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THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION in AMERICAN HISTORY by Robert Somerlott

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Published in 1998 by Enslow Publishers, Inc. How many books have been written about Abraham Lincoln? NPR claims more than 15,000 - more than anyone except Jesus Christ. This book enters an already crowded field with only one distinct thing going for it - it is aimed at middle school students. That means, I need to review this book with that fact in mind. To Somerlott's credit, he generally hits the reading level of middle school students and he does keep his focus on the threats to Lincoln and Lincoln's lackadaisical attitude towards his own personal security. It's not always gripping reading, but it is generally accurate and includes a lot of illustrations and some primary sources in special pull-out sections. The only quibble I have with the book is the rather simplistic way it deals with Lincoln's attitude toward slavery and African American civil rights. Lincoln was politically liberal on this topic for his day, but the cherrypicked quote provided on page 18

BRETT ENTERS the SQUARE CIRCLE by David D'Aguanno

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Published by David D. D'Aguanno in 2018. Read by Travis Henry Carter. Duration: 8 hours, 32 minutes. Unabridged. Brett Cornell is a private detective in Rhode Island. He's big, he's fearless and he knows how to fight. He is full of smart comments, opinions about orange juice and is quite sure that he is the most amazing lover of all time. He is cunning. He is unscrupulous and will certainly pad his bill to eke out as much money as he possibly can from his clients. And, he's not much for education.  Brett begins by running into a series of rough cops at a bar. These are violent officers who throw their weight around with everyone - especially with know-it-all loudmouths like Brett. Soon enough, Brett ends up being challenged to participate in a charity fight with the biggest bruiser cop of the bunch - except that everyone knows that this fight will be for real. In the meantime, Brett has been hired to find a missing woman who is suspected of having run off

SUGAR MONEY: A NOVEL by Jane Harris

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Published by Arcade Publishing in 2018. Set on the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Grenada in 1765, Sugar Money is the story of two brothers. Lucien is thirteen years old and his older brother Emile is in his twenties and they are both slaves on Martinique. They are owned by a group of French monks who were forced off of Granada during the world-wide war commonly known as the French and Indian War in the United States. When the monks escaped Granada they left more than 40 slaves behind. Lucien and Emile are sent to Granada to organize an escape to Martinique - not an escape to freedom, just an escape to better working conditions and continued slavery. The strength of this book is in it's descriptions. The descriptions of slave life on Granada and of the environs are top notch. Unfortunately, the story doesn't really pan out to be anything more than a "non-event" in my mind. There's a lot of build up for an underwhelming finish. Because of this, I rate t

SUICIDE of THE WEST: HOW the REBIRTH of POPULISM, NATIONALISM, and IDENTITY POLITICS IS DESTROYING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (audiobook) by Jonah Goldberg

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Published by Random House Audio in 2018. Read by the author, Jonah Goldberg. Duration: 16 hours, 1 minute. Unabridged. Jonah Goldberg, noted political commentator and an editor at the conservative political magazine National Review , takes a long time to set up his argument that modern West culture and its economic system, as it developed under the Enlightenment, is unique and worthy of preservation. He goes on an in-depth look at the conditions that brought about the Enlightenment and makes some reasonable conclusions - certainly nothing that was earth-shaking. But, he makes them in easily understandable terms because this is not a poli-sci or an economics textbook - this is the political version on an evangelistic tract trying to sell the citizens of The West, particularly Americans, that their political and economic culture is worthy of saving, even if it is imperfect. Goldberg spends a great deal of time pointing out that the vast majority of human history has been the s

DOUBLE TAP (Paul Madriani #8) by Steve Martini

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Steve Martini Originally published in 2005. Synopsis: A controversial CEO of a tech company is murdered in her own home. The motive is not clear, but her former bodyguard who is also her former lover is arrested for the crime. He claims that he was framed. He is accused of stalking her, he claims he was re-hired off of the books and was actually protecting her because she felt like she was being followed. Emiliano Ruiz's case was dropped by his original attorney, but Paul Madriani and Harry Hinds pick it up only to find that it looks like a slam-dunk case for the prosecutor. Ruiz's pistol is the murder weapon. He has no proof that he was re-hired to protect the victim and he knows everything about her security system. But, there is something about the case that convinces Madriani and Hinds that there is more here than meets the eye... My take: This is a so-so legal thriller. It's all a little too clandestine for my tastes and its conclusion was a "gotcha" en

THE SECOND KOREAN WAR (audiobook) by Ted Halstead

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Published in 2018 by Ted Halstead. Read by Cody Banning. Duration: 15 hours, 4 minutes. Unabridged Ted Halstead's The Second Korean War is a multi-country thriller in which North Korea tries a desperate gamble to force South Korea to submit to North Korean rule. The book starts out on an military base on the far eastern part of Russia. North Korea has found out that Russia has a small nuclear "backpack" weapon (a battlefield nuke) dating from the early days of nuclear weapons that has been lost from the inventory over the years. North Korea acquires the weapon so that they can start a two-pronged effort to force South Korea to surrender and force the United States to withdraw from South Korea without fighting. But, things don't go as smoothly as they hoped, people die and a Russian police detective starts putting things together. The question is, will he put things together fast enough? The last thing I want to do is write out a bunch of spoilers, so I won'