THE AVIATORS: EDDIE RICKENBACKER, JIMMY DOOLITTLE, CHARLES LINDBERGH and the EPIC AGE of FLIGHT (audiobook) by Winston Groom

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2013
Read by Robertson Dean
Duration: 17 hours, 23 minutes
Unabridged

Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, has delivered an impressive triple biography of three of America's aviation pioneers with The Aviators. The book focuses on Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973), auto racer turned World War I flying ace, Jimmy Doolittle (1896-1993), test pilot and the first person to perform a landing using only instruments (this sounds sort of mundane but it meant that planes could take fly in all sorts of weather - not just on clear days), and the world famous Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) - the first man to fly solo over the Atlantic in an airplane and a truly international celebrity.

Charles Lindbergh (right) with a P-38 on an island
in the South Pacific during World War II in 1944.

Each of these men had very different personalities but each shared a passion for being in the air. Charles Lindbergh is by far the most famous of the three, even now when crossing the Atlantic is an everyday occurrence. I found him to be the most enigmatic of the three and him to be the most difficult to identify with. But, Groom tells his story well and I did especially enjoy his tales of serving as a civilian adviser in Pacific in World War II. That was entirely new to me.

Eddie Rickenbacker was the reason that I picked this audiobook in the first place. I am a huge fan of the Indy 500 and I knew three facts about Rickenbacker - he was a World War I ace, he used to own the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and his plane went down in World War II and he floated on a life raft for a very long time until he was rescued. Rickenbacker's story is impressive simply because he ends up at the top of every endeavor he pursued - auto racing, fighter pilot, auto manufacturing, airlines. 

Of the three, Jimmy Doolittle is the one that I identified with the most. His fame was not nearly as great as the the other three, and when true fame finally came it was much later. He seemed to have been a bit more of a "regular guy". But, the story of the Doolittle Raid demonstrates that he was far from a "regular guy" - he thought big and he followed through when he was given the chance to do so. Groom's re-telling of the Doolittle Raid is one of the highlights of the book.

Robertson Dean's reading of this audiobook was excellent. While he did not create voices for people in the reading, he read the book in a lively and interesting manner. 

This is one of the best audiobooks I have listened to this year and may end up being the best book I have read all year. 

I heartily recommend this book - 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight

THE LITIGATORS: A NOVEL (audiobook) by John Grisham

Published in 2011 by Random House Audio
Read by Dennis Boutsikaris
Duration: 11 hours, 33 minutes

John Grisham returns to familiar ground in this novel - the world of mass tort litigation, a topic covered thoroughly in The King of Torts in 2003. Despite the similar legal theme, The Litigators is a much different novel and, I think, the better of the two.

The book focuses on a tiny law firm with just two partners and a self-trained legal secretary with attitude. The firm calls itself a "boutique" firm, implying that they do specialty work and stay small out of choice. In reality, if they have a specialty it is car crashes, slip-and-fall cases and divorces. They are barely making it and sometimes they are literally ambulance chasers. They cruise funeral homes looking for wrongful death cases.

Into this sad firm comes another lawyer. He's drunk, he's obnoxious and he's read the name of the firm on an ad looking for work. He's a Harvard-educated attorney who has just left a top-flight law firm because he cannot stand another 80 hour week of working international corporate tax loopholes for unseen corporate clients. So, he joins the boutique law firm and they all stumble along together.

Until, one of them happens upon an article about a heart medication that may be defective and he decides to venture blindly into the world of mass tort litigation. Can a hack street lawyer take on corporate America?

So, the book looks like it is going to be a lovable loser David vs. Goliath story but it is much more complicated than that. This little law firm is not lovable but it is certainly a loser. The bad guys aren't completely bad and there are multiple cases to follow. But, it is a great story. I enjoyed it, I feel like I learned a lot.

This audiobook was read by Dennis Boutsikaris who, I think, caught the mood of the book perfectly - part farce, part tragedy and part hero-story.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Litigators

THE PROTECTOR (audiobook) by David Morrell

Audiobook published in 2003 by Skyboat Productions.

Read by Stefan Rudnicki.

Duration: 11 hours, 7 minutes.

Unabridged.

David Morrell excels at the thriller but he really excels at a subset of the thriller - what I call a "chase novel." His first novel, First Blood, was this type of book. The protagonist is being chased by someone or a group of people and the reader gets taking along for the ride.

The Protector is like that as well. A research scientist named Prescott hires a private security team to guard his life from drug dealers and perhaps a compromised government agency. Either way, Cavanaugh is sent to meet the client and assess his needs. In the middle of that meeting highly trained men storm the building and Cavanaugh and Prescott barely escape.

But, once Cavanaugh and Prescott can take a breather, Cavanaugh realizes that Prescott may be a lot more than he imagined and Cavanaugh may have to protect himself from his own client...

This was an enjoyable, if not truly great audiobook. Stefan Rudnicki is true legend in the world of audiobooks and deservedly so. His rich voice adds a lot to the story, matching well with the main character and his way of life. On top of that, the Cavanaugh character is not some mindless thug - he thinks about the big issues of life as well and Rudnicki covers that aspect just as well.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: The Protector.

A CHAIN of THUNDER: A NOVEL of the SIEGE of VICKSBURG (audiobook) by Jeff Shaara

Published by Random House Audio in 2013
Narrated by Paul Michael
Duration: 22 hours, 5 minutes

Unabridged.

Just to establish where I am coming from - I am a huge Civil War buff. I have over 100 books on my shelf. Although I live in Indiana, I have managed to make it to three Civil War battlefields in the last two years (Murfreesboro, Fort Donelson and Chickamauga) and I just bought my father the original Shaara Civil War trilogy (the one based around The Killer Angels ) for Christmas. I own Shaara's World War I and World War II series as well as his original Civil War series and his Mexican War book.

I am a fan.

Confederate Lt. General
John C. Pemberton
(1814-1881)

But, I am not a fan of A Chain of Thunder.

I have no problem with the authenticity of the book and there are parts that are amazing, intense and just about perfect.

But, the first half of this book feels like it is trying to be "The Great American Novel" and failing at the attempt. There is so much repetitious introspection on the part of General Pemberton (the Confederate commander at Vicksburg) and Bauer, a Union front line soldier who is brought into a new unit against army protocol in an effort to promote some continuity in the series, that I just wanted to yell at the narrator to get on with the story. There is a shockingly ham-fisted attempt to address the evils of slavery, a lot of description of marching (in rain, in mist, in heat and than we get descriptions of sitting in rain, heat and mist and then sleeping in rain, heat and mist) and a seemingly never-ending discussion about the proper duties of a Civil War general. 

Mostly, though, I was disappointed that this book just did not have the pop and sizzle of A Blaze of Glory , the first book in this series.

But, at about the halfway point (8 or 9 hours into this book - I continued listening only because I am a fan and I refused to believe that it would stay this bad throughout the whole book), the story finally gets into stride and tells the awful story of the siege of Vicksburg and tells it well. The awful details of a field hospital, the strange one-on-one fight of sniper vs. sniper in the middle of a battle of tens of thousands, the secret world of spies, the power of secure supply lines, and the danger of rivalry and politics among the generals. The conversations between Sherman and Grant feel so right that I cannot imagine that they would go any other way than how they are described in the book.

Audiobook narrator Paul Michael was good. Of course, he can only do so much with bad text and he made the better parts a joy to listen to. 

So, I give it 3 stars as an average score - 1 star for the first part, 5 stars for the last part.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: 
A Chain of Thunder: A Novel of the Siege of Vicksburg (the Civil War in the West)

THE JEFFERSON RULE: WHY WE THINK the FOUNDING FATHERS HAVE ALL the ANSWERS (audiobook) by David Sehat

Published by Tantor Audio in May of 2015
Read by Tom Perkins
Duration: 8 hours, 16 minutes

If you are a person that likes to debate on the internet than you have undoubtedly experienced Godwin's Law. Godwin's Law states that if you debate long enough on the internet, someone will inevitably make a comparison to Nazism, Hitler, the Holocaust ("You don't like Donald Trump's hair? What are you? The hairdo Nazi?!?"). 

A similar rule exists when discussing American politics - eventually someone will refer back to the Founding Fathers. It is especially easy to quote Thomas Jefferson - he was so prolific and well-written that it is easy to break out a quote to support your point of view. In the case of Jefferson, it is often too easy because he was extremely inconsistent in his political views. To start easy, he did write "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And, he also owned a whole lot of people and certainly did not allow them liberty or the pursuit of happiness. He was also advocated strictly following the letter of the Constitution...until it suited him not to when he became President, like with the Louisiana Purchase.

So, Jefferson is quoted all of the time because, likely as not, he has written or uttered a very lofty-sounding quote that supports your point of view, no matter what it is. In short, the man was so inconsistent that he was, at one point or another, on your side and and at a different point he was also against it.

Sehat uses this as a jumping off point in The Jefferson Rule to look at two general phenomena. The first is the traditional big activist government vs. small strict constructionist government argument. In the Washington Administration this was personified with Alexander/Washington on one side and Jefferson on the other.

But, the argument continues throughout American history and Sehat looks at some of the high points in his study, including the debate on slavery, the two crises with secession, The New Deal, the Civil Rights movement, The Reagan Revolution, The War on Terror, Obamacare and the Tea Party movement. 

In his second point, he notes that politicians have always referred back to the Founders and referred to them as if they were a united front, despite the ugly split in the Washington Administration itself. Also, the image of the Founders is changed as needed by current politicians.

I found the whole book to be fascinating and a well-told tour of American history. There were times when I thought Sehat was surprisingly harsh on the liberal side of things than I found him to be equally harsh on the conservative side. To be fair, I think Sehat is harsh on politicians in general and finds them all, no matter their political stripe, guilty of the same sin when it comes to referring to the Founding Fathers.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here: 
The Jefferson Rule: Why We Think the Founding Fathers Have All the Answers

GREAT GAMBLES of the CIVIL WAR by Philip Katcher

Disappointing Collection

Originally Published in 1996.
Re-Issue Published by Castle Books in 2003.

Great Gambles of the Civil War focuses on those moments when a general took a risk to give himself an advantage.  One could argue that all of war is a risk, including every battle and every maneuver but Author Philip Katcher has limited his book to just thirteen events. Some are battles, some are campaigns but all demonstrate risk. Philip Katcher has written numerous books on the Civil War so this has all the hallmarks of being a great book.

While there is no doubt that Katcher knows his stuff, most of these thirteen stories are just not interesting, or at least not told in an interesting manner. It's not that the stories aren't fact-filled, it's just that some are paced so poorly ("Mulligan Defends Lexington" comes to mind - it just drug on and on and almost made me quit the book entirely) that the story itself is lost in the telling. I think Shelby Foote demonstrated in his own histories of the Civil War that the stories crackle and shine if told well.

The CSS Arkansas. Drawing by R.G. Skerrett

It's not that there are no good stories in the collection. I especially enjoyed "Brown Takes the CSS Arkansas to Vicksburg" - it was paced well and had the feel of a grand adventure.  Sadly, too many of these stories felt like a tedious lecture rather than tales of "great gambles."

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here: Great Gambles of the Civil War

THE HEIST (Fox and O'Hare #1)

Takes Too Long to Get Started

Published in 2013 by Bantam

Janet Evanovich, the famed author of the fun and sexy Stephanie Plum series, and Lee Goldberg, successful author and screenwriter of the fun and quirky television series Monk (and too many other shows to list here) team up in a new series. 

The premise of The Heist is fairly simple. A super-slick con-man, Nicolas Fox, creates elaborate ruses involving teams of like-minded criminals are successful over and over again in stealing prestigious pieces of art and the like. They are being pursued by a beautiful FBI agent, Kate O'Hare, has literally dedicated her life to the capture of Fox.

Once Fox is captured he quickly escapes and Fox uses her personal time (saved up over the years of dedicated pursuit) to track him down. She discovers that Fox has cut a deal with the government and is going to use his talents to help the government take down bigger and badder bad guys than himself in order to stay out of prison. All of this work will be done without government approval. If he is caught, he will do time for his previous crimes. And, his number one pursuer, Kate O'Hare is to be his minder and partner-in-crime, so to speak. If she is caught with him she will also be on the hook for criminal conspiracy.

Kate is reluctant but she soon sees that this is a chance to effect some real justice on those who are simply too rich and too connected for the normal rules. Plus, she is strangely attracted to Nicolas Fox...

Photo by Niels Noordhoek

This is a simple twist on a familiar story and it shows potential. But, this book just takes forever to take off. Too much of the book is spent introducing the reader to all of the characters that you will meet throughout the book series and the situation that Fox and O'Hare find themselves in. I blame this on Goldberg's experience in TV - it just felt like a slow-moving pilot episode. You meet all of the characters, you get a quick taste of what a regular show will be like and then you see if you can get them back to the the second episode. But, the pilot is never really like the rest of the series. It wanders around establishing characters and trying to set the tone for the series. 

So, what happens once the story gets going in The Heist? Fox and O'Hare build a team to help in their cons, but they cannot be criminals. So, Fox digs up a team of amateurs with specialized skills and they go after a corrupt investment banker so vile that he even ripped off his own parents before he headed off to a tropical island where he cannot be extradited. 

Because of the poor pacing of this book I have to give it a score of 3 stars out of 5. The Stephanie Plum series rocketed off in the first few pages. This book just kept trying to establish one new character after another and when it finally got going it was just not worth the long wait.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Heist: A Novel (Fox and O'Hare)