DWD's Reviews

Published in 2016 by Tom Doherty Associates (A Tor Book) Harry Turtledove specializes in alternate histories. Usually, he has a big twist - what if the South won the Civil War? What if Atlantis were a real continent? What if the Colonies lost the Revolutionary War? What if MacArthur actually dropped atomic bombs during the Korean War? The House of Daniel is a different kind of story, with a twist. To be perfectly honest, I read the description of this book, with its references to The Great Depression, baseball, "hotshot wizards" and zombies and missed the fact that it was actually referring to actual wizards and zombies, not metaphorical wizards (the whiz kid experts that FDR hired) and zombies (the unemployed masses who are desperate for work). I really thought that Turtledove had just written a straight book about semipro baseball in the Great Depression. And, basically he has. 85% of this story is about baseball. Jack Spivey does odd jobs, plays semipro baseball for a few...

Published in November of 2020 by Little, Brown and Company. Read by Peter Giles. Duration: 12 hours, 27 minutes. Unabridged. I am an enthusiastic fan of Michael Connelly's books, but to me the Mickey Haller/Lincoln Lawyer series has always been a lesser series than the related Harry Bosch series. It is never bad - just not quite as good. I am pleased to say that The Law of Innocence is much better than the typical offering in this series. In fact, this is one of the best fiction audiobooks I have listened to in quite a while. Mickey Haller is known to many as The Lincoln Lawyer. He has that nickname because he works out of the back of his car (always a Lincoln) rather than have an actual office in traffic-plagued Los Angeles. He has wi-fi, a printer and access to his digital files. His office manager works from her home office and sort of acts as his "air traffic controller" by setting up his schedule and arranging places to meet his next appointment. His drivers are typ...

Published in 2009 by Hachette Audio. Read by Peter Giles. Duration: 11 hours, 15 minutes. Unabridged. The Scarecrow is a sequel to one of Michael Connelly's earliest books - 1996's The Poet.  In The Poet, newspaper reporter and FBI agent Rachel Walling solve a murder mystery and defeat a serial killer. Since that time, McEvoy wrote a book about his experiences, moved from Colorado and took a job with the LA Times . Now, 12 years later, he is being let go as the Times is going through a round of lay-offs. He has been given two weeks notice and told to train his younger replacement on the crime beat. Meanwhile, a parent calls to complain to McEvoy about an article he wrote saying that her teenaged child had killed a woman and stuffed her body in the trunk of a car. McEvoy decides to look into the case and he and his reporter-in-training uncover some interesting facts that make it clear that the boy didn't do it. Instead, McEvoy is on the trail of another serial killer... G...

Borrows heavily from movies and TV, has decent action. Published in 2006 by Thomas Dunne Books  Event is not a bad book, per se, but I kept on thinking, "I've seen this before." The book introduces a secret government agency called the Event Group which investigates historical legends, paranormal activity, UFO sightings, etc. They are sort of an X-Files , Men in Black and Delta Force rolled into one. The Event Group collects items of historical significance and studies them to plan for future disasters. They also keep these items secret.  Why? I was never quite clear as to why Noah's Ark, the existence of King Arthur, or the arrival of the Vikings in the Americas in the 800s were state secrets. Plus, comments such as the Event Group not wanting to give King Arthur's body to the Brits because it belongs to "the world" seem silly when the Event Group is just storing Arthur in a vast underground base in Nevada. They are not sharing a...