DWD's Reviews

Originally published in 1966. Translated by William Johnston. Rodrigues is a Jesuit missionary from Portugal who has volunteered to travel to Japan. The leaders of Japan have recently turned against almost all foreign contact and have cracked down on Christianity. Stories have come back to the Vatican of Japanese Christians being brutally tortured and priests renouncing their faith.  Rodrigues is determined to face this challenge. He is genuinely concerned about the believers who are left without a priest and he is also sure that he will not fail if his own faith is challenged. He and a partner make their way into Japan and set up in a small fishing village. The local Christians are thrilled but, soon enough, the priests are discovered and Rodrigues finds out that his presence threatens the lives of his new flock and that his own compassion can be used as a tool against his own faith and that even the strongest believer can be pushed too far... Shusaku Endo (1923-1996) This

Published in November of 2013 Legacy Publishing Union General Benjamin F. Kelley (1807-1891). He features prominently in many of the stories in  this collection, including the story of how he was kidnapped by Confederate rangers in a daring raid. Echoes of War Drums: The Civil War in Mountain Maryland is a collection of newspaper and magazine articles written by the author. This sort of collection is, like most things, a good thing and a bad thing. What's good about it is the short format makes it an easy to book to pick up and read for a few minutes with the knowledge that you can walk away for a while and not have to remember any important people or plot points. But, there is a lot of overlap among the articles so the book can be repetitive if you are reading it straight through. I am not a native of Maryland. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I've never been to the region of Maryland that is featured in this book. But, I am an avid student of the Civil War so I rea

A Review of the Audiobook Published in January of 2017 by Blackstone Audio Read by Bronson Pinchot Duration: 12 hours, 11 minutes Unabridged The conclusion of the John Matherson trilogy does not bring a fairy tale ending to his story of post-EMP America, but it does answer an important question from both of the previous novels - just who has taken over the reins of what remains of the Federal Government? For those who don't know, an EMP is short for Electro-Magnetic Pulse. Nuclear weapons generate this pulse when they explode and these weapons can be fine-tuned to generate an pulse that will cover a large part of North America. The pulse completely fries modern electronics and in this book series the United States is thrown 100 years back into the past in terms of technology. John Matherson continues to lead his North Carolina community and they are having some success in re-establishing some of the technology that existed before the attack. They are slowly adding new co

A Review of the Audiobook Published in February of 2017 by Kelly Miller. Originally published as a book in 2013. Read by Angel Clark. Duration: 7 hours, 34 minutes Unabridged Detective Kate Springer is not a perfect cop - and she's not the movie stereotype "rogue cop who doesn't play by the rules." She's a solid detective in Tampa, Florida with her own personal struggles. She and her partner are assigned a murder case in which a young lady is found strangled to death in the back yard of an abandoned house. Springer is struck by how much this young victim looks like she did at her age. The case triggers a flood of memories of her own difficult childhood in which she was sexually abused for years by an older neighbor who was her babysitter. As the case unfolds her the similarities between this case and her own experiences seem to get stronger and stronger, but is increasingly unsure if this is because they really are that similar or if she has just lost

Originally released in 2007 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Dick Hill Duration: 16 hours, 34 minutes Unabridged Jack Reacher is back. He is tracked down by his deceased brother's former colleague in the Secret Service (and ex-girlfriend) because she wants him to take a run at the security around the Vice President-elect in order to test it. It turns out there is a serious plot to kill the Vice President-elect and Reacher and a partner he has brought in to help join in to hunt for the plotters. This is a typical Reacher book - lots of snide comments, fistfights and even gunplay. The part where he is brought in by the Secret Service is a stretch, but Lee Child makes it palatable. The audiobook is read by veteran reader Dick Hill. He gives Reacher a strong voice and I think he really gets the character. I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Without Fail by Lee Child.

Not Cornwell's Best Effort. Published in 2010 by HarperCollins Set in 1779 Massachusetts, Bernard Cornwell tells the story of the Penobscot Expedition - a small scale invasion by British forces of a bay in what is now Maine. The government of Massachusetts is determined to repel this invasion without help from the Continental Army. It calls up its militia and its fledgling navy. It does accept help from the American national Navy and its contingent of Marines. By far, the most famous American in this campaign is the commander of the Massachusetts' artillery unit, Lt. Colonel Paul Revere. Cornwell does a decent job of developing the British officers as characters.  A young officer named John Moore gets his first taste of battle here. In the Napoleonic Wars, Moore was one of the architects of Napoleon's eventual defeat. Cornwell's battle scenes are, as always, excellently described. He switches from naval battles to land battles with ease. I felt absolutely confid