Tag: 2018 Reads

Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America…

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If You Want to Understand the Roots of Our Current Political Situation – Read this Book!

Over the last few weeks I am finding it more and more difficult to post. Again I haven’t stopped reading, listening or exercising just that when I sit down to write a post, I get distracted and pick up a book or good do something else. Anyway I just finished book 9 of 2017. The following read though is for book 7. Hopefully, if I can get myself focused and motivated reviews for book  8 Parting Shot by Linwood Barclay and book 9 Descent by Tim Johnston, will follow shortly.

Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean. 

This is the story of the Radical Rights campaign  to steal our democracy. The blueprint for the campaign was laid out but conservative economist James Buchanan.  Buchanan merged states rights thinking with free-market principles and laid the groundwork for the “makers”and “takers” philosophy of today’s Republican party. The campaign  has been funded by Charles Koch and is bearing fruit beyond his wildest dreams. The Radical Right has goals like establishing and assuring minority rule, the elimination of both the government safety nets i.e. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and programs and agencies that protect our health and safety. They seem like current GOP goals to me. And I am scared for my country! 
Throughout the last year we have seen time after time the majority of Americans opposing what the GOP was trying to do. We watched them try to destroy The Affordable Care act. Then we watched them pass a Tax Bill designed to make the richer richer. Anyway if you want to read about how we got to where we are today read this book. 
From author Greg Grandin author of Fordlandia a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

“How did we get to where we are today? How did corporations come to possess rights? How did democracy come to be defined as selfish individualism? Or money as free speech? Nancy Maclean’s Democracy in Chains provides the answers. It is essential reading in order to understand the ideas billionaires use to justify their control over our political institutions. I can’t imagine a more timely or urgent book.” 

Bottom Line

I found this book scary and very enlightening. The book is well written, easy to read and well documented. So once again if you want to read how we got to the point where our country has become an oligarchy with the 1 percent running the country.So check it out. The author of Democracy in Chains, Nancy MacLean is The William H Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University.

Links for Further Explorations

Democracy in Chains – Duke University
Goodreads
Penquin Random House

 

Shadow of Death – Wiliam G Tapply – A Return to an Old Favorite

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Shadow of Death (Brady Coyne #21) – William G. Tapply

Here we are in February 2018, and I still hadn’t formalized my Reading Challenges. I knew my goal was to read 65 books that year, with at least 25 pulled from my “to be read” shelves. By the first week of February, I was already off to a decent start — and book number six turned out to be one that had been waiting patiently on my shelves: Shadow of Death by William G. Tapply.

EKK and the Brady Coyne Series

Shadow of Death, published in 2004, is the 21st entry in Tapply’s Brady Coyne series. The series began in 1984 with Death at Charity’s Point. My own journey with Coyne started a little later, with Dead Winter (#8), which I read in the summer of 1990 when the paperback came out. By the end of that year, I had caught up with the series!

Sadly, William Tapply passed away in 2009, bringing the series to a close. The final Brady Coyne book, Outwitting Trolls (#28), was released in 2010. Between 1990 and 2001, I read 16 of the 18 Coyne books available at the time. After that, I shifted to his short but memorable Stoney Calhoun series.

Reading Shadow of Death reminded me just how much I enjoyed these books. Brady Coyne, a Boston lawyer handling divorces, wills, and trusts for wealthy New England families, always seems to get pulled into something bigger. That mix of law, mystery, and human drama was Tapply’s strength.

About Shadow of Death

In Shadow of Death, Brady is hired by the campaign manager of Ellen Stoddard, who is running for the U.S. Senate. The task: find out why her husband, Al Stoddard, is acting strangely. When the private investigator Brady hires is found dead on a lonely New Hampshire road, Brady is drawn into a dangerous search. As he digs deeper, he discovers two of Al’s childhood friends have also died under mysterious circumstances — and the story turns darker.

Bottom Line

Like all of William G. Tapply’s books, Shadow of Death is exceptionally well plotted and believable. But what makes these novels shine is Brady Coyne himself — a lawyer who’d rather be out fly fishing than handling divorces, but who still manages to be a convincingly heroic and likable sleuth.

Publisher’s Weekly, writing about Scar Tissue, praised Brady as “one of the most convincingly heroic and likable of the contemporary sleuths.”

And the Florida Times-Union, reviewing Muscle Memory, noted that “Mystery lovers will thoroughly enjoy Brady and the other characters that Tapply creates… one of the best in the game.”

Another little delight for me has always been the subtle crossover with Rick Boyer’s Doc Adams series. Tapply and Boyer were close friends, and in almost every Coyne novel there’s a sly reference to Doc Adams. Shadow of Death is no exception — it’s brief, but it’s there!

Shadow of Death, like most of the Coyne novels, can be enjoyed on its own. If you haven’t tried Tapply before, this would be a fine place to start. I still have two more Brady Coyne books waiting on my shelf, including Outwitting Trolls, which I’ll save for last.

P.S. Don’t overlook the Stoney Calhoun books. Those three are shorter, but equally strong — and best read in order.

Return to Roots Author’s Page
Return to William G Tapply Page

The Long and Faraway Gone – Lou Berney – A Can’t Put Downer!

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The Long and Faraway Gone – Lou Berney

A while ago I purchased  the Kindle edition of Lou Berney’s book The Long and Faraway Gone.. Like many of the books I have purchase through Bookbub, it has been in my Kindle unread. Well, something made me take a look at it the other day and I start reading it.

It didn’t take long for me to get swept up in the story.   So for the last few days I literally did not want to put the books down. Last night it was getting close to midnight, as I was finishing the book.  I could barely keep my eyes open , but I was determined to finish. And finish I did, just on the other side of midnight exhausted but satisfied and not ready to go to sleep!

The Long And Faraway Gone’s Awards

The bottom line is the book is damn good! Which is the reason Lou Berney won the following awards……

Barry Award for Best Paperback Original (2016)
Macavity Award for Best Mystery (2016),
Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original (2016)
Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original (2016)

Characters and Plot

Wyatt Rivers a Las Vegas Private Investigator and Julianna Rosales a Registered Nurse in Oklahoma City are the two main characters in the book. Both are searching for answers concerning tragic events from their pasts.

Wyatt Rivers

Wyatt Rivers travels to Oklahoma City for a major client. He was hired to investigate the harassment of a former Las Vegas waitress, at the music venue she inherited from a man she had befriended in Las Vegas but otherwise hardly knew. The question is by whom.

But the trip also takes Wyatt back to his hometown and the summer of 1986 and a movie house robbery that left six of his friends dead. Wyatt  needs to find answers: How did the robbers really gain access to the movie theater? And why is he still here?

Julianna Rosales

Meanwhile, Julianna is likewise searching for answers. Her question is What happened to her sister Genevieve on that summer night in 1986?  The night Genevieve left her younger sister Julianna alone on the Oklahoma fairgrounds and disappeared into the night.

After twenty-six years the prime suspect in the case has resurfaced and Julianna will stop at nothing to get him to tell her what really happened that night.

Bottom line

Once again the bottom line is that The Long And Faraway Gone is a terrific book. A wonderful tale  featuring two characters that you can root for. Two characters searching for answers concerning tragic incidents that have mystified them and disturbed their lives for years. The reader is, as puzzled as they are, until the last pages of the book. From Kirkus Review:

 Berney’s novel is most truly a thoughtful exploration of memory and what it means to be a survivor. Elegiac and wistful, it is a lyrical mystery that focuses more on character development than on reaching the “big reveal.”  Full Review

So Check it Out!

 

The Demon Crown – Science, History and Action Collide!

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The Demon Crown byJames Rollins  Sigma Force #13

The Demon Crown is  Book # 13 in the Sigma Force series from James Rollins. I think  it just may be the best book in the series.  I have written before that I love books that not only are good stories, but also teach me something new. Well, James Rollins does that just about as well as anyone writing today.

I don’t believe that there are many authors ,who provide six plus pages of notes to their readers, explaining what aspects of the story are true and what was made up by the author. However, that is just what Rollins does with each book. In The Demon Crown there are both a variety of historical and  scientific facts that form the basis of the story. So I learn a lot during this Sigma Force adventure!

About the Story

In The Demon Crown the Sigma Force must battle an act of eco-terrorism the likes the world has never seen.   While on sabbatical from the Sigma Force Gray Pierce and Seichan are caught up in that attack. An attack by swarm of ancient deadly wasps that may require nuking the Hawaiian Islands to contain the threat!

The swarm is linked to a piece of amber that James Smithson called The Demon Crown. He claimed that what was trapped in that block of Amber, discovered in a salt mine near the Baltic Sea could unleash “the very hordes of hell upon this world”

The Crown is discovered in 1903 by Alexander Graham Bell, when he went to Italy to bring the bones of James Smithson to America. The Crown remained sealed in a hidden room in the Smithsonian until 1944. In that  year the Demon Crown was stolen. And now the thief is unleashing those hordes on the world!!

Now Gray, Seichan and the rest of the Sigma Force have three days to discover who.has unleashed this terror. And to find a cure for the havoc the swarm is causing on the environment and the people of Hawaii and on Seichan.

While Gray and Seichan are tracking the perpetrator in the Pacific, another Sigma crew travels to the Baltic and Poland to track down the source of the Demon Crown. As such  they hope to find a method to combat the deadly wasps and maybe a possible cure. The trip takes them to Tallinn, Estonia then along the ancient Amber Road to Poland and finally the Weiliczka Salt Mines! The question throughout their quests is will they be in time!!

Bottom Line:

As far as I’m concerned The Demon Crown is a five-star book! It has everything I look for in a thriller. An action-packed fast-moving story, with great characters and a barrel load of stuff that was new to me!

I knew very little about James Smithson the Englishman who bequeathed his scientific collection to the US. That inheritance formed the foundation of the Smithsonian Institute.

Additionally the scientific information about the wasps was at times over my head but was utterly fascinating. And the thoughts of containing an environmental attack like the one portrayed in The Demon Crown was scary!

The Weiliczka Salt Mines

Finally, the information about Amber and the Weiliczka Salt Mines was also extremely interesting. Since I knew nothing about the history of salt mining in Poland. So I obviously didn’t know anything about the Cathedrals, rooms and various carvings I  the subterranean labyrinth of the mine. Here is a picture of the show piece of the mine the Chapel of St. Kinga all carved out of salt! You can read more about the mine at Wikipedia and at the web-page for the mine.

 

Anyway The Demon Crown is great so check it out! As for me, I’m returning to the town of Promise Falls , New York  via Linwood Barclay’s latest Parting Shot