RECKLESS (Ty Hauck #3) by Andrew Gross

Slow Going At First.

Published in 2010.

Reckless is all about how quickly the world's stock markets can be played by a few bad actors who don't particularly care about making money so much as they care about wreaking havoc, bit this book takes a very long time to get started.

Hauck is in the suburbs of New York City. He is working for a corporation as a security consultant, meaning he investigates people the company may work with and gets involved with internet breaches and the like. Hauck's company is investigating an big-time investor with a hidden past. But, Hauck has a personal connection to the murders of a Wall Street broker and his family and soon finds a connection to a third murder that ties in all three investigations. But, is his company interested in what he finds? Is anyone?

The book is set in the midst of the Wall Street collapse in 2008 that kicked off the Great Recession. Gross does a great job of folding in his fictional companies with the big names that were at the heart of the mess. He also demonstrates one of the ways our economy is vulnerable to foreign manipulation, an idea laid out very clearly in Kevin Freeman's non-fiction book Secret Weapon.

Unfortunately, this book takes a solid 150 pages to really get moving. Once it gets going it is quite the rocket ship, but those first pages are a bit of a slog.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Reckless.

PIRATE LATITUDES by Michael Crichton

Published in 2009.

The year is 1665 in Pirate Latitudes and the English colony of Jamaica is surrounded by a constellation of Spanish colonies. The Caribbean is in a near-perpetual state of war as English privateers attack Spanish treasure galleons hauling literally tons of New World silver and gold to Spain.

Charles Hunter is the captain of an English privateer ship named Cassandra (or, he is simply a pirate when Spain and England are not at war). He has learned that Spain has a fortress on a remote island called Matanceros to protect ships that attempt, but fail to make the trip to Spain. They cannot return to their port of origin alone. In fact, the less time they are alone and exposed to privateers, the better. So, Spain has built an impregnable fortress to protect such ships. 

Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

At least it is supposed to be impregnable. Hunter is very sure that he has figured out a way that the perfect team can infiltrate the fort and then take the ship that it is supposed to protect. And, he has just learned that a ship full of treasure has taken refuge in the bay at Matanceros - just waiting for him to come and take it....

After Michael Crichton passed away in 2008 this completed and previously unknown book was found on his computer. This novel is a complete story but it is just feels like it was just not done. Parts of it hum along and feel like a Crichton story. There is intensity, science, and mystery. For example, the hurricane scene and the cannon scene and the abandoned island. Those scenes are all together and they feel like they have been worked over with a lot of care. Other scenes, such as the last few chapters, feel like a first or second draft. This makes for an uneven read, which really can't be helped. Crichton fans will want to read the book but they will wonder how truly great this short novel could have been if he had only had the time to really finish it.

I rate this novel 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Pirate Latitudes.

JIM BECKWOURTH: NEGRO MOUNTAIN MAN by Harold W. Felton

Originally printed in 1966

As you can tell by the title, Jim Beckwourth: Negro Mountain Man has a hopelessly out-of-date title. When it was written in 1966, the term "negro" was still considered to be acceptable, of course.

Jim Beckwourth (1798-1866) was born in Virginia and moved out to the frontier, roughly in the St. Louis area, before he moved out on his own. He apprenticed as a blacksmith but didn't really pursue that career. Instead, he set off as part of larger expeditions and quickly earned a reputation for being tough, fair and honest. And, perhaps most important, he was considered to be dependable in an environment where almost nothing was dependable.

Beckwourth's skin color did not seem to hurt him any as he trapped beaver, scouted for military expeditions and explored the American West. He even served in the Second Seminole War in Florida. It seems that real talent was valued a lot more than a man's race.

But, the bulk of this book deals with Beckwourth's time with the Crow Indians. He claimed that he became a chief and told many tales of his adventures among the Crow. 

Jim Beckwourth

Felton goes out of his way to be fair to Beckwourth in a time when the idea of racial equality and African-American heroes could be controversial. This makes Felton's running commentary on Native Americans all the more jarring. He calls them "redskins" (p. 36), "squaws" (p. 43), "thieving and murderous Indians" (p.55) and more. Once again, this book is a product of its time and cannot be judged by modern standards of acceptable speech, but it was jarring. Be prepared if you read the book.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Jim Beckwourth: Negro Mountain Man.

 I rate this book 4 stars out of 5 while issuing no judgment on the racial commentary for reasons listed above.

THE BONE FEUD (audiobook) by Wynne McLaughlin

Published by Wynne E. McLaughlin

Read by Charles Hinckley
Duration: 4 hours, 15 minutes
Unabridged

A lot of people don't know that the end of the classic Cowboy era was the beginning of a dinosaur rush. Paleontologists went out West and found all sorts of skeletons and shipped them back East to be installed in museums. Reputations were made based on who could find the biggest and most exotic fossils.

Edward Cope with a fossil

Two scientists, Edward Cope and O.C. Marsh tried their best to outdo one another as their teams explore the American West. Sometimes they just compete, sometimes they actually try to hurt the other guy's operations. 

The book is told from the point of view of an old Western guide/stagecoach robber who joined with one of the scientists and helped him navigate the landscape and local politics and is now telling the story to a reporter.

This story was adapted from a movie script. It listens like a "movie of the week"-type fun western. Nothing too serious, but you learn a little something along the way. Charles Hinckley does a good job with a multitude of voices and accents and he keeps the story moving in a lively manner.

I rate this audiobook 4 out of 5 stars.

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

WHAT the DOG SAW and OTHER ADVENTURES (audiobook) by Malcolm Gladwell

Published by Hachette Audio in 2009
Read by the author, Malcolm Gladwell
Duration: 12 hours, 49 minutes
Unabridged

This fascinating audiobook is actually a collection of articles that Malcolm Gladwell has written over the years. Each story in What the Dog Saw is about 30-45 minutes long and cover a great variety of subjects. Topics include ketchup, mammograms, FBI profilers, pit bulls, menstrual cycles, Ron Popeil (founder of Ronco), the dog whisperer, plagiarism, the Challenger Explosion/risk, home hair coloring products and the opportunities that those products offered for female executives, first impressions/job interviews, homelessness and how to solve it (really!), The Pill, Enron and the importance of having a great teacher in every classroom.

I am a teacher and I was of course interested in his discussion about teachers. What was best was his emphasis on the day-to-day interaction between students and teachers and how one can observe quality education in action. What was worst was the insistence that a standardized test can really identify good teaching. There are so many variables that go into a one time standardized test such as overall climate of the school, the day-to-day mood and health of the students and the teacher, the students' personal lives (at home and at school) that I would compare it to a giant stew rather - and it is hard to figure out what makes a great stew great. Is it the meat, the potatoes, the broth, the temperature it was cooked at, the way the ingredients were cut, and so on.

The article about one of the creators of The Pill was tedious at best. Unfortunately, it comes fairly early and I decided while I was listening to it that if there was another one like this one I was going to bail on the whole audiobook.

Malcolm Gladwell.
Photo by PEN American Center

Thank goodness I didn't. The rest of the book is really very interesting and provided some good discussion fodder between my daughter and I as we carpooled to school in the morning.

The Enron article was mind-blowing for me. It was a massive scandal when Enron collapsed but the fact that they were doing was literally posted on their website and the IRS had figured it out beforehand (they did nothing because it wasn't illegal, just really, really stupid) makes me wonder about the people who rate stocks and investments. 

The article on homelessness hit the listener in the gut in multiple ways. By not dealing with it, we are making it much, much, much more expensive and gumming up the works in other areas, like emergency rooms. But, by dealing with it do we break faith with people who are doing things "the right way" but not having much success.

The book was read by the author. He has a lot of experience being interviewed and participating in panel discussions on TV and radio so it wasn't like he was a complete rookie in front of the microphone. There are times when he has a peculiar way of saying a word but I think it really was an overwhelmingly positive experience having him read the book. His slightly quirky reading style matched his offbeat topics and writing style making the whole experience feel like Gladwell was riding in the backseat of the car telling you all about some topic that he thought was interesting and was sure that you would to. 

And, he was almost always right.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: What the Dog Saw.

KINGDOM COME by Mark Waid (author) and Alex Ross (illustrator)

Published in 2008.
Originally published in 1996.

This edition collects the original four volumes of this limited series into one complete volume.

If you liked the feel of the recent Batman v Superman movie, you will likely enjoy this graphic novel. If not, you are probably better off skipping this introspective spectacle.

We start Kingdom Come with a world out of control. A new generation of Meta-humans abound. They have the skills of the old Justice League but none of their standards. The good ones still fight with the bad ones but they do it with little regard to the regular people who live all around them. Cars explode, buildings crumble and people get hurt. In a single fight Kansas was obliterated in a massive explosion caused by the death of a nuclear-powered Meta-human.

Where is old Justice League? It has disbanded since Superman retreated from the world and is living on a pretend hologram Kansas farm inside of his Fortress of Solitude. He is sick of watching his regular friends age and die. He is sick of "The Never Ending Battle" - the non-stop parade of criminals and human depravity. But, even a depressed Superman can't just let his second home (Kansas) be nuked without any sort of response.

Superman's new "coming out
of retirement" logo.

So, Superman comes back with his old friends to restore order, reign in the new heroes and fight the new enemies. But, things aren't as simple as all of that. Some don't want to submit. Some have to be rounded up and jailed in a special prison to be rehabilitated.

There are questions everywhere.

Will Superman become the world's dictator in order to save the world from itself?

Why is Wonder Woman so fired up to fight everyone?

Why is Batman working with Lex Luthor? 

Speaking of Lex, his comments about the need for regular humans to reclaim the planet from the Meta-humans aren't so crazy when you consider the devastation caused by the Meta-humans. And, of course, Lex has a plan.

Brooding and filled with too many characters - but also brilliantly conceived, I especially like the way that the story is told through a neutral third party human.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Kingdom Come. 

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5.

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: OFFICIAL NATIONAL PARK HANDBOOK

Published by the National Park Service in 1996

The format of this small book  (88 pages) is much like a small old-style National Geographic with three wide-ranging informative essays by Larry Gara, Brenda E. Stevenson and C. Peter Ripley. The pictures are excellent in that they are reproduced wonderfully and well-shot.

Most importantly, these three essays are an excellent introduction to the topics of slavery, the slave trade (not just to the United States but also to the Caribbean and Brazil) and the contradictions of some of the Founding Fathers fighting for their personal freedom while owning other people.

But, the heart of the book is the fight against slavery - both political and practical. After all, it is one thing to say you are against slavery and it quite another to help a runaway slave that comes to your door and help her move on to another safe place.

A notice from 1851.

The book documents the different strains of Abolitionism (Do you help fund the fight in Kansas? Do you lobby Congress? Do you advocate for secession from the slave states?) and the Southern responses to them as well as telling a good number of individual stories of escaping slaves.

Really, the only complaint that I have is the book's treatment of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. It assumes that the reader is familiar with the law and how radical of a change it was in federal policy towards runaway slaves. On the whole, it is a great introduction to the topic of slavery in the United States and the struggle against it. 

I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Underground Railroad.