but I picked this one up on impulse... Published in 2009 by GraphicAudio 6 CDs 7 hours Voiced by 20 actors Unabridged. When I was a kid I never cared much for Green Lantern. In the D.C. Comics universe I liked Superman and Batman and in Marvel I liked Spider-Man and the Hulk but the Green Lantern never did it for me. Maybe it was the giant green baseball mitts, pincers and boxing gloves coming out of the ring. Just seemed hoaky, I guess. Which is all the stranger that I liked the audiobook for Green Lantern Hero's Quest: Justice League of America  as much as I did . The book features Kyle Rayner, a new Green Lantern whose real life job is that of an artist and his specialty as a Green Lantern seems to be creating artistic even cutesy things with his ring, such as baseball mitts and giant boxing gloves. GraphicAudio creates yet another adaptation that delivers "A Movie In Your Mind" as their slogan promises. I ...

St. Margaret of Castello Fascinating The Woman in the Cloak is a novelization of an actual historical figure, St. Margaret of Castelo. She was born a blind, hunchbacked dwarf with a withered leg. Despite these infirmities, and the rejection by her parents, she never feels cursed by God. Rather, she spends most of her relatively short life helping the poor of the small city of Castello. She lives with the beggars and the working poor, offering her help as a midwife, a free nanny and someone who is willing to go beg for food for the destitute. Margaret joins an order of Nuns, but they are not very serious about their vows and she is soon expelled as a troublemaker. So, she joins the Order of Penance of St. Dominic, a mostly male Order. There, she returns to her work on the streets. Eventually, her health fails her and she dies of a hacking, bloody cough. Up to this point, I found this story interesting and moving - here's a lady with the deck stacked against her in so m...

Very good work marred by sloppy editing. Published in 1991 by Facts on File. Civil War and Reconstruction: An Eyewitness History is a good general history of the Civil War. It has good pictures and an easy to read narrative of the war. It also has a lengthy appendix that includes many of the relevant historical documents, such as the Constitutions of the USA and the Confederacy, Lincoln and Jefferson's inaugural addresses, the Gettysburg Address, short biographies of the major personalities of the era and battlefield maps. Confederate General  James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart (1833-64) At the end of each chapter, there is a lengthy section of quotes from participants and commentators of the day. This interesting addition makes the narrative read much quicker, but allows the reader to look at the topic in more detail if he/she chooses. Unfortunately, there are some errors in the book due to poor editing. Two, in particular, bugged me. I used this book to look fo...

Atmosphere fails to carry the day... Originally Published in 19996. Cadillac Jukebox  is part of a series of books written about an ex-New Orleans cop named Dave Robicheaux and his trials and tribulations. This book continues some of the same themes that characterize the series as a whole, such as racism, race relations, the difficulties of being a cop while also being father and husband. James Lee Burke I love the setting and the details Burke puts in his books about New Orleans and the whole Bayou scene. He shows us the seemy side of New Orleans (which is not too hard to do - if you've ever been there you know what I mean. Not that every other city is problem-free, its just that New Orleans seamy side is very public - hey, its one of the attractions). Burke has a great ear for accents, and this makes parts of his books fun to read. However, his books can be depressing. No one rides off happily in the sunset. This particular book concerns a white man jailed in the 1990s ...

Well-researched and thorough Published in 1995 by Free Press As the title clearly tells us, Between Two Fires: American Indians in the Civil War is (primarily) about the contributions of the American Indian to the American Civil War. It starts the reader with some of the early atrocities and misunderstandings that have characterized Indian and White interactions throughout American history. Some are the same things you will read about in any decent high school history text, and some are new for those that are not Indian history "buffs", such as myself. For example, I was not aware of the cruel and deliberate destruction of the Indian populations in California during the Gold Rush of 1849 until I read about it here. The book discusses Indian participation on both sides of the war and their various motivations for joining in the fight. These motivations range from genuine patriotism to wanting to suck up to the government (be it Union or Confederate) for favors to wanting ...

A welcome twist to the crime novel. Published in 1992 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux The setting is small town New Hampshire. The secret girlfriend of high school student Jacob Reiser is found dead in the snow and all of the clues point to Jacob. Before and After is a crime novel with a big twist. Rather than following a policeman or the fleeing criminal, it follows the family of the accused and what they go through. The book's title refers to life before and after the crime and how the seemingly perfect family is ripped apart. Rosellen Brown It is told in the first person from the perspectives of mom, dad and sister (interestingly, never from Jacob's point of view). The brother and son they thought they knew is now a stranger. At times, this book is an emotionally abusive roller coaster, but it would be an interesting read for a discussion group concerning the reactions of the family, especially the father and his criminal acts to cover up evidence and his obsession...

Funny, but the book on tape format begged the question - "why not include parts of the actual songs?" Published by HighBridge in 1999. Read by Mike Dodge. Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes. Abridged. Yes, I realize it would be a publishing nightmare - trying to convince someone to let you use their song just so you could make fun of it, but it would have been so much more effective! Dave Barry Oh well, what might have been! Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs really is a funny book. Dave's quirky sense of humor was effective, as always. I thoroughly enjoyed Dave's list of bad songs and his analytical dissection of the lyrics, especially when I also intensely disliked the song. However, I liked it even more when I actually loved the song ('American Pie' comes to mind)! I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. Reviewed on October 20, 2004.

Originally published in 2006. The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II is the first book in Jeff Shaara's series about World War II. It is the weakest in many ways. Shaara approaches most of his books with the docudrama format - a little bit of narrative history, a lot bit of historical fiction. His narrative history is quite well written and flows nicely. The historical fiction in this book is its weak point. The action is very good, but there is not a lot of action - just a few pages in the Africa Campaign and some very solid stuff from the Sicily campaign. The majority of the historical fiction part of the book, among the Allied characters at least, is Shaara's characters putting themselves into place to fight Rommel and setting the scene for the second book. It would have moved more briskly if Shaara would have reverted to the historical narrative form, but it would severely limit the fictional aspects of the book. Jeff Shaara On the Axis side, Rommel is...