THE RISE: A SHORT STORY (kindle) by Ian Rankin

Published by Amazon Original Stories in 2023.

Synopsis:

There has been a murder in one of the newest and most exclusive high rise apartments in London. The night security guard in the lobby was found dead by his girlfriend (she used to sneak in for a little romancing in the middle of the night.)

His head was smashed into the corner of the counter and a fancy electronic door key is missing from the collection of spare keys in the office.

When detectives start asking around it looks like just about everyone in the apartment building could have killed the guard, including the girlfriend.

My review:

The first half of this story was pretty tedious. The way the crime was finally solved was kind of obvious - and I missed it!

I rate this short story 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Rise: A Short Story by Ian Rankin.

THE RUNAWAY (Peter Ash #7)(audiobook) by Nick Petrie

Published by Penguin Audio in 2022.
Read by Stephen Mendel.
Duration: 11 hours, 35 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Runaway is the seventh book in the Peter Ash series. Ash is a retired Marine with PTSD issues and an intense desire to help people in need. Sometimes he settles down, sometimes he wanders.

In this book, Ash is crossing the country and is near the border of South Dakota and Nebraska. He comes across a broken down car and a very pregnant young lady. She is desperate to get going down the road so he takes her. 

They get a few miles down the road when they come across a truck blocking the road. They turn around and find another truck blocking the road and leaving them nowhere to go. The hitchhiker tells Ash that he is in very grave danger and he should flee...

My review:

For a book full of action, thrills, and mayhem, this book was often tedious. 

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

The pregnant young lady is a victim of gaslighting and, eventually, kidnapping. The process was long and very detailed. I think that there was simply too much emphasis on this part of the book. 

I don't know if it was intentional, but it is worth noting that literally every male character was a criminal, a murderer, a misogynist, or simply incompetent except for Peter and his friend Lewis. I doubt it was intentional, but it just seemed like the entire Great Plains countryside was full of literal bad guys.

*********End Spoilers*********

Sadly, this series has gotten weaker for me. I rated the first five books 4 or 5 stars, but I have rated the last two books as 2 stars. I will move on to the next book and hope for the best. 

One last thought. Despite what you will read in this book, healthy, well-fed coyotes do not hunt humans. 

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Runaway by Nick Petrie.

PANCHO VILLA: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History

Published by Hourly History in 2021.

I think this is the third book I've read in the last few years that is at least partially about the Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa (1878-1923). I read two that were basically about American responses to Villa's cross-border excursions  (and near misses) into the United States for money and supplies.

Each entry in the Hourly History series is, by definition, a short book. Each entry is supposed to be read in about an hour.

This biography was neither bad nor good. It did tell the basically outlines of his life without giving the reader much a sense of the man. Even worse, Villa will forever be associated with the Mexican Revolution but this book did a pretty poor job of explaining the complicated politics that Villa tried to navigate. It seemed that he was an insider one week, on the outs the next week, and running for his life the week after that and I had no understanding as to why that was.

A good basic intro, but nothing more.

I rate this e-book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Pancho Villa: A Life from Beginning to End by Hourly History.

ROAD RAGE (audiobook) by Joe Hill, Stephen King, and Richard Matheson

Published in 2009 by HarperAudio.
Read by Stephen Lang.
Duration: 2 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.

My Synopsis:

In 1971 a relatively unknown director made an ABC made for TV movie called Duel. The plot was simple enough - a traveling salesman is harassed by a semi-truck on a nearly empty desert highway. Spielberg took this opportunity and turned it into the movie that made his career. Now, Duel is a cult classic.

Before the movie was made, there was  the short story of the same name. Richard Matheson wrote the short story and the screenplay.

Joe Hill and Stephen King added a second story called Throttle to this collection. It features a motorcycle gang trying to decide their next steps after a botched attempt to find some missing money that resulted in a brutal murder. Suddenly, a semi-truck catches up to the gang and begins to pick them off one by one.

My Review:

Duel was a very good short story. It draws you in and keeps you involved to the end. 

Throttle is told well, but I found it very hard to identify with any of the horrible characters. The drama is hurt by the fact that I really didn't care if the gang members were hurt.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ROAD RAGE by Joe Hill, Stephen King, and Richard Matheson.

THE OUTSIDERS (audiobook) by S. E. Hinton

Originally published in 1967.
Audiobook published in 2004 by Listening Library.
Read by Jim Fyfe,
Duration: 5 hours, 9 minutes.
Unabridged.

Listed on BBC's list of 100 Most Inspiring Novels in 2019.
Author is the winner of the inaugural Margaret A. Edwards Award for YA 

Synopsis:

This is a true YA classic. Some consider this to be the book that invented the YA genre. Written by a high school student in the 1960's, The Outsiders is the story of a group of "greasers" in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Greasers are poor teens who grow up on the tough side of town. Adult supervision is pretty lax and they spend their days smoking, flirting with girls, and working. They join loose gangs and fight among themselves, but they all unite when their biggest enemies come around. Their biggest enemies are the rich kids who cruise the poor side of town looking for a fight.

The main character is the oddly-named Ponyboy. Ponyboy's deceased parents liked to give their children odd names. Ponyboy and his two older brothers live together in their childhood home and somehow scrape by.

One very late night, Ponyboy and his oldest brother have an argument. Ponyboy runs from the house, finds one of his friends, and they wander the neighborhood. They are sitting in a park when a car full of the rich kids finds them and decides to make an example of them...

My review:

It's been a long time since I read this book, but I read it several times when I was in upper elementary. I came back to this book thinking it was going to be would be lightweight and that I had overestimated its quality when I was a young adult reader.

Turns out that I was pleasantly surprised. While the writing style is pretty simple, this is not a simple book. It has layers and complexity and was an astoundingly good novel, especially when you consider that it was written by a high school student.

I am glad I re-read it as an audiobook. Jim Fyfe did a good job with voice characterizations.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton.

Note: This book has often been placed on banned book lists over the years, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. I have tagged it with the MAGA Censorship List tag because, more recently, it was challenged in Williamsburg, Iowa  and was put on a book ban list in Tennessee. The last linked article has a searchable database because the list has more than 1,100 unique titles.

HAWKEYE: THE SAGA of BARTON and BISHOP (graphic novel) by Matt Fraction, David Aja, and more

Published by Marvel Universe in 2021.

Hawkeye: The Saga of Barton and Bishop is actually two collections in one. The first half of the collection is the text from Hawkeye Volume 1: My Life as a Weapon.

To be honest, the first collection is much better than the newer second half. 

In the second volume, Hawkeye and Bishop are working separately. At the end of Volume 1 she left for California to be an independent Avenger. That's not really a thing, but she's young and hadn't really thought it through.

I found the art and storyline to be convoluted, especially with the main storyline - the Bishop storyline. The shorter Barton storyline is a simple continuation of the actions in Volume 1. Even though it is the shorter part of the story, it feels like it is stretched out and padded while the much longer Bishop story arc feels rushed and poorly explained.

I gave a rating of 4 stars for Volume 1. I give a rating of 2 stars for Volume 2. That makes for a total score of 3 stars. 

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Hawkeye: The Saga of Barton and Bishop.

An Unforgiving Place: A National Parks Mystery, Book 2 (audiobook) by Claire Kells

Published by Dreamscape Media in 2022.
Read by Cady Zuckerman.
Duration: 9 hours, 18 minutes.
Unabridged.

Edgar Award nominee.

Synopsis:

An Unforgiving Place is the second book featuring Felicity Harland of the Investigative Services Branch. If you are not familiar with the ISB, join the club - I had no idea that it was the "FBI" of the National Parks Service. If the local park can't deal with it, they call in the ISB. That always include murders.

Harland is partners with a park ranger nicknamed Hux. He is a big, strong guy. Harland is a short (but very tough and determined) lady. There is always of undercurrent of romantic attraction between the two, but it is never acted upon for fear of messing up their friendship and working relationship. Her dog rounds out the trio.

In this series, the ISB moves the agents around from park to park. I have no idea if that is what happens in real life but it does let the reader get a feel for a new park in every book.

An Unforgiving Place is set in Alaska at Gates of the Arctic National Park - a park that is literally in the middle of nowhere. You have to fly in on a bush plane or a float plane to visit big chunks of the park. Harland and Hux get called on because two missing hikers have shown up dead along a river in an isolated place.

After some detailed internet research, it is determined that the two hikers are a couple from New Jersey who came to Alaska in search of a man who offered to cure their infertility troubles with native cures.

They are flown in and almost immediately encounter a group camping nearby. Things get tense when they decide to pass themselves as a adventure hiking couple and join the campers for a few nights...

My Review:

In my mind, the author makes a mistake by letting the readers in on who the victims are and why they are going to Alaska. The reader doesn't experience the mystery likes the investigators and I think that takes some of the steam out of the story.

I gave the first book in this series a rating of 4 out of 5 stars. I liked it well enough that I bought this audiobook (usually I am an avid library patron but they didn't have this audiobook.) However, I am rating this book 3 stars out of 5. It's not a bad book at all, but the mystery was diluted by the issue noted in the previous paragraph. I will continue on the the third book.

This book is available on Amazon.com here: An Unforgiving Place: A National Parks Mystery, Book 2 by Claire Kells.