WOLF PACK (Joe Pickett #19)(audiobook) by C.J. Box

 

Published in 2019 by Recorded Books.

Read by David Chandler.
Duration: 9 hours, 51 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is back on the job and glad to be doing the mundane work of a game warden once again.

The game warden in the district next to his reaches out and tells him about a fancy drone she has spotted. The drone is being used to drive winter-weakened deer and elk into groups and then panic them into stampedes, killing and maiming several of them. Of course, this is a violation of Wyoming law.

But, when they go to track down the owner, they find that they are stymied everywhere they look. Once they find the owner, it turns out that they wish they hadn't found what they are looking for...

Review:

This is a pretty engrossing thriller with lots of action.

But...

Huge chunks of this book is told from the perspective of characters that are guests in this series. I don't know exactly what percentage, but it felt like Joe Pickett was mostly a guest in book number 19 in the Joe Pickett series. There was not a lot of game wardens doing game warden things because the series has largely moved away from that and, in my opinion, that is simply a shame.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Joe and his family and his friend Nate very much and I was happy to go along for another ride with them in this book. However, this was a good book, but not a great one because it moves away from Joe Pickett and becomes a thriller that could've have been adapted into any police series without a lot of thought. 

I rate this 4 stars out of 5 because it is a good thriller, but I am disappointed.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: WOLF PACK (Joe Pickett #19) by C.J. Box.

THE MYTH of the LOST CAUSE: WHY the SOUTH FOUGHT the CIVIL WAR and WHY the NORTH WON by Edward Bonekemper III

 

Published in 2105 by Regnery History.

Edward Bonekemper (1942-2017) was a lawyer by day and historian in his spare time. He worked for the federal government in a couple of regulatory departments. Imagine an attorney coming into a conference room and telling you that you have regulatory issues and then proceeding to lay down one document after another after another that proves it until you have a pile of papers covering your table.

Bonekemper brings that tenacity to his history books as well. He often comes with a point to prove and he brings tons of proof.

In this case, he goes after "The Lost Cause". What is The Lost Cause? It was (and still is) an apologist movement for the Confederacy that says that slavery was not a primary cause of the war and, besides that, slavery was not that bad. Robert E. Lee was the best general of the war (maybe American history) and his personal honor was unimpeachable and his only fault was that the trusted men like his subordinate General James Longstreet who betrayed him at the Battle of Gettysburg. Grant was a butcher who simply used brute force, superior numbers and more supplies to complete the task of overwhelming the brave defenders of the Confederacy who were clearly the more superior soldiers. Throw into this mix the myth that literally thousands of African Americans joined the Confederate army, formed units and actively participated in combat in great numbers. 

Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)
and Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)

Bonekemper is devastatingly thorough in his arguments. He argues quite convincingly that Grant was the most brilliant general of the war. To be fair to Grant's reputation, it should be remembered that there were only 4 complete armies that surrendered during the war and Grant took 3 of them. Bonekemper decides to make his argument about the skill of Grant by re-telling the details of his Vicksburg campaign. Typically, Lee's performance at Chancellorsville is often highlighted as the best performance by a general in a battle, but Grant's 6 month plus long Vicksburg campaign is simply an amazing example of initiative, diversrion and speed. This campaign led to the surrender of an entire army, opened the Mississippi as a save way to ship goods into and out of the Midwestern United States, severed of Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas from the Confederacy, destroyed the capitol of Mississippi and defeated of a second Confederate army. All of this while mostly avoiding direct assaults and being outnumbered by the total number of Confederate troops in the field. 

Bonekemper is very critical of Robert E. Lee's skills as a commander - both strategically and tactically. He makes good points especially on a strategic level (big picture, the entire country view), but I think he is a bit tough on Lee, especially on his performance during the Seven Days Battles in 1862 when Lee took over the Army of Northern Virginia in the middle of a campaign because its original commander was severely wounded (he was sidelined for more than 5 months).

Interestingly, this book is published by Regnery History, a publisher that mostly features Lost Cause Civil War history. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE MYTH of the LOST CAUSE: WHY the SOUTH FOUGHT the CIVIL WAR and WHY the NORTH WON by Edward Bonekemper III.

LA MUERTA: LAST RITES #1 (graphic novel) by Brian Pulido

 

Published by Coffin Comics in 2016.

Story by Brian Puildo.
Written by Mike Maclean.

Illustrated by Joel Gomez.

The Zavalas are a crime cartel with a connection to the occult. That in and of itself is not ridiculous since some of the Mexican cartels have taken advantage of religious symbols and ideas in their propaganda.

Maria Diaz came back from the fighting in Afghanistan to find that the Zavalas killed her entire family. She decided to dress up in a disguise, adopt a new persona and get even, very much like The Punisher. Unlike The Punisher, who wears a skull on this shirt, she paints a skull on her face, Day of the Dead-style.

What follows is an almost constant gun battle interspersed with bombs, acid attacks and more. If you like non-stop action, this book has that in spades. If you like character growth of any sort, you will be disappointed.

Turns out, I value character growth. The Zavalas are not explained, for example. They just keep coming up with more and ever-weirder bad guys, culminating in a big boss bad guy who looks like she was designed by a 12 year old boy with a fascination with BDSM. Seriously, who fights a bomb throwing, pistol-shooting former soldier bent on revenge by wielding an Aztec sword and wearing a teeny tiny leather string bikini with thigh-high stiletto boots?

The art was up and down - sometimes top-notch, sometimes skimped over.

I rate this graphic novel 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: LA MUERTA: LAST RITES #1 (graphic novel).

THE PRINCESS, the SCOUNDREL, and the FARM BOY by Alexandra Bracken

 

Published in 2019 by Disney LucasFilm Press.

The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy is a YA re-telling of Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. It is told from the perspective of three different characters: Princess Leia, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker - in that order.

The book starts out, like the movie, with the attack of Leia's ship and the fight as stormtroopers board it and stays with her through the destruction of Alderaan. The middle of the book starts with Han in the cantina looking at the results of Ben Kenobi's handiwork with a light saber. It stays with Han until they escape from the Death Star. At that point, it switches to Luke and stays with him until the end.

This is more than a simple re-telling of the movie, though. That book was already written by George Lucas (ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster) a long time ago.

There are lots of direct quotes from the movie ("I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board." "That's no moon..." "No reward is worth this." "I used to bull's-eye womp rats...") but the strength of the book is that it adds to the plot of the movie. We get background on the activist background of Princess Leia, Han Solo's secret desire to be part of something larger and more meaningful, more details on the little bit of training Kenobi gave Luke on the Millennium Falcon and the training that Luke got so that he could go from flying a T-16 to an X-Wing so well. 

All of the additions made sense and the story still flowed smoothly. I read the original novel at least 10 times back in the early 80s and I can't count the number of times I have seen the movie (so many times that my mind supplied the correct bits of musical soundtrack as I read along). This book was a lot of fun. I have no idea if this book would make sense to anyone who hadn't already seen the movie, but I enjoyed it.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE PRINCESS, THE SCOUNDREL, AND THE FARM BOY by Alexandra Bracken.

BLOOD MONEY: A LUCKY DEY THRILLER (audiobook) by Doug Richardson

Published in 2019 by Velvet Elvis Entertainment.
Read by Tim DeKay.
Duration: 9 hours, 35 minutes.
Unabridged

Synopsis:

On a lonely country road in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, a police officer is murdered while he is trying to help 2 crash victims.

The police officer is the little brother of a hard-charging officer named Lucky Dey and Lucky is determined to get the murderer at all costs. They determine that the driver of a black semi hauling a matching black refrigerated trailer is probably the murderer. The evidence points towards it heading to Los Angeles.

Lucky rolls into down at 100+ MPH, meets up with a contact/babysitter from LAPD and they soon figure out that this is even more of a mess than they thought it was...

My review:

The general idea of Blood Money was good, but just too busy. I think the story was told through at least eight different characters and that just diffused the action and drive of the story too much. On top of that, almost none of the characters are likable. For example, the main character is semi-racist throughout the book. Is semi-racist a thing? He says racist comments throughout the book. I guess that makes him just a simple racist. Also, sexist. But, on a positive note, he is good with kids.

******Spoilers******

Even worse, I never really could figure out what the deal was with the bad guy, but he had amazing powers of recuperation. He went from barely being able to walk due to a heavily damaged knee (took a superhuman effort to walk a few blocks) to being able to kill again, dispose of the body, stalk a man, drive with a clutch (18 wheelers have sooooo many gears!) and then also get involved in a running gun fight while literally climbing all over vehicles - all in the same day!

******End spoilers********

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. This author should have been able to do better. He is literally the writer of multiple action screenplays that you have heard of - like Bad Boys and Die Hard 2.

It can be found at Amazon.com here: BLOOD MONEY: A LUCKY DEY THRILLER by Doug Richardson.

Note: I was sent a free review copy of this audiobook from the publisher so that I could write an honest review.

KING PHILLIP II: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published in 2020 by Hourly History.

King Philip II (1527-1598) ruled Spain at its most powerful. This is the Spain that took over Portugal, consolidated its New World holdings, conquered the Philippines, stopped Ottoman naval expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, stopped Protestant expansion in several areas yet lost the Spanish Armada to the English and suffered a series of losses in the Netherlands. It was the first that could reasonably claim that the sun never set on its empire. 

Philip's personal life takes up a lot of this book. For such a powerful man, his personal life had to humble him. He had multiple wives who died from a variety of ways, but usually related to giving birth.  He also lost several children.

His oldest son suffered from physical and mental illnesses that were so pronounced that the Philip II stepped in and barred his son from being next in line for the throne. That son died in custody, possibly by making himself ill while being held in confinement by poisoning himself or freezing himself by covering himself in ice and sleeping on beds of ice.

The beauty and the weakness of this book series is the brevity of each book. They are designed to be read in about an hour, which means I can explore a whole new area or person with little time commitment. But, I always end up with questions. In this book, Philip's self-assigned role as a defender of the Catholic faith and the politics in that arena was given light treatment.

I rate this short e-book 3 stars out of 5. Nothing wrong with this book - it doesn't make the reader an expert, but it did fill in some blanks in my personal knowledge of this time period.

This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here:  King Philip II: A Life from Beginning to End in 2020 by Hourly History.

HOW the WORD IS PASSED: A RECKONING with the HISTORY of SLAVERY ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Clint Smith

 

Published by Little, Brown and Company.
Read by the author, Clint Smith.
Duration: 10 hours, 6 minutes.
Unabridged.

Clint Smith decided to explore several key historical sites that have ties to American slavery and how the consequences of American slavery has echoed down throughout American history.

He is looking for constant threads in American history from the perspective of African Americans. He visits Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, New Orleans, Angola Prison, a plantation in Louisiana that emphasizes the lives of the majority of the people that lived and worked there (the slaves and the Jim Crow era labor that was trapped there), a Confederate grave yard, the place were Juneteenth happened in Texas, New York City (a slave stronghold in the North for a surprisingly long time) and finally a fortress used as a slave market in Africa.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Sally Hemings (c. 1773-1835)

This is a difficult book in many ways. Smith intentionally digs into difficult questions and is an excellent interviewer. His first location is Monticello and his interviews and observations are just about perfect. He explores the contradictions that should fill every discussion of Jefferson. There is a powerful discussion about Sally Hemings, how slavery has been dealt with on the Monticello tours and how the refusal to acknowledge this complicated past reflects the history we want to hear rather than the history that actually happened.

Monticello provided a strong start and the rest of the book was not quite as strong but still provided plenty to think about. This is a topic that America seems to want to avoid at all costs. This is evidenced by all of the furor over the 1619 Project and the abject fear that someone might be teaching something similar to Critical Race Theory in America somewhere. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW the WORD IS PASSED: A RECKONING with the HISTORY of SLAVERY ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Clint Smith.

This book would go well with these books that I have read in the last year: 

ROBERT E. LEE and ME: A SOUTHERNER'S RECKONING with the MYTH of the LOST CAUSE by Ty Seidule and DOWN ALONG with THAT DEVIL'S BONES: A RECKONING with MONUMENTS, MEMORY, and the LEGACY of WHITE SUPREMACY by Connor Towne O'Neill.