The Pied Piper (abridged audiobook) by Ridley Pearson

Great twists. Good book. Abridged version leaves some things out.

Published by Brilliance Audio
Read by Dale Hull
Duration: About 3 hours
Abridged

Just to let you know, I heard The Pied Piper as an abridged audiobook. I will discuss specific issues about the audiobook aspect of it later.

This was a scary, sad thriller. Children are being abducted from their bedrooms across Seattle and, in reality, all across the country and Seattle's finest are out to stop the kidnappings. Obstacles in their path include very poor teamwork with the FBI and there's another kidnapping very close to home...but I won't spoil it for you by telling you who.

Good police work ensues and it is satisfying to go along with the police as they slowly amass their clues and get closer and closer. Once the reader finds out the truth, there's still quite a bit of work to do to wrap it all up - including a cross-country chase.

Its a good, good thriller and I would have given it 5 stars but I am reviewing the abridged book on tape and I have some complaints:

1. The reader does great dialogue but is poor at reading non-dialogue - everything sounds breathless and over-hyped. Very William Shatner-esque, if you catch my meaning.

2. The abridgment apparently left out a part of the story concerning Idaho - it is barely referenced early on and then the suspect has an injury on the face due to an accident suffered in Idaho that everyone seems to know about. That is not an example of a skillful abridgment.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Pied Piper (abridged).

Reviewed on September 20, 2004.

Barney: The Stray Beagle Who Became a TV Star and Stole Our Hearts by Dick Wolfsie

A Heartwarming remembrance and tribute to Barney the beagle

Published in 2004.

If you lived in Central Indiana from the mid-90s to 2003 you probably saw Barney - Dick Wolfsie's canine sidekick and faithful companion for literally thousands of segments of the WISH-TV morning show. He wasn't a prop or a gag (he was too poorly trained for that) - he was his own man (!) on the show. He was goodwill ambassador and class clown and all beagle.

Barney: The Stray Beagle Who Became a TV Star and Stole Our Hearts is a light-hearted book - full of Wolfsie's wonderful memories - the good and the bad. Really, it's a fluff piece - but this piece of fluff caused my eyes to tear up more than once as he spoke of the day his beloved Barney died and the immediate outpouring of love and concern that central Indiana expressed.

Truly a wonderful little book - be prepared to laugh (my wife and I read parts of it to each other and enjoyed it all the more) but also have the tissues handy!

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Barney: The Stray Beagle Who Became a TV Star and Stole Our Hearts by Dick Wolfsie.

Reviewed on September 13, 2004.

The Last Innocent Man by Phillip Margolin

Good thriller set against a series of coincidences

Originally published in 1981.

Margolin comes through with The Last Innocent Man, a book that keeps the pages turning but at times I wondered about the series of incredible coincidences that linked all of the characters together (I won't go into them here, for fear of revealing too much of the plot for those who have not yet read the book).

Are you looking for a book that leads the protagonist through a series of difficult choices until finally everything is forced to come to a head? If so, then this is your book. However, be aware that you'll be forced to suspend your sense of disbelief from time to time as well.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Last Innocent Man. 

Reviewed on September 10, 2004.

Cuba (Jake Grafton #7) (audiobook) by Stephen Coonts

Good thriller plot overcomes other issues

Originally published in 1999.
Read by Benjamin L. Darcie
Duration: 14 hours, 44 minutes
Unabridged

Just so you'll know, I am reviewing Cuba as an audiobook - I listened to it as an audiobook and as an audiobook it was pretty good, meaning that I never really wondered if there was something else on the radio that was better.

As to the plot - I found it to be especially interesting to have the book focus on the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Cuba, considering our situations in Iran and North Korea and the famed search for WMD in Iraq. The descriptions of the power of these weapons and the reasons that tin-pot dictators and superpowers possess them was informative.

As always, Coonts writes wonderful action sequences. His characters are sometimes a bit stiff, especially with his American cabinet officials.

Quibbles I have with the book:

-Sometimes there's so much tech-speak that it bogs the story down. At times, Coonts seems more interested in showing us cool gadgets than moving the story along.

-Why is Rear Admiral Jake Grafton personally leading the invasion of a Cuban prison and checking out abandoned freighters with Toad Tarkington? 

-Why is Toad Tarkington leading military mission after military mission? 

Both Tpad and Grafton are in their 50s! Are there no Junior officers in his entire carrier group? Very Captain Kirk-ish. It seems to me that this would have been an excellent time to have passed the baton generationally and introduced the readers to a couple of new, young, enthusiastic officers who could do some of these rough and tumble adventures. 

Reviewed on September 10, 2004.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Cuba (Jake Grafton #7).

Fury by G.M. Ford

Great change of pace for G.M. Ford

Published in 2001.

Ford's new hero is Frank Corso - he's hard to get a read on, he's a loner (with friends), he's difficult (but is smooth when he interviews), he's trustworthy and, most importantly, he loves to put his nose into other people's business, especially when he smells a good story.

G.M. Ford

Ford introduces a variety of characters to fill out Corso's world and I think it works very well. The pacing of the book is excellent and I oftentimes found myself having to force myself to put it down so I could go on with the rest of my day. This book is darker and more serious than the Waterman books, mostly because there isn't the comic relief supplied by the homeless crowd from the neighborhood bar, The Zoo.

For those fans of Leo Waterman, he makes a cameo appearance at the beginning.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: FURY by G.M. Ford.

Reviewed September 7, 2004

Bound for the North Star: True Stories of Fugitive Slaves by Dennis Brindell Fradin

An excellent introduction to the topics of slavery and the Underground Railroad.

Published by Clarion Books in 2000.

While Bound for the North Star: True Stories of Fugitive Slaves is obviously aimed for the "young adult" crowd, it would serve as an excellent primer for ANYONE interested in learning more about that sad, sad topic in America's history: slavery.

Harriet Tubman

The author includes 12 stories about slaves who escaped north, mostly with the help of the Underground Railroad. Each story describes a different type of escape or incident - varying from the case of Solomon Northrup - a free black man who was drugged and sold into slavery while he was working in Washington, D.C. to John "Fed" Brown, a field slave who traveled a roundabout trip to freedom covering thousands of miles to John Price - an escaped slave who was captured in Ohio, but was eventually freed thanks to the near-riot of the Oberlin College community. The book ends up with the most famous member of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, and details a number of her exploits as a Conductor and as a Union Spy during the Civil War.

As a reader, I appreciated the variety of types of escape stories - it did not get stale reading about the same type of escape and the variety of escape plans really was a wonderful testament to human creativity in the face of hardship.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Bound for the North Star: True Stories of Fugitive Slaves

Reviewed on September 1, 2004.

Oddball Indiana: A guide to Some Really Strange Places by Jerome Pohlen

Published in 2002 by Chicago Review Press

Oddball Indiana: A guide to Some Really Strange Places does a great job of showing some of the odd things that make the Hoosier state unique, including Santa Claus, IN and the world's largest steer (he's stuffed). It also turns out that Indiana is the birthplace of Wonder Bread, Alka Seltzer, Corn Flakes, Pork and Beans and the unique shape of the Coca-Cola bottle. He includes driving directions that look to be accurate (I am familiar with some of these places) although a good map of Indiana would also be required to even find some of the towns that he mentions. He includes several pictures, which generally are helpful.

Indiana - birthplace of this and
many more wonders.

This really could have been a charming little book - one that I would have been 100% enthused about except for the author's fascination with Hoosiers Dan Quayle (not in a positive way, either) and Jim Jones (the cult leader who led his 900+ followers in a mass suicide in Guyana in the 1978). Do we really need to see Dan Quayle's frat house? Do we really need to see a picture of the bridge that Jim Jones' uncle jumped off of in order to commit suicide?

But, on the whole, the guide is useful and entertaining. It includes addresses, phone numbers, web addresses, visiting hours, costs (if any) and directions to every location he describes. I do recommend it for anyone who likes to travel off of the beaten path.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Oddball Indiana: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places (Oddball series)

Reviewed on August 30, 2004.