DWD's Reviews

  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

  Published in 2020 by Random House Audio. Read by the author, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. Duration: 4 hours, 53 minutes. Unabridged. Villavicencio is a "Dreamer", also known as a DACA kid. DACA is the program started by President Obama to deal with immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children. Generally speaking, the only country they've ever known is the United States and they had no say in immigrating to the United States. Congress refused to deal with this situation so President Obama created a program through executive orders. This meant that when President Trump came to office he was able to undo a lot of this plan with another executive order.  The author Villavicencio's very personal look at the DACA program and the general mess of our immigration policy was inspired by the election of Donald Trump, but it was not what I was hoping for when I started listening to this audiobook. I was really hoping for policy analysis with a healthy bit of p

  Published by Macmillan Audio in 2019. Read by Stephen Graybill. Duration: 11 hours, 5 minutes. Unabridged. Lucas Page is a certified genius (an astrophysicist) with a special talent - he can envision the relations between the stars as they rotate in the sky above and predict where they will go mathematically. It is a natural talent, one he's had since he was a little boy. He can apply this skill to crime scenes as well. He can eyeball a crime scene and tell from what direction and angle a shot came from without having to take all of the steps that Crime Scene Investigators usually have to take.  But, he was seriously injured while on the job with the FBI several years ago. The incident took an eye, a hand and part of a leg. He gladly walked away from the FBI and became a college professor. But, when his old partner is killed by a sniper with a very long-range shot on a busy road in New York City in the middle of a snowstorm, Lucas Page is reluctantly called back into duty. He eas

  Published in 2001 by Forge (Tor). This book has been in my to-be-read pile for a long time. I was inspired to finally read it after watching the musical  Hamilton on a streaming service. As you may know, the character of Aaron Burr plays a large part and I got to wondering exactly what happened to Burr when he went west after his term as Vice President. The problem, as the author point out, is that we don't really know exactly what Aaron Burr did. He went on trial for treason, but it was a hurried and botched trial and Burr was found not guilty. Nevin does a solid job of explaining what Burr might have been doing. Nevin goes along with the popular theory that Burr was working with the commanding general of the U.S. Army, James Wilkinson. In 1854, letters were discovered that showed that Wilkinson was in the pay of the government of Spain and was feeding them all sorts of information. Aaron Burr, 1756-1836. Nevin supposes that Wilkinson gave Spain false information designed to ma

  Published in 2019 by Random House Audio. Read by Pete Simonelli Duration: 7 hours, 44 minutes. Unabridged. Tank Rizzo is a retired police officer. He retired early because his partner suffered a career-ending injury in a botched raid on a drug dealer's apartment.  Tank's retirement consists of hanging out at the neighborhood restaurant, dating the owner of the restaurant, helping his partner with his rehab and catching a few hockey games with the father of his girlfriend (a retired mob boss). The author, Lorenzo Carcaterra But, Tank has a hobby that is sort of an open secret. He has built his own team of crime solvers and he solves cold cases for his old boss. His former partner helps by working remotely. They are paid from sort of slush fund or a secret budget line. It's not really clear, but money is not an issue. Tank's estranged brother and wife die in a car crash in a snowstorm and Tank's mystery-loving nephew moves in and joins the team and they have just ca

Published by Penguin Audio on March 31, 2020. Read by the author, Jonathan Karl. Duration: 10 hours, 16 minutes. Unabridged. Jonathan Karl has had a long relationship with Donald Trump. Karl is a reporter Jonathan Karl and Donald Trump in 1994 and nowadays. ( The New Republic , The New York Post, CNN and ABC) and he first met Donald Trump in 1994. Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley had just gotten married and were staying in Trump Tower for their honeymoon. Karl convinced Trump to do an interview about why celebrities would want to stay in his building. Trump personally led Karl on a tour of the building. Over the years, Karl interviewed Trump multiple times for multiple reasons. Because of this relationship, Karl was called on to interview Trump when he toyed with the idea of running for president before 2016 (5 times). Karl moved on to be the White House correspondent for the Obama administration for ABC and stayed when Donald Trump was elected. This book will not change

Published by Hachette Audio in 2018. Read by Dion Graham. Duration: 7 hours, 44 minutes. Unabridged. Joe King Oliver is a private detective in New York City. He used to be one of the best detectives in the NYPD, but he was set up for a crime he did not commit. He had a consensual sexual encounter with a woman he was supposed to arrest, but it was videotaped and made to look like a rape (a sexual favor in exchange for not being arrested). He lost his job, he lost his wife and he lost his daughter. He spent a 90 days in the lock up at Rikers Island and it broke him. Oliver gets his life together with the help of a friend on the force and builds a respectable business. His daughter is in high school now and works as his receptionist in the afternoons. One day a case comes in his door that changes everything and might offer a chance at redemption... This is my first Walter Mosley book. You can't be a fan of detective books and not know his name - he is a staple. But, I didn't l

Published in 2017 by Listening Library. Read by Mozhan Marno. Duration: 11 hours, 56 minutes. Unabridged. D.C. Comics' DC ICONS series creates a new YA version of their flagships character's origin stories. DC went out and found established YA authors and let them do their thing. Leigh Bardugo is an established YA fantasy author and she brings that vibe to the story of Princess Diana of Themyscira, the character who will eventually be better known as Wonder Woman. Diana is a teen that lives on the island of the Amazons - female warriors who died in battle but were reborn on Themyscira, where they can no longer intervene in the lives of mortals. Her mother is the queen of the island. Diana witnesses an explosion of a ship off the coast of Themyscira and breaks the rule of non-intervention by rescuing the sole survivor, a teenage girl and brings her back to the island. And then everything started to fall apart... This book borrows a lot on themes of Greek mythology with

Originally published in 1982. Published in 2010 by Simon and Schuster. Read by Kevin Kenerly. Duration: 7 hours, 42 minutes. Unabridged. An interesting part of Stephen King's long and storied career is legendary. At this point, he has 61 novels, including 7 written under the pen name Richard Bachman. At first, he wrote books under the Bachman pen name because the publishing industry had a rule - no more than one book per year per author. Clearly, with a prolific author like Stephen King that is an issue. This edition includes an essay by Stephen King that talks about Richard Bachman and his relationship with his pen name. The Bachman books have a darker tone than the Stephen King books by design. The Running Man has a particularly dark tone. Set in 2025 in an alternate history (even though it was written in 1982, it refers to things in 1978 that did not happen) in which America has become a corporate oligarchy. The economy is ruled by a company called General Atomics (presu

Published by Tantor Audio in 2010. Read by David Colacci. Duration: 7 hours, 51 minutes. Unabridged. I heard about this book in a memorable interview with Tommy James on the old Dennis Miller radio show when this book came out nearly 10 years ago. It was one of the best radio interviews I have ever heard and I am not even a giant Tommy James and the Shondells fan. So, when I came across the audiobook I knew I had to listen to it - and I was not disappointed. For those not familiar with Tommy James, he is responsible for the songs "Hanky Panky", "Mony Mony" and "I Think We're Alone Now". He had two #1 hits and 14 Top 40 hits overall. He started his music career as a middle school kid in Niles, Michigan performing in bars and fraternity houses and pretending to be old enough to be in bars and fraternity houses. They did a lot of work in South Bend and Lake County in Indiana and eventually got regular work in Chicago. They even released the song &quo

A Fascinating Story. Published by University Press Audiobooks in 2015 Read by Andrew L. Barnes Duration: 6 hours, 36 minutes Unabridged In 1928 a sports promoter named Charles C. Pyle had an interesting idea: a footrace across America - from Los Angeles to New York City. This race would be run in timed stages (like the Tour de France) with pre-planned stops along the way. The winner would get $10,000 and the first two-thirds of the race would highlight Route 66. Pyle brought in legendary football player Red Grange as a celebrity promoter and made grand plans for each stop, including a travelling carnival.  199 men paid the $100 entrance fee and started the race. 55 made it to the end. Along the way they ran, walked and even crawled through searing heat, snow, rain, dust storms, sleet and more. They also faced dog attacks, surges of crowds and the African-American runners faced racist threats in some states. A surprising number of runners were struck by cars.  I was

"Stop throwing sandwiches!" Published in 2005 by Scribner Teacher Man is my first McCourt book, as I am apparently the only person in the English-speaking world that has not read Angela's Ashes . The book started like a house afire for me - full of the trepidation of the first day of school for a brand new teacher. What would he say? First impressions are vital - how much more vital is the first impression for an entire career? As is normal on a first day (I've had 17 years of them!), the first words from McCourt are not planned - they are a reaction to what the kids say and do - he has to yell, "Stop throwing sandwiches!" Frank McCourt (1930-2009) photo by David Shankbone McCourt's classroom memories are enjoyable - his style is not mine (at least not as of yet - styles evolve and change over time) but it was certainly original and caused the kids to think and he had their attention - more than half the battle is won if you have

Hasn't this book already been written? Published in 2003 Keith Blanchard's premise in The Deed is that the fabled sale of Manhattan Island by the Manhata Indians to the Dutch is actually incorrect. Instead, the island was sold a second time by the starving Dutch colony to a Dutch man who sympathized with the Manhata, married a Manhata woman and insisted on a deed for the island so that he and his heirs could hold it for the native peoples who did not understand these legal machinations. It's an interesting premise, but one that was explored 4 years earlier by Larry Jay Martin in his book Sounding Drum . Interestingly, it was also a quirky comedy, it also involved a romance, the mafia and Indian casinos. Regardless of those similarities, this book should be judged on its own merits. I liked the historical section and the actual mystery of the deed. I truly disliked Blanchard's description of Hansvoort and his friends. Page after page in this book invo

An Uneven Read at Best Published in 1999. Rockefeller Center  Sounding Drum  is a book that does not know what it wants to be. It is partially a legal/business thriller and partially a "buddy book" farce. It features a group of New York City American Indian friends, led by attorney Stephen Drum, that go against the mafia, a blackmailer/assassin, the federal government, the New York State government, the New York City government and all of the odds to put an Indian reservation in New York City with an accompanying "Indian" casino in Rockefeller Center. Sounding Drum  is frustrating, however, because the thriller aspects are not consistent and the fun "buddy book" parts only kick in during the last 50 pages or so. It makes for a herky-jerky read and is ultimately unsatisfying. That is why I am giving it a 2 stars out of a possible 5 stars. This book can be found on Amazon here:  Sounding Drum . Reviewed on February 12, 2005.