DWD's Reviews

Finally, Margolin is back on his game! I've read Margolin's books since I came across The Burning Man but I've been sorely disappointed by many one of them since because they have never approached the power or the storytelling of that book. Phillip Margolin While  Wild Justice  is very much different than The Burning Man , it is a great page turner. I found the story to be inventive, if not twisted. Although, I figured out who the killer was with about 100 pages to go, there were so many plot twists that I doubted my conclusion several times. The ending was tension-filled and full of poetic justice. I'll be reading more. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  Wild Justice (Amanda Jaffe #1) by Phillip Margolin . Reviewed on October 26, 2004.

Once you get past the first 35 pages, its quite a ride! Originally published in 1994. Desperate Measures begins with newspaper reporter Matt Pittman, the protagonist, who is literally preparing to kill himself with his pistol out of grief for his son that has died from cancer when the phone rings. Pittman decides to answer it because he wants to make sure that he exits this life without owing anything to anyone. It is his best friend and his boss who covered for him innumerable times when his son was sick. He asks for one more favor and Pittman reluctantly goes back on the job for one more story. It was at this point in the book that I was about ready to close it up and start another book because the whole "I'm going to kill myself" angle was getting very, very old. I realize that Morrell was writing out of the pain of losing his own son to cancer, but the book was rapidly losing interest for me. David Morrell Suddenly, the pace of the book changed and Pittman...

Published in 2008 by Graphic Audio. 5 CDs 5 Hours 28 Actors Graphic Audio published the audio version of a DC Comics graphic novel featuring the Justice League of America. Graphic Audio boasts that it is "A Movie In Your Mind" and while that may be a bit of an exaggeration, it is every bit as good as those old radio plays that, if you're lucky, a local radio station may play from time to time. Graphic Audio has 28 actors (if my count was correct as they named them all), music, lots of special effects and they use them all to create a thoroughly engrossing story. There is nothing particularly new in JLA: Exterminators . A wave of new "meta-humans" are popping up all over the globe with one thing in common (besides super powers): they were all in the UK about 10 years previously and were exposed to something that gave them these new powers. The Flash and The Green Lantern become friends with a new meta-human with telekinesis and the audience is given a pe...

The Steel Wave is the second book in Shaara's World War II series and is a superior book to the first in almost every way. There is a lot more action (hundreds of pages) and it is intense. The political wrangling that Eisenhower had to endure and master is a theme in every book, but is strongest in this one. The title of the book comes from a comment that Rommel makes about the Allied invasion coming in like a wave of steel into France. Erwin Rommel Rommel continues on as a major character throughout. It is interesting to note that he was correct to fear an Allied invasion of France (which most of the German high command poo-pooed) but picked the wrong place. Hitler picked the right place, although he doubted it would happen. It is also interesting to note that Rommel thought that D-Day was a feint and failed to respond correctly to it until it was too late. Rommel is still the most interesting "officer" character on either side - he knows that Germany will be ru...

Originally published in 2009. No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II is the final book in Shaara’s World War II trilogy. It is very similar to the second book, which makes sense since it is a continuation of the same campaign. The Allies continue their quest to push across France and into Germany. Patton looms as a larger and larger character. The part of the noble German soldier, previously played by Rommel is filled by Karl Rudolf Gerd Von Rundstedt, so much so that the reader may not even miss the Rommel character at all. The battle sequences are stirringly told. The “Battle of the Bulge” is told quite well from the point of view of three of the very few soldiers of the 106th  that made it through the battle without being killed or captured (this was Kurt Vonnegut’s unit, by the way, but he does not appear in the book). Eisenhower at Ohrdruf  Shaara spends a lot of time in the book among the inner circle of Hitler’s loyal command, with peo...

An Interesting Study of Male Friendship Published in 2001 by Recorded Books. 4 compact discs 4.5 hours read by Nelson Runger Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals is an exploration into male friendship by renowned historian and author Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002). He looks into different kinds of friendship including friendship between brothers, friendship among schoolmates (especially college), friends from among his students, friendship among men who have been in combat together, friendship as young men, friendship as old men and the friendship that can develop between a father and son once his son is an adult. Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) Specific friendships studied include: -The three Ambrose brothers; -Dwight and Milton Eisenhower; -The Custer Brothers, who all died at Little Big Horn; -Crazy Horse and He-Dog; -Eisenhower and Patton - two very different men who respected and valued their differences; -Nixon as the friendless man (tal...

I recommend hearing it as an audiobook Originally published in 1969 in book form. Published by Dh Audio in 1985. Read by Jose Ferrer. Duration: 5 cassette tapes Unabridged. I could add to the volumes of literary criticism that fills the reviews of Slaughterhouse Five , but what's the point of that? Rather, I will recommend that you hear the book as an audiobook - the book's a stream of consciousness, disjointed approach works very well on tape. The reader shifts from one scene to another as easily as Billy Pilgrim does. The version I heard was not the one available here. Mine was narrated by Jose Ferrer and he did a wonderful job. Too bad Ferrer has passed on. So it goes. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Slaughterhouse Five .  Kurt Vonnegut Reviewed on February 3, 2005 Note: This book has been challenged multiple times over the last 50 years for sexual content, foul language and teaching principles contrary to the Bible. A...

Good, fast-paced roller coaster ride Originally published in 2002. I f the first two opening scenes don't grab you than you had better check your pulse and see if you're still alive! Phillip Margolin Others have reviewed  The Associate   and correctly stated that it is not a pure legal thriller. True enough. There are legal parts to this story, but the case is not resolved through fancy legal footwork. Rather, the thriller becomes a mystery too and we race along with our heroes to see if they can save everyone and expose the villains. Is it great literature? Hardly. But, it's a lot of fun and I tore through it like a starving man at a buffet.   I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: The Associate by Phillip Margolin.   Reviewed on February 1, 2005

Better than the first book. Published by HarperAudio in 2009. Duration: 7 hours, 28 minutes. Read by: Stephen J. Dubner, one of the authors Unabridged. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance is the sequel to the wildly popular book by the same authors, Freakonomics the movie and a newspaper column . One author is the economics talent - the man with all of the questions who knows where to find the answers. The other is the writing talent (who is learning a good bits of economics along the way, no doubt) who takes these interesting topics and puts them on paper in an interesting way. The goal of these books and the newspaper column is to get people to look at the world in a different way - an economic way of thinking. I find these works to be fascinating, eye-opening and always entertaining, even if I don't always agree with their conclusions (sometimes I think they are asking the wrong questions or have...

Enjoyable - offbeat, funny, informative, thought-provoking Published by Brilliance Audio in 2010. Read by Sandra Burr. Duration: 10 hours, 27 minutes. Unabridged.  The point of Mary Roach's Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void is not the technical challenges of sending an object to Mars. We have demonstrated that we can send a probe to Mars, operate it and do a bit of exploring. No, this is about sending a human to Mars, a much more difficult proposition. Mary Roach deals with the following (and more) in her Packing for Mars : -We eat, drink, and create bodily waste. How do we store enough food to make the trip to Mars? -How do we deal with expelling bodily waste in a zero gravity environment (no toilets - everything would just float out!) -What do we do with the waste? Can you recycle it back into food? Who would want to eat that? -Can people actually live together in cramped quarters for months at a time with no break and not kill one...

I love this series Published in 2006 by Coldwater Media I teach history in a public school so using this Drive Thru History: East Meets West  in my classroom is not a viable option due to the contemporary religious references. However, if you are in a Christian school or homeschool with a Christian emphasis I can enthusiastically recommend this series. East Meets West has two 30 minute plus programs about Turkey and Asia Minor. Turkey is literally where the Middle East meets the West. In episode 1, Dave Stotts takes us to Cappadocia, a unique area with an underground city and roots in the Old Testament and in the post-Biblical era as a scene of anti-Christian persecution by both the Romans and the Muslims. Episode 2 is the stronger of the two. It covers the Emperor Constantine, the controversy that caused the creation of the Nicene Creed, the fall of Constantinople and the wonderful Hagia Sofia church turned to mosque now museum. Episode 3 is a "best of" for the fir...

I cannot recommend this book enough. Originally published in 1850. The Law is a small book on the basics of economic principles written by Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), a French economist and member of their National Assembly. He only published works during the last 5 years of his life, which was cut short by a lingering illness. The Law struck me as an economics version of Thomas Paine's Common Sense - a short, easy to understand book full of impassioned, clearly laid out arguments and examples that clearly demonstrate the author's arguments. Bastiat was a man who was not in synch with his times or his country. He grew up in Napoleonic France, a time and place that replaced the idea of individual liberty with government action for the good of the individual. Bastiat argues (and supplies plenty of examples to back his arguments) that this is a perversion of the purpose of government: "The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushed headlong to its ...

A different kind of hard-boiled cop story Joe Rizzo is a detective in NYPD's 62nd Precinct. He is partnered with a young whiz kid newly minted detective and together they solve crimes, talk about crime and we learn how a determined detective can trade favors to skip bureaucratic steps. Rizzo's War is, in a lot of ways, a non-traditional detective story. Usually, there is an overarching plot (the big crime, in a detective story) and lots of smaller crimes pepper the story as interesting filler. In this book, we get a lot of little crimes to introduce the characters and give the reader the feel for the environment. The actual "big" case doesn't occur until about halfway into the book. Lou  Manfredo But, that's okay. The characters are interesting. The environment is interesting. The cases are interesting. The book feels like it is an introduction to a series and I hope that it is. I'll look for more Rizzo books. I rate this book 5 stars out o...

Very, very, very good. Published by Brilliance Audio in 2003. Duration: 5 hours, 55 minutes. Read by Dick Hill Unabridged. Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, But Some Actual Journalism  is a collection of Dave Barry's columns from the summer of 2000 through September of 2002. They are read expertly by veteran narrator Dick Hill . I usually hear Hill reading crime novels and the like but I was pleased to hear that he has expert comic timing and turns out to be a perfect narrator for Barry's offbeat sense of humor. Veteran reader Dick Hill Topics include: *The 2000 Democrat and Republican political conventions; *The 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games; *The Census; *Camping in a Wal-Mart parking lot; *and the silly tips in Cosmo magazine on how women can drive men wild. Dave ends with two long essays about 9/11. One was published on 9/12 and does a great job of summing up the raw feelings and shock of the time. The second essay is much longer - by far the longest o...

Published in 2010 by DK Publishing DK Publishing continues a trend of producing lavish coffee table books filled with page after page of montages of full color images. In this case, the topic is the Star Wars phenomenon. Star Wars Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle is a very large coffee table book - one inch thick, 10 inches wide and nearly a foot high. This book could just as easily have been called "George Lucas Year by Year." Star Wars dominates Lucas's career like the Eiffel Tower dominates the Paris skyline. Perhaps, even more so. Boba Fett and George Lucas As the title states, the book is a visual timeline of George Lucas, the Star Wars franchise and the people and companies involved in its production and promotion. We see early handwritten notes about "Journal of the Whills" - one of the first drafts of Star Wars Episode IV . Later on, we see further updates, including the introduction of a character named Luke Starkiller who, of course, became ...

A lesson in how political schools can be and how things can spin out of control. Originally published in 1991. Normally, I do not read Young Adult (YA) literature, but as a teacher I do delve into it from time to time just to see what's out there. In this case, I picked out this book for purely personal reasons. Nothing But the Truth is all about a misunderstanding and mindless application of a zero tolerance rule in school. The premise is we have a popular, respected and excellent English teacher (Miss Narwin) and a bright student (Phillip Malloy) who does not really apply himself too much. Malloy has been re-assigned to Narwin's homeroom. His previous homeroom had been rather loosely run, but Miss Narwin expects the rules to be followed and the school's written rule is absolute silence during the playing of the National Anthem. Malloy hums loudly during the Anthem (which causes and is directed to stop - something he was allowed to do in his other homeroom. He doe...

A fascinating and enjoyable read Free: The Future of a Radical Price is an exploration of the future. It is an exploration of how advancements in computer technology, specifically the ultra-cheap price of computerized data storage, has changed the flow of information and data and has changed the rules of data-based business. Written on computers using free programs, accessing free internet at coffee houses and using as many free sources as possible, such as Wikipedia* and blogs, Anderson discusses the concept of "free" as a business tool from its beginnings to now. Anderson keeps a light and breezy tone throughout the book, but don't let that lull you into a sense that weighty business concepts are not being discussed. The exploration of "free" starts with marketing ideas such as the ubiquitous "Buy One Get One Free" to ideas such as giving the razor handles away but charging for the blades as he discusses the beginnings of American business i...