A PAPER ORCHESTRA (audiobook) by Michael Jamin

Published in 2024 by 3 Girls Jumping.
Read by the author, Michael Jamin.
Duration: 9 hours, 39 minutes.
Unabridged.

Michael Jamin is a professional Hollywood screenplay writer. He works in television, working on comedy shows like King of the Hill, Just Shoot Me, and Tacoma FD.

In the afterword he talked about his desire to write something more than TV shows. He wasn't unhappy with writing screenplays, but he wanted to branch out. 

The stories in A Paper Orchestra are from Jamin's life. Some are funny, some wistful, some very sad. As a group, they all have the feel of NPR's Moth Radio Hour - but instead of having a variety of performers, it is all from the same man.

Jamin read the audiobook. In the afterword, he and his wife talked about how they worked together so that he could perform these stories live on stage. She is an actress and she helped him with presentation style - and I think she was successful at it.

I worked my way through this audiobook rather slowly. At the end of almost every story I stopped and let it marinate a bit rather than going on to the next story. For that reason, I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

A Paper Orchestra can be found on Amazon.com here.

GANGSTERS vs. NAZIS: HOW JEWISH MOBSTERS BATTLED NAZIS in WARTIME AMERICA (audiobook) by Michael Benson

 

Highly Recommended

Published in 2022 by Tantor Audio.
Read by Gabriel Vaughan.
Duration: 8 hours, 53 minutes.
Unabridged.

Flag of the German American Bund

In the United States in the 1930's there was a small, loud, enthusiastic, and growing group of Americans that were great fans of Hitler and the Nazi party. They were largely ethnic Germans and formed organizations that sported Nazi symbols and mimicked the big rallies that Hitler had in Germany. They also mimicked the overt antisemitic speech exhibited by the Nazis. The most successful of these was the German American Bund (German American Federation).

There were a lot of small groups but there were two larger organizations with a different take than the Bund. The Silver Legion of America (Silver Shirts) had a spiritualist take on hate. Father Coughlin was a literal Catholic priest who brought a "Catholic" view on antisemitic hate and anti-interventionism from Detroit. He had a massive radio audience that was so enthusiastic that his church superiors were afraid to muzzle him.

Officially, Nazi Germany did not support these groups, but there were plenty of unofficial connections.

The national government could officially do nothing to stop them quickly (although the age-old tactic of looking for things like tax violations did work to slow some of them down over time.)

There was also very little that local governments could do to stop these meetings. Some localities, like New York City, outlawed wearing some of their Nazi-style outfits (dubious legality). Others just buckled down and over-scrutinized all of their rental applications for meeting halls, applications for parades, and so on. If there was a misspelling, or any similar type of mistake it was denied. 

But, that kind of thing only lasts so long. Eventually these American Nazis learned to double check their paperwork and take advantage of America's wide open freedom of speech rules to advocate for actions that would kill those very same freedoms.

A judge from New York City named Nathan Perlman decided that if the American antisemites were going to have paramilitary organizations, American Jews needed one to literally punch back. Turns out he knew a whole bunch of tough Jewish guys that paraded through his court room on a regular basis - Jewish mafia gangsters. People like Mickey Cohen, Meyer Lansky, Davie "the Jew" Berman*, and Bugsy Siegel were talked to in an unofficial way. 

The deal was simple - no killing, lots of roughing up (but not too rough), try to disappear afterwards, no overt help from the judge, avoid the press. In return, there would be lots of backroom maneuvers to get them out of jail if needed. The judge appealed to their sense of ethnic loyalty and it worked. These men were not good Jews in any kind of moral way. Most had long since stopped going to temple. However, most had had enough of a connection to the larger Jewish community to have had a Bar Mitzvah and they all understood that if people were going after harmless rabbis and little old ladies that go to temple, they would certainly go after Jewish mobsters.

Mugshots of Meyer Lansky (1902-1983)

Meyer Lansky said this about their involvement: "The stage was decorated with a swastika and a picture of Adolf Hitler. The speakers started ranting. There were only fifteen of us, but we went into action. We threw some of them out the windows. Most of the Nazis panicked and ran out. We chased them and beat them up. We wanted to show them that Jews would not always sit back and accept insults"

This Nazi-Gangster fight did not go on for too long - a couple of years at longest. The German American Bund began to fizzle out during 1939 when everyone was starting to get a real sense of what Nazi Germany was all about. Pearl Harbor pretty much brought an end to the pro-fascist meetings thanks to Italy and Germany declaring war on the United States to express their solidarity with Imperial Japan. 

Are there thorny free speech issues in this scenario? Well, it looks bad when a judge is recruiting a crew of guys to beat people up for expressing their political thoughts. But, when you consider the record of Nazis before and during the war it's pretty hard not to enjoy hearing about the mobsters beating the crap out of a bunch of loud-mouthed racist bullies.

I recommend the audiobook version because of the reading of Gabriel Vaughan. The book is written is written in a lively and engaging manner and uses words or phrases from movies or newsreels from the time period, using slang like "heaters" (guns) and "whacked" (mafia ordered murder). Vaughan doubles down on this theme by reading with a mild accent reminiscent of newsreel narrators of the time.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: GANGSTERS vs. NAZIS: HOW JEWISH MOBSTERS BATTLED NAZIS in WARTIME AMERICA (audiobook) by Michael Benson

*Note on Davie "the Jew" Berman. Mobster nicknames are almost always colorful. Berman has to have the least imaginative nickname of all the mobsters of this era. That's most likely due to the fact that he was operating out of Minneapolis and Iowa City - places not known for large Jewish populations.

OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR: PATRIOTS and LOYALISTS in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION (audiobook) by H.W. Brand

 

Published by Random House Audio in November of 2021.
Read by Steve Hendrickson.
Duration: 16 hours, 31 minutes.
Unabridged.

When I read the title of this audiobook, OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR: PATRIOTS and LOYALISTS in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION, I was sure that I was going to be listening to an in-depth look at how the population of the young United States dealt with its neighbors and family that disagreed about the question of independence. The most famous example is Benjamin Franklin and his son William Franklin. William Franklin was the last royal governor of New Jersey and their relationship never recovered from the shock of the Revolutionary War. 

This book deals with more of these issues than most histories of the Revolutionary War era, but that is not particularly hard to do - most of them mention the Franklin family situation and use it as a stand-in for all families. But, it does not go in-depth into this concept of Loyalists vs. Patriots. For example, I learned more about this topic from this Wikipedia page than I did from this book. I should not learn more about the topic from 11 pages of text on a Wikipedia page then I did in a 16+ hour audiobook.

So what is this book, if not an in-depth study of how the American Revolution fractured families, cities and populations?

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and William Franklin (1730-1813)

It's a very good political history of the Revolutionary Era that focuses especially on Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and, to a lesser extent, John Adams. The text hums right along and it was a very good listen. This is one of the few Revolutionary War histories that I've read that actually discusses the dilemma that slaves faced in the war and the offer of freedom that the British military offered for males slaves that were willing to leave their families and volunteer. He looked at the stories of two slaves - one who fought for the British and one who ending up fighting for both sides.

All of that being said, I am going to deduct one point from what would have been a 5 star review. This book does not adequately address what the title promises.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR: PATRIOTS and LOYALISTS in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION (audiobook) by H.W. Brand.

PEEPS: A NOVEL (Book #1 of Peeps) by Scott Westerfeld

 

Published in 2005 by RazorBill (Penguin Group)

In the novel Peeps, author Scott Westerfeld has written a very original take on one of the oldest monster stories of all times - the vampire story.

Cal Thompson knows something that almost nobody knows - he knows that vampires are real because he is one. Sort of.

Cal Thompson also knows how vampirism is spread. The bite on the neck made famous in the movies is really just one way to spread. It is commonly spread sexually, much like HIV. The virus compels its host to engage in sexual contact, ensuring the spread of the virus - much like rabies encourages animals to attack and bite other animals in order to spread rabies. Infected people are called "parasite positive" or "peeps".

Cal Thompson was infected as the result of a one night stand sexual encounter on his first day in New York City. However, he is one of the rare carriers of the disease. He has some of the characteristics of a vampire such as being able to see in the dark and increased strength, but he is not a full-blown vampire. He has been trained and recruited to join an ancient secret organization that captures vampires to limit the spread and maybe offer some therapy to help with this infection.

Cal is new to the job and he knows that the vampires in this story are not like movie vampires - capes, weird accents and sleeping in coffins, etc. But, he is finding things that he had never heard during his training and no one back at the home office is taking his concerns seriously...

I loved the twist on the vampire story that this book presented. Just as interesting were the even-numbered chapters presented information about behavior-changing viruses and microscopic parasites (like rabies that I mentioned above) presented in a conversational way that reinforced the underlying premise behind vampirism in this book.

The only reason that this book is not receiving a 5 star rating is the ending. I thought it could have gone a lot of ways, but the way it went was underwhelming. 

Still, this was a good read and fans of vampires would really enjoy it's take.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on PEEPS: A NOVEL (Book #1 of Peeps) by Scott Westerfeld.

THE GOOD COP (Carter Ross #4) (audiobook) by Brad Parks

A Review of the Audiobook

Published in 2013 by Dreamscape Media, LLC.
Read by Adam Verner
Duration: 9 hours, 18 minutes
Unabridged

Carter Ross is an excellent reporter in the newsroom of a slowly dying newspaper in Newark, New Jersey. When he hears of the death of a police officer, he immediately rushes to the family and convinces them to talk to him about the officer and the kind of life he lived. Ross is certain that he has the makings of a top-notch human interest story - the kind of story that he would be proud if the family saved it for the officer's tiny baby son to read someday.

But, when Ross calls in the good news to his editor he is immediately waved off of the story because the Newark police are telling everyone that this officer killed himself after he got drunk on the job. But, that sounds fishy to Ross so he starts his own investigation into the case - and soon he finds that he has more suspects than he can possibly investigate...

Brad Parks has a way of making a serious crime book funny and serious all at the same time. When things go wrong, Carter Ross digs harder, makes even more wisecracks and makes the reader enjoy the book even more.

Adam Verner nails the tone of Carter Ross perfectly. The only down thing about the book is that there are too many "soap opera" touches to the book concerning Carter Ross's romantic entanglements. Nonetheless, this is an enjoyable audiobook experience.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE GOOD COP by Brad Parks.

HAVOC (Philip Mercer #7) by Jack Du Brul

Published in 2006 by Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Read by J. Charles.
Duration: 12 hours, 43 minutes.
Unabridged audio edition.

Jack Du Brul's Havoc is a techno-thriller that races from the Hindenburg disaster to Africa to Washington, D.C to Atlantic City to Niagara Falls to Russia and back to Africa with hardly any time to take a breath. 

The book features Philip Mercer, a geologist by training that often troubleshoots for the White House. This is the seventh book featuring Mercer, a fact that was not on the audiobook label. However, Du Brul does a great job of catching the reader up on what has been going on - I assumed it was the first book in the series as I was listening to it. 

The Hindenburg disaster on May 6, 1937.

The action starts with a traveler on the infamous Hindenburg as it flies to its fate with destiny in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937. A crazed man is hiding a secret in a safe in his room and he is afraid that the Nazis know he has it and are plotting to steal it from him. As this man sits and watches his safe he devises a plan to get it safely off of the airship before it lands in New Jersey - he throws it overboard into a farm field with an attached note for Albert Einstein. The note falls off and the safe gets forgotten in the chaos of the Hindenburg disaster.

Fast forward to modern day in the Central African Republic. Mercer accidentally meets Cali Stowe, a fellow American. Mercer tells her he is here to investigate a geological hunch for someone as a favor. She says that she is there to investigate a village that has an extraordinarily elevated cancer rate. They are both telling half-truths. But, most importantly, this village is in the middle of a civil war and a dangerous warlord is on his way, burning and looting as he comes...

As the story progresses, Stowe and Mercer find that they have a mutual interest in this village and in each other. The more they find out about, the more tense the situation becomes. There are a lot of complicated threads in this book but Du Brul does tie them all together at the end

The story is full of action and adventure - some of it fun, some of it believable, some so outrageous that the story borders on silly. Mercer gets to be too much after a while - he is an expert on the Hindenburg, he knows how to fight, he's an expert with pistols, grenades, rifles, knives, swords and even with bows and arrows. He knows about mines, cave-ins, scuba diving, trains, dinosaur bones, forklifts, helicopters, speed boats and bar tending. But, his heart is in the right place and if you just go with the flow and don't think about it it just might not bother you too much. 

The audiobook was read by J. Charles. Charles did a merely okay job with the variety of accents required by this book. He has a hard time with women's voices and Cali Stowe has a lot of lines in this book. His foreign accents all fell into the category of "not an English language accent". Everyone kind of sounded the same. 

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Havoc (Philip Mercer #7) by Jack Du Brul.

Reviewed on July 22, 2014.

Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum #10) by Janet Evanovich (audiobook)

Published by MacMillan Audio
Narrated by C.J. Critt
Duration: about 8 hours.

Ten Big Ones features Stephanie Plum and Lula going up against 1) a soccer mom who raids potato chip trucks and 2) a psychopathic street gang member. Stephanie's endless on-again-off-again relationship with Morelli continues its strange path - but the twists and turns seem forced this time. Too bad, I was such an enthusiastic supporter of the early books in the series - but the newer ones just don't have it.

In fact, the whole franchise seems tired. Lula and Stephanie's banter. Stephanie's sister and her fiance. Grandma. Morelli. Ranger. It has a warmed over feeling.

I found Stephanie's total lack of awareness of street gangs (and their propensity to violence) in her hometown is silly, especially considering that she admits to having caught some of these gang members in the past. She didn't notice the graffiti? The outfits? Doesn't she listen to the news?

My unabridged audio version was read by C.J. Critt. Critt did an okay job, but not a great job. Too many of the lines were read as though they were one-liners - too many punchlines that just hung there because they really weren't terribly funny. She is not the reader of the Audible.com or CD versions of the book.

This was a solid two-star read for me except for the last scene - it made me laugh out loud and that's worth a star to make it a total of 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Ten Big Ones.

Reviewed on February 16, 2008.

To the Nines (Stephanie Plum, No. 9) by Janet Evanovich

I'm a big fan but this one was tedious

Published in 2003.

*My previous experiences with Stephanie Plum have all come in the form of audiobooks. Her wise cracking comments and first person narration of all of the antics of her family and neighbors make you feel like your riding along with her and your getting the inside scoop. I enjoyed them so much that when I had to switch cars at a moment's notice due to I car trouble I forgot my lunch in the old car but remembered to bring Stephanie Plum with me to the new car!

This time while reading To The Nines, I felt the whole thing had just became plodding and tedious. The bloom is off of this lilly as far as I am concerned. Unlike other formulaic novel series (such as Parker's Spenser series) this one does not hold up too much scrutiny for me. I keep wondering things like:

*How does Ranger pay for all of these fancy cars and employees when he is so busy working skip traces out of a third-rate bail bondsman's office in a medium-sized city?

*Is Stephanie ever going to get any better at this? It was cute at first, but now? C'mon!

*Are these characters ever going to develop? They stay in a perpetual holding pattern of bizarre behaviors that I found charming at first but now I want to meet new people or see some growth!

Final Grade: 3 stars out of 5 (I got to see old friends again - but it was not enough).

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: To the Nines (Stephanie Plum #9).

Reviewed on August 8, 2006.