DWD's Reviews

Another Winner from Barclay Published in 2010 by Delacorte Press Linwood Barclay excels at writing books in which the average middle class guy (a car salesman in Fear the Worst: A Thriller , a newspaper reporter in this book) has his whole life turned upside down and is thrust into a world of crime, violence and intrigue. His books remind me of the old-fashioned film noire style except these are quicker and have even more turns. Linwood Barclay In Never Look Away: A Thriller , David Harwood is a reporter with a wife, a son, two loving parents who babysit their son and a hot lead on signs of corruption in local government that will make an explosive story. Suddenly, his wife disappears at a local theme park and he is accused of causing her disappearance. More problems pile on and the pressure makes David and his world crumble. There is a point in which the reader says, "What? Even more happens to this guy?" Does it get ridiculous? Absolutely. More importantly...

This is how history should be written! Published in 2006 by Harper Perennial. Winik asserts that the month of April 1865 was the single most important month in the history of the United States due to the confluence of historical events and decisions that came with the end of the Civil War. The decisions include Lincoln's plan for a "soft" peace rather than a vengeful one. Lee's decision not to opt for guerrilla warfare but rather surrender and urge his men to become good citizens for their country (meaning the USA), Johnston's similar decision in North Carolina, the assassination of Lincoln, the uncertain rules of Presidential succession, the North's collective decision not to lash out blindly at a prostrate South in revenge for Lincoln's murder and a host of other issues. My take: Winik is one of that new breed of historian that knows that good writing as at least as important as good research ( You can't teach anything if you write poorly ). Win...

Wow! Was this book bad! Published in 2002. Never After is one of those humorous fantasy books, in which everything is sweetly parodied and lots of puns are thrown in, etc. A Prince in search of a princess finds a castle in which all of the inhabitants are asleep due to the spell of a fairy godmother (as in Disney's Sleeping Beauty ), including the girl of his dreams. However, he needs to wake up 3 princes before he wakes up his love so he enlists the help of his tomboy cousin (a princess) and his boyhood friend, who happens to be a newly graduated wizard and they all go back to the castle for adventure, treasure and love. Along the way, Rumpelstiltskin (yes, that one) gets involved. My review: This book was so irritating that I got to page 85 and called it quits. The author seems to be more bent on being cute than she is on advancing the story (which had gone nearly nowhere in the last 25-30 pages I did read). I was afraid that if I read it any longer, I would somehow be s...

Published by HighBridge Audio. Originally broadcast in 1993. Multicast performance. Duration: approximately 5 hours. Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (The Original Radio Drama) was created for National Public Radio and originally broadcast in 1993. It features several members of the original movie cast including Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Anthony Daniels (C3PO) and Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian). John Lithgow steps in and does a strong job with Yoda. Vader suffers with Brock Peters as the voice - not because he did anything wrong, but because he is just not James Earl Jones. George Lucas opened up the Star Wars vault and let NPR use the original soundtrack and original special effects - and they use them well. The soundtrack punches up the story and the special effects are used to move the story along as often as they are used to add a little detail to the experience. The story is well told and has the added bonus of being able to take a little more tim...

Not a complete history of the city, but an interesting one. Published in 2002 by Arcadia Publishing. Lost Indianapolis is part of the very large Images of America series of books that feature historical photos of landmarks of a city or group of people and tell part of the history as well. From time to time "then and now" photos are included as well so that the reader can see how things have changed. The author has written several local histories about Indiana and Indianapolis and maintains a webpage at http://www.lostindiana.net/Lost_Indiana/Lost_Indiana.html . Lost Indianapolis is a great book for those with an interest in Indianapolis for two reasons: 1) The photographs. They are interesting and very well-chosen to add to the text. I have seen books of this sort that seem to have random pictures tossed in with the text. 2) The text. McDonald has chosen several interesting topics to tell some of the story of the city. This is not a complete history by any means,...

Sci-fi at its best - full of meaty themes - a great book for serious discussion as well as being a thrill ride. Published in 2021 by PRTTYCESS At its best sci-fi becomes a forum for more than whiz bang technology - it becomes a forum for discussion about philosophy. The best Twilight Zones did this. Star Wars becomes a stage to discuss the nature of good and evil and if an evil person can be redeemed. Star Trek becomes a lesson in the strength that can be possible in diversity and the power of friendship over all else. What does the Daemon/Freedom series bring to the table? Well, Daemon is the whiz bang introduction to the series that finally matures in Freedom . The computer Daemon program introduced in the first book is re-creating society throughout Freedom . Themes explored include "Is Freedom economic as well as political?" and "Can there be real freedom when so much of the economy is controlled by multi-national corporations?" Throw in a lot of action a...

"the nation's traditional news organizations are being transformed into tabloid news organizations..." (p. 51) Published in 2009. Alex S. Jones is a journalist who has just about seen it all: he has owned and managed a paper, he has written features, he won a Pulitzer Prize, he has taught journalism, he has done radio journalism and he has written several books. He knows of what he writes. In Losing the News , Jones is concerned about the evolution of news gathering services (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines) from expensive investigative work to nonsense tabloid stuff (this week it is Tiger Woods - thanks to serious news organizations I know more than I've ever wanted to know about his wife, his doctor, etc. - but just go out and try to get some solid info about the health care debate!) He bemoans a number of trends, including the synergy type news that ABC, NBC & CBS do to promote new books, movies or shows. He is concerned that the "iron core" of...

I'm a huge Morrell fan but this one was just paint by numbers Originally published in 1991. No one writes books about a little guy vs. a vast conspiracy better than David Morrell. Morrell is one of the few authors that I will snatch up when I come across a new (or "new to me") title. The Covenant of the Flame tries to go for that "on the run" feel that Morrell usually establishes, but it just comes off as more of a "paint by the numbers" effort. The DaVinci Code covers similar material but the The Covenant of the Flame is the more plausible and older of the two. That being said, Covenant still just doesn't have "it." This is not a bad book per se and I certainly would encourage readers to read other Morrell books such as Extreme Denial and Desperate Measures to get a feel for what this author is truly capable of. I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Covenant of the Flame by Dav...

One of the most interesting and profound books I've read this year Published in 2006 by Basic Books. I'm a high school teacher that founded and sponsored the local Key Club (secular volunteer organization) at my high school for 7 years. My wife has been a professional volunteer coordinator for more than 15 years, in both religious and secular settings. There is nothing in these statistics that contradict our personal experiences. So, what does Brooks say in Who Really Cares ? "The conventional wisdom runs like this: Liberals are charitable because they advocate government redistribution of money in the name of social justice; conservatives are uncharitable because they oppose these policies. But note the sleight of hand: Government spending, according to the logic, is a form of charity. Let us be clear: Government spending is not charity. It is not voluntary sacrifice by individuals." (p. 20) Brooks marshals a horde of facts to prove the point that the more poli...

Wow! What a Stinker! Published in 2009 by Thomas Nelson When I saw this title I was thrilled to pick this book up. I am a high school history teacher that loves classical history. I was eager to see what someone had to say about these 5 world class cities. What I got was a poorly written mishmash of ideas that sort of worked themselves into some kind of theme that sort of held together to make a vague point from time to time. In other words, it read like one of my high school student's research papers. I am a fan of Thomas Nelson publishing - they are a religious publisher that generally holds themselves to high standards. This book, however, makes me doubt my previous impression. Five Cities has a clever premise, an interesting cover but has no real substance and is full of too much supposition and theory rather than solid history. What do I mean? To be specific, on pages 8-9 he asserts that the Phoenicians, as part of a trade alliance with King Solomon, set across the ...

I reluctantly started this one and finished it enthusiastically Originally published in 2006 by Crown. A friend from work had World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War on his desk and said I should read it. Zombies!? No thanks! I've avoided all of the Twilight books and the other undead/monster books. He pitched it by saying it was fictional (of course!) but modeled after the very real work of Studs Terkel, The Good War: An Oral History of World War II . For those that don't know, Terkel interviewed hundreds of people about World War II and arranged their interviews into a narrative of sorts that told the history of the war. Well, that wasn't much of a selling point either because I never really got into Studs Terkel very much, so this was strike two. But, I took it home and started reading. Max Brooks The first 20-30 pages are boring but they do set up the rest of the book by introducing the concept of zombies, how they came to be, what they are capabl...

I laughed my way through this audiobook! Published by Eastmoor Media in 2005. Performed by Bruce Campbell and his actor friends. Duration: 6 hours, 17 minutes. Unabridged. I picked up and looked at the book version of Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way several times and never quite decided to pick it up. But, I quickly snapped up the audiobook version because of this quote from the back cover from Bruce Campbell: "...the prospects of doing a 'regular" audio adaptation weren't very appealing. But then a few things dawned on me: 1. I'm the lead character of the book. 2. As an actor by trade, I could play the part. 3. I'm knee deep in actor pals, why not record the book like a radio play?"  At that point I was sold. The story revolves around Bruce Campbell's attempt to move from being a B movie legend to a real A-list movie star. He gets his chance in "Let's Make Love", a Richard Gere/Rene Zelwegger romantic comedy directed by Mik...

An Enjoyable Counter-Argument Published in 2007 by IVP Books. Timothy Paul Jones' Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus is a reasoned, polite yet firm response to Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why , a best-selling book that disputes the authenticity of the New Testament by noting that there have been numerous errors in translation and copying over the years, especially in the first 200-300 years of the Christian movement. Jones starts by addressing Ehrman's criticisms directly. He acknowledges that there have indeed been a great number of errors, most in spelling, some in grammar and some were simple re-copying of lines of text or skipping a line of text. He notes that while there are a lot of them, most make no difference, such as my use of commas and other punctuation in this sentence - if I had left them out, the meaning of the text would not have changed. To use an examp...

Great. Thought-provoking. Originally Published in 2002. Richard Rodriguez is a San Francisco-based writer who was asked to write a book about being Hispanic in America. I doubt Brown: The Last Discovery of America was the book that the publisher had in mind when they asked. Rodriguez is a true political maverick whose thesis is that America is becoming "Brown" - a mixture of Anglo, Hispanic, Black, Asian and whatever else you want to throw in. America can embrace this future (and probably will) or it can reject it and deny the reality that surrounds us all (and does it matter if you deny reality - it is still there). I first heard of Rodriguez on C-Span. He was giving a speech at the Texas Book Fair created by Laura Bush. His speech was truly wonderful and I just had to find his book. I could go into detail on his observations, but you would much prefer if you would read it the way he put them in his book - his writing style is so fluid that he sneaks major concepts into...

So, what do you get when Oscar Award Winner and a Hugo Award Winner get together? Published in 1996 by Tor Books What you get is a pretty good book, actually. The premise of The Two Georges is that the United States was never formed. The British government dealt fairly with the colonies in the 1760s and the independence movement was stillborn. Instead, what are now the USA and Canada is called the North American Union and are an integral part of the United Kingdom. The UK is a vast world-wide empire led by the King-Emperor. This union is symbolized by the painting "The Two Georges" which depicts colonial representative George Washington bowing before King George III before an assembly of British and American dignitaries. This moment encapsulates the agreements that kept the American colonies a part of the British Empire. At the beginning of the book the painting is stolen in 1996 by The Sons of Liberty, a North American pro-independence movement. The story follows two de...

More than your average crime book Published in 1991. A boy is found with bloody underwear. His babysitter, a male high school senior is immediately suspected of molestation. The little boy is very bright but is certainly very vague about what happened to him. Psychologists are brought in, with their own agendas. The prosecutors, parents, judge and the victim all have their own agendas. The reader is left to try to guess what really happened. The point of view is usually that of the little boy who is trying to navigate his way through the adult court system while keeping his secrets secret, his family intact and do what is right, as far as he can tell. I really can't go into much more detail without spoiling the plot. This is Brown's first book. He is a state supreme court justice from Ohio and I hope that this disturbing piece of fiction was not based on a true case. This book was well-written, compelling and, like I've already said, disturbing. I rate this book 5 s...

Originally published in 1996. Connelly is an Edgar Award winner (an award for great mysteries that is named after Edgar Allen Poe, the creator of they mystery genre) and, for me, that is usually a great recommendation as an author. The Poet  features Jack McEvoy, a reporter whose specialty is covering murders for his newspaper. This time, the story is about his twin brother, a cop and a presumed suicide who left a disturbing note consisting of a single line from Poe. McEvoy does a lot of digging and discovers that there have been a string of police suicides across the country with "Poe" suicide notes. Soon, he's on the case with an FBI task force and the chase is on to catch the killer they've nicknamed "The Poet." This really is a well-written book. The first 100 pages are slow and wallowing in self-reflection and insecurity, as is appropriate for those left behind in the wake of a suicide. Once McEvoy finds the clues leading to a different conclusion, t...

Good action thriller book for political junkies Originally published in 1997. This political / action thriller revolves around the murder of a Colin Powell-type successful black general that was staged to look like a plane crash. Army Warrant Officer Rachel Collins discovers a clue to the actual cause of the general's death while investigating another crime and a nation-wide chase ensues while victims fall all over the place at the hand of the professional assassin "The Engineer." It started out slow but the middle part of the book is really quite good. Shelby creates good tension and the main characters get banged up most thoroughly and realistically. I rate this book 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Last Rights .  Reviewed in 2004.

Originally published in 1986. If you didn't already know it, the daughter of our 33rd president is quite the successful mystery writer. All of her books take place in and around the Washington. D.C. area and involve government figures and the temptations involved with power. In Murder In Georgetown the daughter of a powerful senator with Presidential ambitions is killed in a park after embarrassing her father at a socialite party with her lewd and suggestive dancing. Is it the father, enraged by the threat to his candidacy? Is it a jealous ex-boyfriend? Is it a jealous classmate from her Georgetown University journalism seminar? Reporter Joe Potamos is on the case but is suddenly fired when he gets to close to the answer. Too late - his curiosity drives him on. This is a decent mystery - the main characters are solid and likable. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Murder in Georgetown . I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. Reviewed in 2004.