MAKE ME (Jack Reacher #20) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Published in 2015 by Random House Audio.
Read by Dick Hill.
Duration: 14 hours, 3 minutes.
Unabridged.

Make Me is the 20th novel-length entry in the Jack Reacher series. But, readers of the series know that the books are not written in any particular order and there are a lot of short stories and novellas in the series as well. If you are trying to read everything in chronological order (from Reacher's point of view), this is entry number 37.

In the middle of the night, Jack Reacher gets off of a train bound for Chicago in an small town in Oklahoma named Mother's Rest. Yes, Mother's Rest. And, no, no one seems to know why it is named that.

He is immediately met by a former FBI agent turned private detective named Michelle Chang. She had initially confused him for an associate of hers that has gone missing in Mother's Rest. Reacher is intrigued by the situation (and the fact that no one in town seems to have any idea where the name came from) and starts to poke around a bit on his own. The reaction he gets convinces him that there is definitely something going on in this little town and it gets deeper and more dangerous than anyone had anticipated...

There are some things that are quite good about this book. For the first time, Jack Reacher actually has to admit to the reality that he is aging. There is a real detective story here and it is quite interesting. And, there is a look into the dark corners of the internet, which is also interesting. But, there are times when the story seems to be "paint by numbers", especially in the mandatory big fight scene. What would have been a 45 second fight is slowed down and over-analyzed to the point that it gets boring. It goes on and on and on. Also, the ending (no spoilers) was both stomach-turning and unsatisfying.

The audiobook was read by Dick Hill who was, in my mind, one of the best audiobook readers I have ever heard. I say "was" because he has since retired Hill has a special connection with this series and Lee Child's writing style, a topic he brings up in this interview about his retirement. Any problems in this book were not caused by the reader, but rather by the author who just needed to cut a 14 hour book down to a 11 or 12 hour book.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It was good to keep up with Jack Reacher but this was not up to the usual standards of the series.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: MAKE ME (Jack Reacher #20) by Lee Child.

THE WANTED: AN ELVIS COLE and JOE PIKE NOVEL (Elvis Cole and Joe Pike #17) by Robert Crais

The Elvis Cole novels have been coming out for 30 years and this book would be a fine place for the series to end - not that I want it to end

Originally published in 2017 by G.P. Putnam's Sons

  The Elvis Cole novels have been coming out for 30 years and The Wanted would be a fine place for the series to end, especially considering the last 20 pages or so. Not that I want it to end - I will read them as long as Robert Crais wants to write them, but this book goes out of its way to include all of the hallmarks of an Elvis Cole novel, almost like it is going down a checklist one last time. Those items include:
1) Joe Pike is there and Joe Pike is scary, full of tech knowledge and lurks in dark places;
2) Elvis' car gets a special mention;
3) Elvis' cat is in several scenes and full of his special "charm";
4) Elvis shows off his culinary skills;
5) Elvis does his martial arts workout;
6) Elvis goes to his office (the early books always featured the office and its special decor);
7) Elvis and Joe reaffirm their bond multiple times;
8) Elvis and...Louisiana (no spoilers).

The book focuses on a case brought to Elvis by a worried mom. Her son is suddenly flush with cash and has a new group of friends that she barely knows but doesn't care for. She asks Elvis to find out what her son is doing. Elvis puts his considerable experience to use and figures it out soon enough. But...what he discovers is not good and he finds out that his client's son is in serious danger. There is a problem though - no can find him and Cole discovers a team of hit men are involved as well.

By far, the most interesting characters in the book are the two hit men (Harvey and Stemms). They function as a mirror image of Pike and Cole - they are just as smart, just as talented and their relationship is just as complicated.

This is a good book, just not a great one. I rate it 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: THE WANTED: AN ELVIS COLE and JOE PIKE NOVEL.

ANT-MAN: NATURAL ENEMY (audiobook) by Jason Starr

Published in 2015 by GraphicAudio
Performed by more than 25 voice actors.
Duration: Approximately 5 hours.

Scott Lang, better known to superhero fans as Ant-Man, has moved to New York City with his teenage daughter to take advantage of some job opportunities in the tech field. If you only know Ant-Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are a few differences in this book, but nothing that is insurmountable.

Scott Lang's criminal past comes back to haunt him when a former partner in crime breaks out of prison. People connected with his conviction are dying all across the country - and the FBI thinks that Scott Lang is next. Why? Because Lang testified against him in the plea deal that turned him away from a life of crime.

Lang knows that he doesn't really need police protection - after all, he is a superhero. But, he can't tell the FBI that.

Meanwhile, his daughter is having typical "mean girl" problems with a classmate when it occurs to her that she knows where her dad keeps his Ant-Man suit and she has the combination to the lock...

This book was a solid win for GraphicAudio. The last few superhero audiobooks of theirs that I have listened to have been too muddled and too hurried. This one had the pacing down just right and fell right in line with the "feel" of the Ant-Man movies (just set a few years later). It is funny, the characters are likable and the action is quite good. But, the final challenge for Ant-Man and its solution were a bit off for me.

I do enjoy GraphicAudio's old-fashioned radio play style. Each character is voiced by a separate actor with sound effects thrown in as well. The actor that played Tony Stark should get a special award for sounding exactly like Robert Downey, Jr.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ANT-MAN: NATURAL ENEMY (audiobook) by Jason Starr.

DARK SACRED NIGHT: A BALLARD and BOSCH NOVEL (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Published by Little, Brown and Company in 2018.

Read by Christine Lakin and Titus Welliver

Duration: 10 hours, 39 minutes.

Unabridged.

Harry Bosch is now long-retired from LAPD, but in Dark Sacred Night he continues his work as an unpaid reserve officer with the tiny San Fernando police department (see this linked video to see the author explain the situation). He is investigating a cold case murder of the leader of a gang based in San Fernando. Bosch is determined to solve it, even if most people would just let it go because of who was killed. His motto is "Everyone Counts or Nobody Counts" - even gang leaders.

But, he is also working on another, more personal case. In a previous book, Bosch broke up a prescription drug ring and met an addict who fell into addiction because she was self-medicating to kill the pain of her daughter's murder.

Meanwhile, LAPD Detective Renee Ballard continues her work as an overnight detective - part of the "Late Show". She finds Harry Bosch doing some unauthorized digging through LAPD filing cabinets looking for anything that can help. The case intrigues Ballard and she and Bosch decide to join forces.

But, as often happens, there is more to this case than anyone imagined. Mistakes will be made and some lines will be crossed that shouldn't be crossed...

I very much like the fact that Michael Connelly is letting Harry Bosch age. There are good and bad things to that - Bosch has tons of experience and knowledge, but he is losing a step. Ballard is an interesting character (much better in this book than in her first one) and she and Bosch make an interesting pairing. They are very similar people, despite their obvious differences.

The audiobook is read by Christine Lakin and Titus Welliver. Welliver plays Bosch in the Amazon TV show based on the Bosch novels and has been reading the Bosch audiobook as of late. In this book, he reads the chapters that are primarily Bosch-based and Lakin reads the chapters that primarily feature Ballard. The last chapter features a back and forth between the two readers that I liked a lot.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: DARK SACRED NIGHT: A BALLARD and BOSCH NOVEL by Michael Connelly.

A LIFE of JESUS by Shusaku Endo. Translated by Richard A. Schuchert

First published in 1973.

Shusaku Endo was a rare thing - a Christian from Japan. He also grew up mostly away from Japan (in China) and spent a considerable amount of his young adult life in France. When he was in Japan, he was different because of his religion. When he was in France, he was different because of his ethnicity.

Endo's re-telling of the Jesus' life emphasizes this idea of being an outsider. Jesus is never what people want him to be. John the Baptist's followers want him to continue to teach like John the Baptist. His early followers want him to perform miracles all of the time. His later followers want him to overthrow the king and drive out the Romans. Meanwhile, Jesus is teaching lessons about love and forgiveness that no one seems to want to hear.

Endo's Jesus is a melancholy man - who wouldn't be when your main message is ignored and everyone wants to you be something you can't be?

Endo chooses to pass over most of the miracle stories of Jesus because he wrote this book for a Japanese audience and he is convinced that his native countrymen will not accept those stories and will reject the entire message because of them. This has been a point of contention with some critics.

Endo also makes some assumptions that are interesting, but not necessarily in the Gospels. For example, he writes an interesting take on the story of Peter denying Jesus three times on the night that Jesus was betrayed by Judas. He looks at a few facts and makes a compelling (albeit completely circumstantial) argument that Peter didn't just deny Jesus, he went to the Temple leaders and made a deal with them that saved the lives of the disciples if they promised to only take Jesus. In effect, this makes them every bit as guilty as Judas and also makes Peter and Judas the very first people that were saved due Jesus' death on the cross. It has a compelling sense of completion and does explain why the disciples were not rounded up in the days following the crucifixion.

An interesting take on Jesus. Well worth the time to read it. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: A LIFE of JESUS by Shusaku Endo.

THE BLUE and the GRAY: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN NORTH and SOUTH by Martin F. Graham, Richard A. Sauers and George Skoch.

Published in 1997 by Publications International, LTD.

At first glance, The Blue and the Gray: The Conflict Between North and South is a typical coffee table book about the Civil War. There are tons of them - I ought to know, I own several myself. They are all over-sized, hardback and full of great pictures. Most have lots of details about the battles and the strategies of the war and a little about topics such as the daily life of the soldier, medicine of the time, the use of spies or daily life in camp. This book is set up exactly in the reverse. It is all about those other topics, discusses the overall strategy and offers very little about the specifics of any actual battles. There are literally no battle maps.

But, that doesn't stop this from being a great book. It is a great book precisely because it doesn't treat those other topics as interesting filler - it treats them as topics that can stand alone and are worthy of exploration. 

Every page is colored either blue or gray. If it is a blue page, it discusses something about the Union, if it is gray, it discusses the Confederacy. Almost always, they go back and forth on the same theme, such as: Lincoln's Cabinet vs. Davis's Cabinet; manufacturing; the Union Strategy vs. the Confederate Strategy; the New York Draft Riots vs. the Richmond Bread Riots; Prison Camps; Uniforms; Northern Weapons Technology vs. Southern Weapons Technology; Newspapers on both sides; Artists on both sides; the two First Ladies; Spies; and how Reconstruction affected both sides. 

Union General Ambrose Burnside (1824-1881)

I particularly enjoyed the story of the Memphis Appeal, a successful newspaper that was forced to flee (printing press and all) from from advancing Union troops who wanted to shut it down. It fled from Memphis to Grenada, Mississippi to Jackson, Mississippi and then on to Atlanta. They fled to Montgomery, Alabama and were finally caught , after nearly three years of flight, in Columbus, Georgia after the war was over. The Union General and the editor had a drink and within 6 months the paper was once again publishing in Memphis (with that same much-traveled press). 

I found this to be an exceptionally balanced and well-written collection. It is an excellent choice to give to a student of the Civil War or to keep in a classroom as a resource. Really, the only problem I saw was on a general map on page 111. My adopted hometown of Indianapolis is placed about 50 miles too far to the south.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE BLUE and the GRAY: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN NORTH and SOUTH.

THE LONG HAUL: A TRUCKER'S TALES of LIFE on the ROAD by Finn Murphy

Published in 2017 by HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books.
Read by Danny Campbell.
Duration: 8 hours, 8 minutes.
Unabridged.

Finn Murphy is a long haul trucker, meaning he drives the trucks that you see on the interstate. Murphy doesn't just haul anything - he drives a moving truck. He packs, loads, hauls and unloads households - more than 3,000 of them by his estimation.

Finn Murphy's transportation for a promotional book tour.

Murphy tells about the generalities of driving a big truck, particularly a moving truck. He includes several entertaining stories about his life on the road. The listener (I heard this as an audiobook) gets a feel for the comings and goings of the truckers in the moving industry. His story of his first day as a mover is a classic "how can this get any worse" story.

I first heard about this book in an interview on NPR with Terry Gross. This is ironic because the author discusses how so many truckers listen to NPR because it is a truly national network and you can oftentimes drive from one station to another across the country and never miss a beat. And, I also enjoyed the fact that he mentioned how much he enjoyed listening to audiobooks as he drives since I listened to this book as an audiobook. By the way, it was read by Danny Campbell who did a great job. I had forgotten that the book was not read by the author himself because Campbell was so invested in telling the story like it really happened to him.

I enjoyed this book, but it falls a bit short of being a 5 star book. It was informative and usually very entertaining. But, sometimes it got a little slow. His complaints about Florida's topography were a bit tiresome. The story about the Colonel's wife also brought a much darker, somber tinge to the story that wasn't there before. That being said, this was a worthy and informative listen. A great on-the-road audiobook.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy.