DWD's Reviews

When Joe Met Nate...    Originally Published in 2003 Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett is making his rounds in Winterkill when he sees a hunter open fire on a herd of Elk, killing many more than a hunting license would allow. It turns out he is the local administrator of federal lands, the man who approves permits, makes rental agreements for grazing or logging and the like. He escapes Joe's custody for a few minutes, only to be found pinned to a tree - the victim of an attack with a hunting bow. The local sheriff has a suspect in mind - a local anti-government type that Joe has heard of but has not met - Nate Romanowski (for those who have not read the series, Joe and Nate become de facto  partners in many of the books in this series). Joe suspects that Nate is not the real killer and goes off on his own to do a little detective work on the side. He has his eyes on a wandering group of anti-government activists who have set up camp in a federal forest. And, they inclu...

Originally published in book form in 2001. Unabridged audio edition published in 2008 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Dick Hill. Duration: 14 hours, 21 minutes. In Echo Burning , Jack Reacher starts out the story as a wanted man in Texas after he defends himself in a bar fight with a bully who turned out to be a police officer. He flees his hotel right before the police arrive and hitches a ride in record time. Even better - the driver is an extremely attractive woman who is heading far out of town towards the desert border with Mexico in Echo County, Texas. But, as Reacher and the driver talk it turns out that Reacher's good luck in hitching a ride was helped because the driver is looking for someone to deal with her rich, abusive husband who is being released from prison soon and Reacher looks like the tough sort of man who can deal with him. She lists all of the reasons why she can't involve the police, lawyers or simply flee. As she explains her situation, and after he m...

When Bill met Estelle... Published in 2012 by Blackstone Audio Read by Ray Porter Duration: 10 hours, 31 minutes Unabridged In this prequel to the series, Bill Gastner is investigating the death of a road grader operator. He is found dead in the cab of the grader with a bullet in his brain, having been shot by a single shot straight through the front windshield. There are no witnesses so Bill starts to dig through the victim's past to find out if there are any potential enemies that might have wanted to hurt him. As he starts to investigate the sheriff department's new hire, Estelle Reyes, a rookie straight out of college, goes along for the ride while Gastner tries to familiarize her with the department's procedures. And, of course, the more they dig the more they find secrets that most people would just prefer stay buried... One Perfect Shot is a solid mystery - I sort of had it figured out about 2/3 of the way through but for all of the wrong reasons. But, the mos...

Published in 2015 by MacMillan Audio. Read by Peter Larkin. Duration: 7 hours, 55 minutes. Unabridged. Finding Jesus is not a deep book theologically, but it does take a balanced look at 6 things that are associated with Jesus and a few related topics and is respectful of the faithful while doing its exploration. If you are expecting a book that is out to burst religious bubbles, this is not your book. The topics are: 1) John the Baptist. Who was he? Is he in the historical record? Are the relics of John the Baptist in scattered across Europe actually him? The James Ossuary. 2) James, the brother of Jesus. Who was he? Was he Jesus' half brother through Mary or a step-brother from a previous marriage of Joseph? Is the James Ossuary (a casket to hold bones) that was discovered a few years ago real? 3) Mary Magdalene. Who was she? Was she a disciple or simply a follower of Jesus? Why is she not mentioned after the four gospels? Was she the wife of Jesus? Was she really a re...

Originally published in 1998. Published in 2008 by Books in Motion.  Read by Rusty Nelson. Duration: 9 hours, 46 minutes. Unabridged. I have been reading the Bill Gastner series off and on again for nearly 10 years. This is one of those series that never really took off and became bestsellers, but it certainly should have. If you enjoy Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn and Chee novels then you should give this series a try. Prolonged Exposure is book #6 in a series that depends on the reader having some at least some prior knowledge of the characters. I have read some of the earlier books and some of the later books so that I wasn't lost when it came to the non-mystery part of the story. Bill Gastner is a cranky old undersheriff, which is an office in New Mexico. Basically, the sheriff of a county is an elected position and is designed to be held by someone who is not a member of law enforcement. An undersheriff is a professional who works with the sheriff and makes sure that th...

Published in 2016 by HarperAudio. Read by the author, J.D. Vance. Duration: 6 hours, 49 minutes. Unabridged . Sometimes, I find it hard to write a review of an audiobook, especially an audiobook like this one. I find it hard - not because it is a bad book but because it is so good and I don't know how to convey my thoughts without giving a blow-by-blow book report of the book. So, in short, J.D. Vance tells the story of his upbringing in Hillbilly Elegy . He calls his family hillbillies but also calls that same group rednecks or poor white trash. When I was a kid in southern Indiana, we called them poor white trash. His family came from eastern Kentucky (as did part of my own a hundred years ago) and was part of an exodus from the area in the 1950s. These hillbillies brought their culture with them and Vance spends the rest of the book telling a dual story - the story of his family and the story of how this Appalachian culture is struggling in modern America. The title of the ...

Published by Little, Brown and Company in November of 2016. Read by Titus Welliver Duration: 10 hours, 21 minutes Unabridged. In The Wrong Side of Goodbye Harry Bosch is now completely separated from the LAPD and is keeping himself busy with a little detective work and volunteering as a reserve officer for the small city of San Fernando. San Fernando has less than 25,000 residents, covers less than 2 square miles and is completely surrounded by Los Angeles. But, they are cash-strapped and can use the help and Bosch needs to keep fighting crime - it just who he is. Bosch has been digging around on a serial rapist case and has finally started to shake some things loose and the case is starting to break wide open. Out of the blue he gets a call from a former boss at LAPD who now works private security. A reclusive billionaire wants Harry to look for a possible heir from a former girlfriend that he was forced to break up with more than sixty years ago. He has no other heirs and the ...

Published in 2011 by DC Comics. Batman: The Long Halloween is a collection of 13 comics compiled into a single book that tells about the mystery of a serial murderer called Holiday. Holiday always strikes on a major holiday and is particularly fond of killing figures in Gotham City's network of crime families. Batman, Gordon, and Harvey Dent decide to work together to solve the mystery but this triumvirate of crime-solvers has its own internal troubles as both Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent become suspects. Calendar Man is an immediate suspect since this sounds like his kind of crime spree. But, he is locked up in Arkham Asylum. But, lots of other super-criminals are sprung free and pretty soon Gotham is awash in their machinations on top of a serial killer. Plus, Catwoman is also on the prowl... This was a great mystery - I thought I had it figured out and then I found out that I was entirely wrong - twice! Powerful story and Batman nearly gets taken out. Loeb and Sale are a powerfu...

Published in 2013 by Random House Audio. Read by Dick Hill. Duration: 13 hours, 43 minutes. Unabridged. Admittedly, I bounce around as a I read the Jack Reacher (so far I have read #8, #11, #14 and #18) but I was very pleased to note that #14 and #18 are tied together so that I had sort of a seamless experience while still skipping around. In #14 Jack Reacher meets, via telephone, Susan Turner. Susan Turner has Reacher's old job in the military police and they make a connection. In Never Go Back , Reacher decides to hitchhike across the country to meet her only to find out that she has been arrested and he is not allowed to see her. To top it off, he has been recalled into the army so they can file charges against him - a person he investigated for selling stolen military weaponry in Los Angeles more than 15 years before has passed away from injuries that he claims Reacher inflicted during an interrogation. Of course, Reacher won't stand for this kind of silliness and he s...

Brilliant! Published in 2012 by Hachette Book Group Seth Grahame-Smith is, perhaps, most famous for his books  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride, Prejudice and Zombies , two books that I have never read and probably never will because I care not one wit for vampire or zombie tales. But, this book intrigued me and I am very glad that I read it. As in the other books I mentioned, Seth Grahame-Smith has a talent to take an existing story and put a twist to it. Unholy Night takes the traditional Christmas nativity story and makes this little change : What if the Three Wise Men were actually not three learned scholars but three criminals posing as three learned scholars? That's it - that's the heart of the book. But, what a twist! Here is all anyone really knows about the the Three Wise Men from the Biblical account, from Matthew 2, verses 1-12: In the time of  King Herod , after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, aski...

Published in November of 2015 by Blackstone Audio, Inc. Read by Robertson Dean Duration: 16 hours, 2 minutes Unabridged Winston Groom, forever associated with his iconic character Forrest Gump, has written an interesting and solid history of three equally iconic World War II generals: George Patton, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall.  Groom's triple biography format works quite well as all three of these men's life stories were on parallel tracks once they entered World War I and they all knew one another and had worked with one another in one capacity or another through the years (the story of Patton and MacArthur meeting up and working together on the front lines of World War I is a great one). The histories of these men during peacetime only served to reinforce my impression that both of these men were eccentric, sometimes to the point of being bizarre - especially Patton. But, in wartime these men all shined, despite some controversies. I never had much of a positiv...

Published by Random House Audio in 2009 Read by the author, Tom Bodett Duration: 2 hours, 15 minutes. Abridged This book focuses on town celebrations, thus the references to "Grand Occasions" in the title. The quirky town of End of the Road, Alaska puts its own twist on everything. If you follow this series, that is no surprise. If you have not followed this series, do not start with this one. It is excellent but it depends on the listener actually knowing who the characters are beforehand. Adolescent Norman Tuttle struggles with being treated like a kid when at Thanksgiving and in other family activities. Meanwhile, the town gets a town Christmas tree thanks to finally getting a public park and, of course, this somehow becomes controversial. New Year's celebrations become more than a bit weird due to the weather.  Perhaps the funniest story is about how the town tries to open a safe that was used as a time capsule. Why? In their excitement to put important docum...

Originally published in 1989. Audio edition published in 1999 by Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Read by the author, Tom Bodett Duration: 2 hours, 30 minutes Abridged This is the first of Tom Bodett's excellent "End of the Road" series and it is a joy to meet the quirky people who live in this small town in Alaska. It starts with the annual town parade and festival in the local quarry (it's easier to clean up a quarry, at least that's the theory), complete with fish tossing and a pistol shooting contest and ends up with a great story of two friends who travel from Alaska to Florida to pick up a brand new fire truck and then drive it back to Seattle to ship to Alaska by ship. It is the road trip of a lifetime. Great quotes from the book: "Men share some of their most intimate moments leaning against vehicles with their arms crossed, looking at anything but each other."  "I don't think there's a man in America who didn't spend at least...

Published in 2015 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Technically, Endangered is a Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski novel but they have no interaction throughout the book. Nate has been released from prison because of a complex deal between the feds and Joe Pickett's boss, the Governor of Wyoming. But, one of the conditions of his release is that he cannot have any contact with Joe Pickett - a part of the deal that was tossed in out of spite by the FBI agent that negotiated the deal. Romanowski agrees and heads off to a new life with his new love interest.  They have opened a business in which he will use his hunting falcons to clear out smaller birds from barns and the like. But, Romanowski soon discovers that he was mostly let out of prison to become bait for the people that he testified against in prison so that the FBI can have a chance to nab them - maybe before they kill Nate, maybe not. Meanwhile, Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett is dealing with troubles of his own. His adopted daugh...

Published in 2011 by HighBridge Audio Multicast performance Duration: 2 hours, 59 minutes NPR has searched through its archives and found 29 stories that make for a very interesting listen if you are a student of the Civil War. There are interviews with historians, including James McPherson and Shelby Foote and authors like Tony Horwitz, Jay Winik and E.L. Doctorow. Sam Waterston reads the Gettysburg Address (so good!) and Hal Holbrook talks about a project of his about the impact of the Civil War on Iowa. There are also interviews with regular people, like the African American family that comes to see the original Emancipation Proclamation and turns it into a profound and moving educational event. None of it is very deep, but all of it is deeply interesting. This is a must-listen for all amateur historians of the Civil War. I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. This audiobook can be found here: NPR American Chronicles: The Civil War .

Re-published in 2009 by Random House Audio Read by the author, Tom Bodett Duration: 2 hours, 9 minutes Alternate title: The Better Part of the End of the Road Tom Bodett's "End of the Road" series continues in The Better Part of the Road with Ed Flanigan learning how to get along with just one arm thanks to a horrible accident with heavy equipment. His struggles seem real and Bodett manages to convey them without being patronizing or voyeuristic. City Manager Emmitt Frank is convinced to move out into a cabin on the edge of town. Emmitt is a former resident of Chicago who came to the End of the Road a city slicker through and through, but is slowly becoming an Alaskan. Calling this cabin rustic would be kind. No running water, no electricity and all of the heating comes from a homemade wood stove and the bathroom is an outhouse. And, sometimes bears show up outside. Two of the towns older residents find love. This is the best part of the story, by far. Norman Tuttl...

Re-published in 2009 by Random House Audio Read by the author, Tom Bodett Duration: 2 hours, 30 minutes Tom Bodett's "End of the Road" series is my absolute favorite audiobook collection. It dates from the 1990's and features an eclectic cast of characters from a fishing port town in Alaska named End of the Road because you literally can't drive any farther once you've gotten there. The series is simply the telling of life in this small Alaska town - the kind of drama that one gets in everyday life. Kind of like a more realistic Andy Griffith's Mayberry set in Alaska. This series speaks to everyone's life experiences in one way or another. This is probably the weakest of the series that I have heard so far, which means it is merely really, really, really good and one of the most enjoyable audiobook experiences that I have had this year. In this edition, we learn about Clara, who is also the mayor's older sister and her coffee shop and how the r...

Book version originally published in 1992 Read by the author, Tom Bodett Duration: 2 hours, 14 minutes Published by Random House Audio I am an unabashed fan of Tom Bodett's cast of characters in the fictional town of End of the Road, Alaska. I first found these stories more than twenty years ago on cassette and was pleased to re-discover them because they had been re-released in digital format. To be honest, most of the time in these stories not much actually happens except for life just going on as normal. There is no big plot to rob the bank that gets foiled, no crime to be solved. Nothing like that. It is regular life stuff being experienced by some eccentric folks in an Alaskan fishing town - literally at the end of the road, thus the name of the town is End of the Road. But, when Bodett relates the story of middle school student Norman Tuttle being bullied and his first time going hunting and his experience at the big dance - well, we've all been there. Maybe not exac...

Published by HighBridge Company/NPR in 2008. Multiple Performers Duration: 2 hours, 11 minutes. If you are familiar with the NPR radio show Wait Wait...Don´t Tell Me then you know what this collection is all about. Clever people playing silly games with news stories. This collection comes from 2006-2008 so the news is a little old. But, then again, you don´t listen to this show for the news - you listen to it for the funny takes on the news by the guests and the panel. Guests include Michael Moore (note: I am not a big fan of Michael Moore but he was very funny), Ted Koppel, Drew Carey and NBA star Chris Paul. Besides the guests, there is just a lot of silly news and even better commentary on it. Regular panelist Paula Poundstone was hilarious as was P.J. O´Rourke, Roy Blount Jr, Mo Rocca and Tom Bodett. If you love this radio show, this is a must-listen. I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Best of Wait Wait...Don´t Tell ...

Published by Hachette Audio in October of 2013. Read by the author, Malcolm Gladwell. Duration: 7 hours Unabridged Malcolm Gladwell has made his reputation by writing insightful articles in which you thoroughly learn about one thing but also how it applies to a larger concept.  Usually, there's a little light science involved and, if nothing else, the reader (or in my case, the listener) feels like he or she learned a little bit and heard an interesting story. In this case, the premise is that in the David vs. Goliath stories, the underdog is not always as much of an underdog as it seems. He starts with the original David vs. Goliath story - the one in the Old Testament of the Bible and explains that Goliath clearly had size and strength going for him but those weren't all-pervading advantages. Goliath was strong and large but his strength made him reliant on the sword and close-in fighting. If an enemy got close to him and if Goliath got hold of him, Goliath would win. B...