RED, GREEN, or MURDER (Posadas County #7) (Posadas County Mysteries Book 10) by Steven F. Havill

I just love Bill Gastner

Published in 2009 by Poison Pen Press

This series actually extends over the careers of two law officers who hold a position called Undersheriff in the fictional Posadas County, New Mexico. An undersheriff is the person right below the elected position of Sheriff and is appointed by the Sheriff. Generally, the Undersheriff would be the expert in the law that is there to advise the elected Sheriff. The first half of the series covers Undersheriff Bill Gastner, an experienced law officer. Bill would laugh at that at just say that he is old. Bill is sort of grumpy, a little creeky in the knees, moves slowly but makes up for it with a lot of experience and really knowing the people of Posadas County, New Mexico.  He is especially good at thinking while eating very spicy burritos at all hours of the day or night.

The second half of the series covers the career of Undersheriff Estelle Guzman. She is quite talented and, for me, simply not as interesting as Bill. She is admirable and I would hire her to be my Undersheriff because she really knows what she is doing but...she is really boring.

Unfortunately, Red, Green, or Murder is Bill Gastner's last hurrah as a main character. In this story Bill is no longer the Undersheriff. Instead, he is a state livestock inspector. But, he still gets caught up in the events of the book. In it, everything that makes you love Bill is on display - his knowledge and connections, his bravery and his late night ruminating. His beloved burritos are even part of a mystery.

There are actually two mysteries in this story. One involves the mysterious death of an old friend of Bill. They shared a love of spicy burritos and Bill's elderly friend was too frail to go out to the restaurant for lunch. But, the restaurant was glad to deliver burritos to a couple of long-time customers.

Bill had to cancel due to an incident while he was attending to his duties as livestock inspector. Sadly, his friend died while eating that meal. But, there are strange signs that lead Bill and Undersheriff Estelle Guzman to suspect that this was no accident.

Meanwhile, while Bill is helping with the family of his friend, the cattle that he just inspected are all over the highway and no one can find the young ranch hand that delivered them or the truck and trailer. Did he run off or was he carjacked? And, is there a connection between Bill's deceased friend and the rancher with the missing truck and trailer?

Neither of these mysteries is earth-shaking but I loved this story because I just love Bill Gastner. 

The book can be found on Amazon here: 
Red, Green, or Murder

I rate this novel 5 stars out of 5.

TO KILL a MOCKINGBIRD (audiobook) by Harper Lee

Published by Harper Audio in 2008
Originally published in 1960
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
Voted "Best Novel of the Century" in a Library Journal poll
Read by Sissy Spacek
Duration: 12 hours, 17 minutes

I almost feel silly writing a review for a book that is nearly universally regarded as one of the best, if not THE best, novels written in the last century. This book is read in schools across the country, was adapted into an amazingly successful movie that is as highly regarded as the book. This book is not just respected - it is loved.

I also hate to admit that it had been nearly 25 years since I had read To Kill a Mockingbird. Although I remembered that I loved the book, I had really forgotten why.

So, when I was offered the chance to review this audio version by the publisher for free I jumped it at. It had been such a long time that I needed to remind myself why it was so great. 

I am not going to waste everyone's time by re-telling the story in detail. Harper Lee creates a wonderfully rich world set in a small town in Alabama during the Great Depression. The story is told from the point of view of young "Scout" Finch. Scout starts as a first grader but the story progresses through several years. She lives with her brother Jem and her father Atticus, an attorney. Her daily life at home is maintained by the African American housekeeper Calpurnia who treats Jem and Scout like they are her own children. Later, her aunt moves in to provide a more permanent feminine role model in the house.

In the first part of the book, Scout's world comes to life as Harper Lee takes the time to lay out her world for us. In the second part of the book, this world is interrupted by an outrageous court case in which Atticus is appointed to defend a black man wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. The third part of the book deals with the consequences of that case. 

Harper Lee (born in 1926)  in c. 1962. 

But, the book is so much more than that. I grew up in a small town in Indiana and her descriptions of the rhythms of childhood play in the summer felt so true to me that the characters become so real that I felt like I actually knew them in my own childhood. 

Sissy Spacek's reading of this book is as timeless as the book itself. The decision not to have her actually change voices as she reads the story was a brilliant stroke. Most audiobook readers change voices and make separate voices for each of the characters even if it is told from the point of view of just one of the characters. Spacek keeps the entire story in the voice of Scout because the entire story is told from her point of view. It is her story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook. I found myself listening to it whenever I could. I happily rate it 5 stars out of 5.

See my review of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman here.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: To Kill a Mockingbird.

This book was on a list of books to be investigated in Oklahoma by conservative parents. Here is a link to an article.

This book is also on lists of books that Progressives want to ban. Here is a link to a list maintained by a university that tracks book bans. In this case, it is for inclusion of the n-word.

OLD NATHAN by David Drake

Originally published in 1991 by Baen Books

David Drake, a science fiction author who usually specializes in tales of high-tech fighting told from the grunt's point of view changes pace with Old Nathan, a tale of backwoods folk magic. 

Set in the the 1830s in rural Tennessee, this book features Old Nathan, often called the "cunning man". Old Nathan suffered a life-changing injury during the battle of Kings Mountain in the Revolutionary War. As he recovered, he discovered that he had been gifted with some magical powers, including the ability to talk with animals. 

Fifty years later, he is living in Tennessee and serves as the local area's potion-maker and a resolver of problems of last resort. He also can cast some spells. He does not understand the powers, but he understands that the spells he cast do not always resolve the problems the way that his clients hope.

Photo by DWD

The book consists of five interrelated short stories. The best story by far is the last one but you really cannot understand it without reading the other four and they are pretty boring. The stories are long on descriptions of Old Nathan traveling by donkey and dire warnings about using magic but I just never really bought into the characters. Nathan was intentionally stand-offish and mysterious and difficult to relate to. The locals all around him were rubes or just difficult to like or even be interested in.

This book can be found here on Amazon.com: Old Nathan.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

THE LOST KINGDOM (audiobook) by Matthew J. Kirby

Published by Scholastic Audio in 2013.

Read by Charlie McWade

Duration: 8 hours, 41 minutes

The Lost Kingdom is an alternate history set in a world in which mastodons still roam North America in great herds and are hunted by giant predators called bearwolves. The story is set just before the French and Indian War and the situation is easily recognizable for anyone familiar with that time period. The English colonies arranged along the Eastern Seaboard but the interior is largely controlled by the French and their numerous Indian allies through a vast trading network. As the English move farther inland they encounter more and more resistance and everyone knows that it will lead to open warfare, probably sooner rather than later.

In a bold move to secure a new set of allies in the interior, the American Philosophical Society, a group of intellectuals led by Benjamin Franklin, have decided to send an expedition in search of a fabled Welsh kingdom built around the legendary tale of Madoc, the Welsh prince who is supposed to have landed in the America's centuries before Columbus. This really is a legend in our world, so I found that to be quite interesting.

The intellectuals are joined by the son of their botanist, a young teen named Billy Bartram. They are not traveling by boat or by foot but in a sort of steampunk airship powered by balloons of some kind. The ship is an actual ship and it flies much like a blimp. They fly out to the new fort at what will be Pittsburgh in the distant future (barely escaping French spies as they leave Philadelphia). A sneak attack by French Marines and an encounter with a bearwolf throw the entire expedition off track. Throw in the suspicion that there is a spy in their midst and things have really gone wrong for Billy and this crew of geniuses...

****Spoiler alert****

So, here's the thing for me and this book. I do not mind the steampunk ship or the mastodons or even the legend of the Welsh. I think those made the book fun. But, I have a problem when the book violates its own internal rules and here are three gigantic errors that just don't make sense.

1) The expedition sets off without a single weapon in a time period when people of the frontier did not step out of the house to feed their chickens without a gun at hand. They did this out of fear of Indians and also fear of animal attack. To borrow from another story, imagine if in The Hobbit the expedition set out without a single sword because they knew that swords would be useless against the dragon. Well, that would be silly considering how often they had to fight everything else along the way. In a similar way, the lack of weapons means they cannot defend themselves from animals. Also, they cannot hunt to supplement their food which is a massive mistake in and of itself. This mistake compounds itself

2) The expedition has no weapons because they claim they are a science expedition, not a military one. But, in reality, they are out to find out if the legend of the Welsh is true and make a military alliance with them. That makes them a military expedition.

3) The expedition is attacked by a bearwolf just outside of Pittsburgh. The bearwolf chases the very fast-moving ship on land, somehow tracking it over mountains, across rivers and streams through the little sliver of what is now West Virginia, all along the bottom of Ohio, Indiana, across the Wabash river into Illinois and even across the Mississippi River in some crazed single-minded pursuit of this group so it can attack them for reasons that are never stated. But, really, what animal chases a group of people for hundreds and hundreds of miles?

****End spoilers****

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. I couldn't get past the internal contradictions. It can be found on Amazon here: The Lost Kingdom.

WOOF (Bowser and Birdie #1)

Published by Scholastic Press in April of 2015

Spencer Quinn is best known for his dog and owner Chet and Bernie detective series. Now, he takes this winning formula in a new direction. Rather than have a police dog (almost) and an army veteran turned detective solve murders, Quinn has re-tooled things for a different series. But, he keeps the most important part the same - the story is told from the point of view of the dog!

In Woof, the first book in the Bowser and Birdie series, Birdie Gaux, a little girl living with her grandmother alongside a swamp in St. Roch, Louisiana. Her grandmother runs what some might call a bait shop and conducts swamp tours in her small boat. Birdie's mother works on an oil rig and talks with Birdie on Skype.

Birdie gets a shelter dog for her birthday and she chooses Bowser. Bowser has had a pretty rough go of it and he hates the shelter. But, boy, does he love Birdie. They make quite the pair as they try to figure out who stole the stuffed Black Marlin that has hung in the bait shop for more than 60 years. There are stories of hidden treasure maps hidden in that marlin and no one wants to hear to the clues that Bowser and Birdie have found. So, Birdie decides to investigate on her own. Of course, Bowser just has to go along...

I was interested to see how Quinn could adapt his Chet and Bernie style into a book for kids. It turns out that he does it fantastically. The book moves along well. Bowser is a good narrator, even if he is easily distracted. The mystery is fairly simple but it could not have been solved without Bowser's help. 

The book can be found on Amazon here: Woof (Bowser and Birdie) 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

Note: I received a uncorrected proof pre-release copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

SHADOW WARRIOR: WILLIAM EGAN COLBY and the CIA (audiobook) by Randall B. Woods

I have rarely been so glad to have been done with an audiobook as I was with this one.

Published in 2013 by Post Hypnotic Press
Narrated by Michael Puttonen
Duration: 21 hours, 56 minutes.

Unabridged.

William Egan Colby was present at the beginnings of the CIA and served as an inserted commando with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in both France and Norway during World War II, pioneering the kind of action he advocated for during his years in the CIA.

The beginning of Shadow Warrior is excellent as it details Colby's life and his World War II exploits. But, as it transitions from World War II to the early years of the Cold War to the Vietnam War the book becomes bogged down, especially in the endless detail about the politics of South Vietnam. Clearly, the Vietnam War was a pivot point for America and for Colby so it should be stressed. However, hours and hours of details about the governing elite of the doomed country were simply tedious.

Colby moves back to America and into the halls of power in the CIA just as the Watergate Crisis is starting to break. America's faith in government was at a low point and people were starting to ask if the CIA should be restrained. Colby had worked his way up to be the Director of the CIA. Colby was as honest as he could be and still keep the CIA open and running as an effective intelligence and counter-intelligence unit. But, once again, the forward momentum of the book is swamped with details. 

Look, I am a high school history teacher. I love history. But, I have rarely been so glad to have done with an audiobook as I was with this one.  

William Colby
(1920-1996)

Making it worse, the reader, Michael Puttonnen insisted on reading quotes from different politicians of the 1960s and 1970s with in an impersonated voice. His LBJ was subtle, but his Nixon and Kissinger voices were not very good and I found them to be distracting.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. I cannot rate it 1 star because I did learn a few things along the way.

Note: I was sent a free copy of the mp3 CD audiobook by the publisher in exchange for a fair review.

It can be found on Amazon.com here: Shadow Warrior: William Egan Colby and the CIA.

A THOUSAND MILES to FREEDOM: MY ESCAPE from NORTH KOREA by Eunsun Kim with Sebastien Falleti. Translated by David Tian

A Remarkable Tale

To be published in the United States on July 21, 2015. 
I received an "Advance Reading Copy" 

Eunsun Kim's tale of her escape from North Korea, along with her mother and her older sister is remarkably easy to read, remarkable engrossing and just a remarkable tale in general.

When Eunsun Kim was 11 years old her mother determined that they could no longer live in North Korea. Eunsun's grandparents were dead, her father was dead, almost everything in the house was sold for money to buy food but there was almost no food to be had because North Korea was in the middle of its Great Famine (1994-1998). Depending on whose statistics you use, the estimates range anywhere from 250,000 to 3,500,000 people starved to death or died from starvation-related causes. Of course, it is hard to say for sure because North Korea is such a closed off society.

Eunsun Kim and her family lived in the northernmost part of North Korea and they decided to cross the Tumen River into China and live as illegal aliens. They would have no promise of safety, no guarantee of work and risked being shot by the border guards on both sides of the border. But, at least they would have chance to eat.

She details several botched attempts at escape and I was pleased to see that at least one border guard was a decent human being. He could see they were starving and desperate and he took pity on them and let them go with a warning - twice! But, he couldn't feed them because there was no food to be had so this small family eventually makes it to China. The family tries to stay together but when Eunsun Kim's mother is sold into sexual slavery (she calls it an unofficial marriage, but the entire purpose of the marriage was to produce a son for her "husband" and no one recognized the marriage as legitimate) the family splits up. The daughters have a better time of it, but it is not easy.

As you can tell by the title, eventually Eunsun Kim makes it to freedom. Their last push to make it to South Korea is tension-filled and her story of how she adjusts to life in South Korea is interesting in and of itself. Now, she lives in South Korea and has lived and travelled all over the world studying (making up for lost years when she had to work to collect wood rather than go to school so they could get food) and promoting her book.

Ironically, A Thousand Miles to Freedom is late to be translated into English (it was published in French in 2012). I say ironically because the United States has had so much involvement with North and South Korea over the last 60+ years. This translation is very good (I teach Spanish and I know how hard it can be to make foreign text sound smooth in a different language). The text flows easily and makes it sound like Eunsun Kim is sitting with you telling her story in everyday, conversational language over a cup of tea.

Last two lines of the book: "The Kim dynasty has so successfully isolated my country that it would be easy for the rest of the world to forget about us. If my memoir can even play a small part in raising global awareness about our suffering and about the tragedies taking place at the hands of this regime, then all that I have endured will not have been in vain."

It can be purchased at Amazon here:  A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.