FORCE of NATURE (Joe Pickett #12) by C.J. Box

The Series Continues in Its Winning Ways

Originally published in March of 2011

I am a giant fan of C.J. Box and have been ever since a fan of Robert Crais left a comment on one of my reviews of an Elvis Cole book that told me to check out C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series. I am now happily, but haphazardly, working my way through the series. 

Because I am bouncing around, I already knew a lot about Nate Romanowski before I read this book. I don't know if my approach to the series has caused this, but I am not a fan of the Romanowski character. I suppose it's a staple of the genre - the principled good guy has a rougher, tougher guy who has his back. Elvis Cole has Joe Pike. Spenser has Hawk. Heck, I guess you could even note that Han Solo has Chewbacca. Despite the long history of this type of character, I would just as soon read more about good but not overly tough guy Pickett than his nearly unstoppable buddy.

That being said, this is still a really good book.

The attacks on Nate Romanowski that began in Cold Wind (Joe Pickett #11) continue and ultimately come to a head in Force of Nature. Those unrelenting attacks are the focus of the book and I would consider this book to be much more of a Nate Romanowski book than a Joe Pickett book. 

Romanowski is forced to confront the man who is sending professional hit teams after him and the reader is introduced to Romanowski's childhood, some of his training and his deepest secret - the secret that threatens to consume his soul. Meanwhile, Romanowski's enemy is looking for any weaknesses, including his attachment to the family of a certain Wyoming Game Warden...

Box is able to tell this story with all of its emphasis on weapons and techniques without making it go over the reader's head. He makes the world of the special operator seem both arcane and approachable. 

Here is Romanowski talking to Joe Pickett in a nice line from the book: "You've got a beautiful wife, great daughters, and a house with a picket fence. I know it sounds trite, but there are assholes out there who think my life is hard, but it isn't. Anybody can keep to themselves and be selfish. What you do every day is hard, Joe. Staying true and loyal, man, that's not the easy path. I admire what you've got..." (p. 93)

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FORCE of NATURE (Joe Pickett #12) by C.J. Box.

AN EMPIRE on the EDGE: HOW BRITAIN CAME to FIGHT AMERICA by Nick Bunker

Published by Alfred A. Knopf in September of 2014

I have read many histories of the Revolutionary War and most only tell the story of the build-up to the war from the American side and only describe Britain's political scene as it was interpreted by the colonists. To be fair, the British political scene was often misinterpreted by the colonists.

But, in reality, there were two sides to this fight and it was not just the colonists that were misinterpreting the political signals of their brethren across the Atlantic. The British government had no idea how far their colonial governments had evolved along democratic lines (compared to a modern democracy they were all quite restrictive but when compared to Britain they were quite open). 

The Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773. Nick Bunker picks this
moment to be the point of no return between Britain and the colonists.

In fact, it seemed that often Britain was barely aware of the colonies because it had too many other crises to deal with, including a  severe drought, a crisis in India brought on by the East India Company, a disastrous drop in the price of tea and a run on several British banks. On top of all of this, Britain's social order was changing in response to its infant Industrial Revolution.

Each of these was a major crisis that consumed the time of Lord North, the Prime Minister. North and his cabinet careened from one crisis to another and were still able to maintain their majorities and the control of the government - so in that respect they were very successive. But, as author Nick Bunker notes: "As they tried to govern their own complicated country, Lord North and his friends allowed America to slip away." (p. 71)

Bunker's text is well-written and his points are clear and often quite sympathetic to America's pre-war complaints. He clearly demonstrates that Lord North was a masterful politician that failed to deal with Britain's larger, more long-term issues. Clearly, the colonists were not in a mood to compromise, but a bold stroke (such as the briefly considered idea of turning the Continental Congress into a some sort of colonial parliament led by a governor appointed by the British) was never taken.

I was struck by the absolute lack of information Lord North and his cabinet had. The 4-8 week time span that it took to send correspondence across the Atlantic did not help with this failure of proper intelligence,  but even worse were the governors who filed reports that completely misinterpreted the mood of the colonies. Some never filed reports at all. This was no way to run an empire.

Bunker's text inspires the reader to make comparisons with modern politics - the bank failures, the investment bubbles, the foreign policy surprises, the constant political posturing and an embarrassing lack of actual intelligence about the intentions of two potential enemies (the colonies and France) and an unwillingness to look at the big picture until it was too late.

Note: I received a pre-publication galley of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. It can be found on Amazon.com here: AN EMPIRE on the EDGE: HOW BRITAIN CAME to FIGHT AMERICA.

Reviewed on August 16, 2014.

SEE ME AFTER CLASS: ADVICE for TEACHERS by TEACHERS by Roxanna Elden

The Fundamentals.

Published in 2009 by Kaplan Publishing

Although I am going into my 25th year of teaching, I enjoyed the advice that was intended for new teachers offered in See Me After Class. It is always good to go back to the basics and make sure that you remind yourself of the fundamentals.

The strength of the book is just that - it deals in fundamentals. Tricks to get you through the first day with its ever-changing class lists, reminders that we do indeed learn from our mistakes, warning of the danger of falling behind in grading papers (including giving yourself enough time to grade big things before the report card grades are due), the danger of sending too many kids out of class, remembering that all kids do not respond to incentives or consequences the same way, advice to get those project assignments turned in, and a part that I particularly liked: an overview of some basic different types of students you are going to run into ("Low Performing Kids", "Unmotivated Kids", "Shy Kids", etc.). Each type has a little profile and little sections like "What They Need from You" and "Why Giving Them your Attention Is Still Worth It". 

Elden recognizes that we all have our bad days and gives advice about how to recover from them. At the end of some chapters she includes a series of quotes from veteran teachers describing an absolute disaster that happened to them. The idea is that is that even though you will struggle and even outright fail, you can succeed and even thrive. She also includes advice about the teacher's lounge and how to present yourself as a professional, how to survive observations, how to talk to parents and more.





Perhaps the most important advice is sprinkled throughout the book - you have to make it work for you as a teacher. Your style, your comfort level, your idiosyncrasies. She gives lots of advice and encourages you to realistically adapt it to you and your situation. 

So, this old dog didn't really learn any tricks with this book but it encouraged me to think of the basics and even to re-consider some of what I do. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers.

Reviewed on August 1, 2014.

NOOSE (short story) by Ernie Lindsey

Published in 2013 as an e-book.

Estimated length - about 14 pages.

Finalist for the 2005 Sherwood Anderson Short Story contest.

Ernie Lindsey's short story Noose is a coming-of-age story set in the American south in September of 1916. It features a 17 year-old named Roy who works as a farm hand for a northerner who moved down south for a simpler life. Roy has a strong love for animals which makes him an excellent farm hand. Besides working on the farm Roy also dates Emily, the boss of his daughter. Roy and Emily are much more intimate than anyone suspects and Roy is quite sure that he and Emily are completely in love. 

The farm community receives word that a circus elephant named Mary is going to be killed for killing one of her handlers during a parade in a nearby town. The elephant will be executed by hanging from a railroad crane. This part of the short story is based on a true story (click here for more information). This hanging does more than kill an elephant - it changes everything for Roy. 

This short story is available on Amazon.com as a kindle e-book here: Noose by Ernie Lindsey.

I rate this short story 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on July 28, 2014. 

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.

THE EXECUTION (Jeremy Fisk #2) by Dick Wolf

No Sophomore Slump Here!

Published in 2014 by William Morrow

This series revolves around Jeremy Fisk, a detective with NYPD's counter-terrorism squad. New York City has an extensive counter-terrorism unit because New York City has been such a frequent target of terrorism. Fisk is fluent in 5 languages, including Arabic and Spanish. He is frequently a contact person between NYPD and the FBI or CIA.

The Execution takes up where the first book in the series, The Intercept, leaves off. (See my review of The Intercept here) Wolf makes a great attempt to catch up the reader but I think that if you have not read The Intercept you will be a little lost.

The main plot of the story involves Mexican drug lords and an incorruptible member of the Mexican federal police, Detective Cecilia Garza. Garza leads a handpicked task force that is trying to stop the drug smugglers while the bodies of innocent bystanders literally pile up in Mexico. The worst of the worst is a drug lord known as The Hummingbird.

The United Nations in New York City. Photo by Neptuul.

While Fisk helps prepare New York City for United Nations Week (dozens of heads of state show up to give speeches, including the President of the United States) he meets Detective Garza as they both investigate a Mexican drug cartel style mass-killing in New York City. Soon enough, they begin to suspect that this may have something to do with a planned meeting between the President of the United States and the President of Mexico and that all of those dead bodies were intended to be a threat of something worse...

Dick Wolf is best known as the producer and creator of the many different TV series in the Law and Order franchise. I have to say he's learned something about pacing while working in television for all those years because this book moves along quickly, but not at a frenzied pace.  

This is an enjoyable thriller and this series is off to a great start. No sophomore slump here!

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through the Amazon Vine program.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Execution (Jeremy Fisk #2) by Dick Wolf.

BOY MERCURY - AN ANTEBELLUM ADVENTURE: EPISODE ONE: THE WELDING (kindle) by David Macinnis Gill

Published in 2014 by Amazon Digital Services

This kindle short story is part of a multi-volume series about Amboy "Boy" Babbage, a young man with an unusual skill with machines. He is an engineering genius. Also, he is able to "weld" human tissue and machine together using mercury tears.

This skill is the crux of the story.

It begins on May 6, 1863 near the Chancellorsville battlefield. In the real world, Stonewall Jackson, the famed Confederate General lost his left arm due to a "friendly fire" episode and was starting to slip away to his eventual death on May 10 due to pneumonia. When he passed, his superior, Robert E. Lee, said, "Jackson has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right". Jackson was sorely missed a mere two months later at the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the major turning points (if not the major turning point) of the war.

Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

In Boy Mercury Amboy Babbage and his father are brought to Stonewall Jackson's bedside and Amboy attaches a prosthetic robotic arm that operates with a complicated set of gears and pulleys and attaches itself directly to Jackson's nerves in the stump of his arm with the aid of Amboy's tears of mercury. Amboy also removes a pulmonary embolism from Jackson.

Amboy is then taken into custody by one of Jackson's aides and his father is sent to Andersonville Prison to be held as hostage to make sure that Amboy uses his skills to create more weapons for the Confederacy. But, Amboy longs for any chance to escape and eventually he comes upon a surprisingly beautiful opportunity...

I liked the mixing of real history with the steampunk elements and the "what if?" element with Jackson not dying at Chancellorsville. The characters were vivid and the sci-fi elements were strong. I assume as the story progresses over several episodes the reader will discover the secret of Amboy's tears.

My problems with the story come from the melding of the "what if?" elements with the actual Civil War facts. The premise is

1) The story declares itself to be "An Antebellum Adventure". Antebellum means before the Civil War and this story takes place during the war. By definition, it is not an antebellum story.

2) The story makes it clear that Jackson needs his mechanical left arm to be a successful general. At location 255 Jackson says, referring to the mechanical arm: "...the abomination has won too many victories on the battlefield. If not for it, we would've known defeat several times..."

Many Civil War officers suffered amputations and came back to lead their troops just as effectively as they did before because they did not need to physically lead their men into battle firing a weapon or swinging a sword like some sort of barbarian king. Many Civil War generals never actually fired a rifle or a pistol at the enemy during the entire war.

A colleague of Jackson's was General John Bell Hood, always known as a very aggressive general. Hood lost the use of an arm and had almost all of one of his legs amputated and this did nothing to change his fighting style - he was aggressive to the end. Robert E. Lee was in frail health most of the war and this did not make him a weak general and did nothing to damper his men's willingness to fight for him. A one-armed Stonewall Jackson would have been just as difficult for Union forces to deal with as one with two arms.

3) If Stonewall Jackson were so much more effective as a general why is the war still going on in 1867 when the real war ended in 1865? A prolonged Civil War would only help the Union and hurt the Confederacy because the Confederacy was short on all of their resources (less soldiers, smaller population, less horses, little manufacturing capacity, the Union blockade made it difficult to import weapons, powder, shoes, or anything else) and the better supplied Union forces would eventually win by simply starving out the Confederacy. This was their original plan, called the Anaconda Plan. Lee was looking for the big, splashy victories to give the Confederacy a political solution that would allow them to win. That was the reason for the Gettysburg campaign in 1863 in the real world - hit the Union in their own backyard, defeat them and start the peace negotiations while the Confederacy could still field an army. 

4) Andersonville Prison was not open in May of 1863 (it opened in February of 1864).  

So, great sci-fi grafted onto some lousy history makes the whole batch pretty weak. 

I rate this e-short story 2 stars out of 5. 
Reviewed on July 7, 2014.