DWD's Reviews

Published in 2011 by Random House Audio Read by the author, Tom Brokaw Duration: 7 hours, 8 minutes Unabridged I picked up the audiobook of The Time of Our Lives in the hopes that former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw would be offering some in-depth analysis on a wide range of issues. After all, the cover promises to look at "Who we are, where we've been and where we need to go now to recapture the American Dream." Instead, we get a lot of amiable reminiscing about Brokaw's family, his early career, and a bit of of a slanted history lesson with every chapter with some half-hearted advice that is based on discussion with industry leaders. That is the essence of the problem Brokaw is a top-level journalist. He is a journalist emeritus - respected and admired for what he used to do but he is not doing the gritty stuff any more. He hobnobs and socializes with elites. If he wants to talk about some new trend in computers he can literally call Bill Gates and get his t...

Published by Eugene Penny in May of 2016. Duration: 5 hours, 58 minutes. Unabridged. Read by Rebecca Roberts. FBI Special Agent Christie Lovelace is a plucky, sarcastic, foul-mouthed agent who investigates offbeat cases. Think X-Files, but with a much more gross, much more weird take. Lovelace has been sent to Danbury, Texas to investigate a charge of corruption. It seems that the whole town is being controlled by one man and a person may have died. But, once Lovelace arrives, after a frustrating series of humorous personal disasters, she discovers that the body has disappeared from the morgue. When she goes to the jail to follow a lead the stench of feces is overpowering... Plus, people keep hinting about the dead coming back to life. It's going to be a strange Monday. My thoughts: For me, this book was a little too gross and a little too interested in being weird for the sake of weirdness for my taste. Too many oddball characters in one place. I like Christie Lovelace and ...

Published November 1, 2008 by GraphicAudio. From an original novel first published in 2004. Graphic Audio has a long tradition of creating excellent audiobooks by going back and telling stories the way that they used to tell them in the old days on the radio - with actors and sound effects. Rather than reading the story to the listener as the author wrote it, they act it out like an old-fashioned radio play. In The Flash: Stop Motion the story focuses on Wally West, the young protege of the previous Flash, Barry Allen. Barry Allen is gone now and Wally is taking the responsibilities associated with wearing the red tights seriously. But, he is so much younger than most of the rest of the Justice League and he feels a little outclassed by the others. How can he hope to contribute as much as Superman who can practically do anything? Or the Martian Manhunter who can almost keep up with Superman and has telepathic powers? The Green Lantern is young but everyone knows that his ring giv...

Audio edition published in March of 2016. Originally published in January of 2014. Read by Wayne Farrell. Duration: 11 hours, 19 minutes Unabridged I have reviewed a lot of indie and small publishing house audiobooks lately and have been mildly disappointed with almost all of them. I don't want to be cruel, but there's a reason why some of these books are languishing in the publishing wasteland. But, sometimes you find a true gem out among the 2 and 3 star books. A gem just sitting there waiting to be noticed. Deceptive Cadence is such a gem and it is worthy of your notice. It is an international thriller with a giant soul and a great deal of introspection. If you are looking for a "shoot 'em up" this is not your book, even though there is plenty of shooting. It is the story of two brothers, and like all families, this family is complicated. The McBride family consists of Conor, a talented musician who plays violin at the international level and Thomas, t...

Originally published in October of 2014. Audiobook published in February of 2016 Read by Tom Lennon Duration: 18 hours, 24 minutes Unabridged I have read or listened to a few books about the experiences of fighter and bomber pilots in World War II and those books drew me to this one. The main character of Not Just Another War Story is Steve Carmichael. Steve grew up on a ranch near Orlando, Florida and was a baseball player at the University of Florida.  The Detroit Tigers are interested in him but, a s a kid he learned how to fly a rattletrap biplane that his father purchased for a song and refurbished  and Steve decides to join the Army Air Corps as a pilot. He becomes a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot and is shipped off to England in 1943. The story follows his original crew that all trained together as they try to work their way through their required 30 missions. The descriptions of everything to do with the airplanes and the combat missions in this book are absolutely ...

Audio version released in January of 2016 by LLC Cherry Publishing . Originally published by Oceanview Publishing in August of 2015. Read by Rebecca Roberts Duration: 9 hours, 21 minutes Unabridged Hannah Parks, the protagonist of The Comfort of Black is a survivor. She grew up in an incredibly verbally abusive home and watched her mother be physically abused by her father on a regular basis. But, one day, she fought back and now her father is in jail and she is married to a tech genius whose start-up has become a major corporation. But, Hannah and her husband have been growing apart. When she hears him dreaming about raping a woman and discovers a secret porn file on his computer she confronts him only to have him fly into a violent rage. She leaves him only to have him try to kidnap her. But, a man named Black intervenes. A man she doesn't even know kidnaps her away from the kidnappers and now Hannah's life really starts to disintegrate... If you love a book with a...

Published by Wynne E. McLaughlin Read by Charles Hinckley Duration: 4 hours, 15 minutes Unabridged A lot of people don't know that the end of the classic Cowboy era was the beginning of a dinosaur rush. Paleontologists went out West and found all sorts of skeletons and shipped them back East to be installed in museums. Reputations were made based on who could find the biggest and most exotic fossils. Edward Cope with a fossil Two scientists,   Edward Cope and O.C. Marsh tried their best to outdo one another as their teams explore the American West. Sometimes they just compete, sometimes they actually try to hurt the other guy's operations.  The book is told from the point of view of an old Western guide/stagecoach robber who joined with one of the scientists and helped him navigate the landscape and local politics and is now telling the story to a reporter. This story was adapted from a movie script. It listens like a "movie of the week"-type fun wester...

Published by Hachette Audio in 2009 Read by the author, Malcolm Gladwell Duration: 12 hours, 49 minutes Unabridged This fascinating audiobook is actually a collection of articles that Malcolm Gladwell has written over the years. Each story in What the Dog Saw is about 30-45 minutes long and cover a great variety of subjects. Topics include ketchup, mammograms, FBI profilers, pit bulls, menstrual cycles, Ron Popeil (founder of Ronco), the dog whisperer, plagiarism, the Challenger Explosion/risk, home hair coloring products and the opportunities that those products offered for female executives, first impressions/job interviews, homelessness and how to solve it (really!), The Pill, Enron and the importance of having a great teacher in every classroom. I am a teacher and I was of course interested in his discussion about teachers. What was best was his emphasis on the day-to-day interaction between students and teachers and how one can observe quality education in action. What was...

Published by Tobin H Michael in February of 2016 Read by Tom Lennon Duration: 8 hours, 33 minutes Unabridged Valley of Deception is a thriller featuring Jake Matthews, an experienced U.S. Marshal who lives and works in Iowa. The book starts out with a lot of action as Jake Matthews and his team are out to execute an arrest warrant in a small town in Iowa, accompanied by an inexperienced local deputy who is serving as the local guide. The arrest goes poorly and most of the team gets shot.  Jake takes some much-needed time off with his wife to recover emotionally in his vacation home in Iowa. It is a farmhouse where Matthews can play at farming a bit and go hunting. But, this time for rest and relaxation is not going well - Matthews is experiencing panic attacks and having a hard time sleeping at night.  Photo by DWD One day, he decides to go on a walk along his property line when he smells the all-too-familiar smell (in his line of work) of a meth lab. He c...

Audiobook edition published in November of 2015. Published by Blair Howard. Read by Tom Lennon. Duration: 7 hours, 23 minutes. Unabridged. Harry Starke is a former cop turned private detective in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He has a successful agency with several associates with different skill sets. Harry is also connected to the Chattanooga political scene through his father, a federal judge. Most importantly, Harry is connected through his connections as a former police officer. He knows a lot of cops, knows the department's habits and has a romantic relationship with an important detective.  Most important, Harry is a smart, tough detective who can put two and two together, get four and figure out why that answer is important to the rest of the problem. Plus, he can shoot and fight well. The Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga. Harry is out for a late night drink and he notices a beautiful young lady. Later, while strolling across the Walnut Street Bridge he sees he...

Published in 2015 by Macmillan Audio Read by Tom Wopat Duration: 8 hours, 49 minutes Unabridged As of late, Bill O'Reilly has become quite the writer of history books. His " Killing... " series has garnered quite a bit of attention but Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Real West is different than those.  For one thing, it is not focused on the death of an historical figure. Also, this book was actually not written by O'Reilly. O'Reilly writes the introduction of the book and mentions that he used to talk about all of these historical figures and tell their true stories when he taught history in a classroom long ago. I can only assume that David Fisher and Bill O'Reilly sat down and discussed who to include in the book and the general tone of each entry. The topics are as follows: Billy the Kid (1859-1881) -Daniel Boone; -Davey Crocket; -Kit Carson; -Black Bart (Charles E. Bowles); -Dime Novels and their influence on our perception...

Published by BBC Worldwide Unlimited in 2010. Multicast Performance Duration: 44 minutes Even though I enjoy the comic book movies and I listen to a few comic book-based audiobooks, I am not a serious comics fan. I dabble. I haven't even been into a real comic book store. I know the big names and their back stories and that's about it. But, the title of this story ruined the story for me. If you know about the Lazarus Pits then there was no mystery at all. This was just one more problem in a problem-filled audiobook. First things first, let me be clear that none of the problems in this audiobook come from the actual performance of the book. It is performed like an old-fashioned radio play and the BBC performers did a great job.  Sadly, the story itself does not live up to the performances of the actors. In this story, Batman is supposed to be dead. He hasn't been seen in a while and Commissioner Gordon receives a tape from Batman that was to be delivered when...

Too Short. A Lost Opportunity to Create Something Truly Amazing. Published in 2010 by BBC Audio Multicast Performance Duration: 1 hour Superman is captured and on trial. Lex Luthor is the prosecutor, Lois Lane is Superman's sole defender. A Guardian of the Universe is the judge and if Superman is found guilty, he is to be sentenced to the Phantom Zone.  The charge? Superman is not the defender of humanity - he is actually committing crimes against humanity. Luthor's arguments go along this line - Superman is an alien and he is interfering with life on Earth. As Lois Lane makes her arguments that Superman is actually helping, Luthor blunts them with his own arguments. For example, Luthor calls Batman to the stand to testify that Batman feels the need to monitor Superman to make sure that he does not abuse his powers to enslave humanity. The audiobook ventures into some fairly unique territory. Not only are Superman's peers questioned but the assumption is that...

Published by Random House Audio in June of 2014 Read by Paul Michael Duration: 19 hours, 42 minutes Unabridged   Jeff Shaara is well-known by fans of military historical fiction. The Smoke at Dawn is his fifth book about the Civil War, the third about the campaign in The Western Theater. This book picks up a few months after Grant's victory at Vicksburg and focuses on Chattanooga. The crushing defeat at Chickamauga suffered by Union General Rosecrans was a terrible blow after the Union's massive twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg just two months earlier. Confederate General Braxton Bragg swept Rosecrans' army from the Chickamauga battlefield and they fled back to the safety of Chattanooga. Bragg's forces occupy the mountains that surround Chattanooga and have effectively laid siege to the city. Already, the Union forces are suffering and Rosecrans seems confused about what to do next. Luckily, Bragg is worried about dissension among his own junior officer...

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 wa...

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2013 Read by Holter Graham Duration: 9 hours, 53 minutes Unabridged If you are a big fan of the TV show Criminal Minds  or the movie The Silence of the Lambs  you will probably enjoy this book quite a bit. For me, the fascination of getting into the head of a serial killer has long since passed and I end up feeling soiled and abused after every excursion into this area. But, I read The Highway because I do enjoy C.J. Box's work quite a bit and I grudgingly like his Cody Hoyt character - he is exasperating and full of gigantic character flaws but just when you have had enough of him he pulls himself together and he gets the job done. In a bit of a reach (actually, in a real big reach) the young female characters from his book Back of Beyond  are caught up in another dangerous situation and Cody Hoyt is called out to rescue them once again. This time they have a run-in with a long haul trucker that kills himself the Lizard King. T...