Confederates in the Attic - Tony Horwitz

   1998; 390 pages.  Full Title: Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genres : Travelogue; U.S. History; Civil War; Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    I’ve always enjoyed studying history.  History classes were my favorites in Junior High and High School, and helped prop up my GPA in college.  The best parts of History studies were the sections about wars.  All sorts of wars, including the American Civil War.

 

    I grew up in Pennsylvania, and the Gettysburg battlefield was about about an hour from our house.  One time I got a chance to walk through the national park there.  I stood behind the cannons of the Union defenses, mentally relived the bloody fighting on Little Round Top, and sensed the desperation that the Confederate soldiers felt as they were cut down during Pickett’s Charge.  I was an avid Civil War enthusiast.

 

    So was Tony Horwitz.  He spent the better part of three summers visiting all sorts of Civil War sites, then wrote a book about his experiences: Confederates in the Attic.  Compared to him, I was a Farb.

 

    I was a what??  Hey, be cool now.  Don’t have a Wargasm.

 

What’s To Like...

    There are fifteen chapters in Confederates in the Attic.  Tony Horwitz’s travels and conversations are presented in chronological order, and for the most part take place in the South, since that’s where almost all of the fighting was done.  My favorite chapters, and yours may vary, were:

    05. Dying for Dixie  (Kentucky)

    06. A Farb of the Heart  (Virginia)

    10. The Civil Wargasm  (Virginia and beyond)

    11. Gone With the Window  (Georgia)

    14. I Had a Dream  (Alabama)

 

    I liked the “balance” in the author’s telling of his interactions with folks in the Deep South.  Tony Horwits is a Yankee (he was born in Washington D.C.), and most of the locals he meets and interviews are staunch Dixie diehards.  Their outlooks on their present situation range from “can’t we all just get along?” to “the war ain’t over yet.”  The “truth” about the Andersonville prison seemed to be an especially contentious issue. 

 

    The author also gets introduced to, and quickly enlists in “Reenactment” squads, which I found fascinating.  I assumed participants in Reenactments were just wannabee actors playing their roles; it turns out that the “Hardliners” in that group go to great lengths to fully experience the miserable life of soldiers in the Civil War.

 

    I loved the attention Tony Horwitz gives to the “myth versus reality” aspect of Civil War history. An example of this is given in the first excerpt below.  There are dozens more.  The Battle of Shiloh seems to have been particularly fictionalized, and the “Minie Ball Pregnancy”, which I was taught as being factual, is apparently pure hokum.

 

    Confederates in the Attic is a trivia lover’s delight.  You’ll learn the etymology of the word “deadline”, and how The Citadel college got its name.  I was surprised to learn that one of my favorite writers, Ambrose Bierce, fought in the Battle of Shiloh, and that you can visit the grave of Stonewall Jackson’s arm.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 2,043 ratings and 597 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.10/5 based on 25,050 ratings and 2,165 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Sybaritic (adj.) : fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure.

Others: Coffle (n.); Guidon (n.) .

 

Excerpts...

    Fort Sumter wasn’t yet finished when the Confederate commander in Charleston, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, received orders to “proceed to reduce it.”  Beauregard carried out this dietlike instruction at dawn on April 12, 1861, when the rebels unleashed an artillery barrage from batteries ringing the harbor.

    The Union garrison inside Sumter fired back until the fort’s wood barracks caught fire, forcing the men to surrender.  Incredibly, the only fatality during the thirty-four-hour artillery duel was a Confederate horse.  But when Beauregard permitted his foes to fire a 100-gun salute before lowering the Stars and Stripes, one of the shots misfired and killed two Northern soldiers—the first of 620,000 men who would die in the struggle that followed.  (pg. 46)

 

    The next morning, I toured what little there was to see of Elba, a town of 4,000 perched beside the Pea River.  I asked a Chamber of Commerce official if Elba had any historic sites I might visit.  “There’s that bug statue over in Enterprise,” she said, handing me a pamphlet about the neighboring town.  In a bizarre act of homage, Enterprise had erected a monument to the crablike pest that ravaged Alabama cotton fields seventy years ago.  “In profound appreciation of the boll weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity,” the inscription read.  The weevil had forced cotton farmers to diversify, and Enterprise was now a leading peanut-growing center.  (pg. 344)

 

I was midway to Gettysburg with a live chicken slung over one shoulder when I realized my Civil War odyssey had come to an end.  (pg. 379)

    There’s only a small amount of profanity in Confederates in the Attic, 10 instances in the first 20% of the book.  Almost all of the cussing is in direct quotes of the folks that Tony Horwitz is interviewing.  Three of those first ten cusswords were f-bombs and one was a racial epithet.

 

    I only notice one typo in the whole book: hanger/hangar.  Kudos to the beta-readers and editors.

 

    The worst thing I can say about Confederates in the Attic is that after a while, the rationalizations used by diehard Dixie devotees to justify their antipathy for all damn-Yankees get repetitive and tedious.  That’s not Tony Horwitz’s fault; indeed, he mentions this a couple of times in the book.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  In addition to “farb” and “wargasm”, the other new bit of slang I encountered was “knob knowledge”.  Tony Horwitz cites it as a collegiate term used at The Citadel, but we had this at Penn State when I was there.  Pass your knob knowledge test and you can toss your beanie away!

Brothers Keepers - Donald Westlake

   1975; 257 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Hard-boiled Crime; New York City Fiction; Urban Life.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    The Order of St. Crispin is certainly not the biggest group of monks within the Roman Catholic Church.  Indeed, at their monastery in New York City, there are only sixteen of the brethren.

 

    But they have found peace there.  Their abbey sits on a large plot of land, with high, windowless walls that make its monks forget that they live on busy Park Avenue.  It’s an island of calm in a sea of urban hustle-and-bustle.

 

    Technically they don’t own the site, but they’ve been paying a nominal annual rent for nigh unto two centuries.  It’s quite the pittance for some very valuable property, but everyone is happy about the arrangement.  Until now.

 

    Someone wants to buy the old monastery and the land it’s on, tear it down, and build stores in its place.  Holy Smokes!  Surely there’s a lease, and surely it specifies some sort of protection the Order has against this!  Let’s check it to make sure.

 

    Erm, yeah.  The only copy of the lease the monastery has seems to have disappeared.

 

What’s To Like...

    Brothers Keepers is told from the first-person POV of one of the monks at the abbey, Brother Benedict.  He’s actually the one who first uncovers the takeover plot, since one of his duties is to leave the monastery every Sunday, go to the local newsstand, and purchase the Sunday New York Times edition.

 

   The main storyline is of course figuring out how to save the monastery’s present location, but other plot threads crop up as well.  Finding the missing lease is critical, and if that can’t be done, then let’s see if we can find a copy of it.  The owner of the property certainly has one. 

 

    But there is an equally intriguing personal side thread.  Brother Benedict is asked to accompany the head abbot, Brother Oliver, when they go to discuss things with various worldly people who can influence the decision whether to raze the monastery or not.  This leads to Brother Benedict “Traveling” (the word is always capitalized in the story) by himself.  He’s exposed to “the Ways of the Flesh”, something he gave up years ago when he entered the brotherhood.  This leads to an additional plotline: will Brother Benedict recant his vows and leave the monastery?

 

    I liked the way Donald Westlake portrays life in a monastery in the modern world.  We get convincing glimpses into the lives and history of all sixteen monks, plus one very bedraggled priest who stops by once a week to take confession from each monk. 

    I also enjoyed going back in time—Brothers Keepers was written fifty years ago—to a very different world.  One with typewriters, smoking in public places, Ford Pintos, telephone operators, and a Sunday New York Times issue that will only cost you 60 cents.

 

    The ending resolves the main storyline and all of the secondary ones, although the door is left open as to whether Brother Benedict spends the rest of his life in a monastery.  But since Donald Westrlake passed away in 2008, I suspect this will remain a one-and-done novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 340 ratings and 35 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.81/5 based on 723 ratings and 89 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    The Solinex Building was one rectangle repeated seven million times.  In glass, in chrome, and in what might have been but probably was not stone.  It was set back from the public sidewalk, leaving space for a fountain with a statue in it.  The statue was an abstract, but seemed to represent a one-winged airplane with measles which had just missed its landing on an aircraft carrier and was diving nose-first into the ocean.  At least that’s the way it looked to me.

    Apparently it looked otherwise to Brother Oliver.  “Lot’s wife,” he commented as we went by.  (loc. 966)

 

    “You’ve discussed this with Father Banzolini?

    “Only certain aspects of it,” I said.  “In confession.”

    “Oh.”

    “Father Banzolini thinks I’m temporarily insane.”

    Brother Oliver gave me a look of utter astonishment.  “He what?”

    “Well, he didn’t phrase it that way,” I said.  “He just said I wasn’t responsible for my actions at the moment.”

    Brother Oliver shook his head.  “I’m not entirely convinced a Freudian priest is a viable hybrid.”  (loc. 2104)

 

Kindle Details…

    Brothers Keepers presently sells for $7.99 at Amazon.  There are a couple dozen Donald Westlake novels available in e-book format, a majority of which fall in the $7.99-$9.99 price range.  Alternatively, you can wait and hope for them to be discounted, which happens on occasion.

 

“What a lot of Buildings there are,” I said.  And yet they want more.” (. . .) “It’s an edifice complex,” Brother Oliver explained.  (loc. 958)

    There’s very little profanity in the first half of Brothers Keepers, when Brother Benedict spends most of his time in the abbey.  Later on, when he’s immersed in worldliness, and has resumed using his birth name, the rate of cussing picks up.  Still, I only counted 33 instances in the whole story.  Plus one adult situation.

 

    The bigger issue was the ending.  I envisaged three or four possible ways to resolve the set of plotlines, and very much looked forward to seeing which path was used.  Instead, Donald Westlake comes up with a different one, which normally is a plus.  But here it’s unexciting, felt rushed, and disappointing.  At least to me.

 

    Still, the story kept me interested up until the end, with plenty of subtle wit and keen insight into living in the heart of New York City in a spiritual retreat.  But if you've never read anything by Donald Westlake, just don’t make this your introduction to his work.  Instead, choose one of the books in his “Dortmunder” series.  Every one of those is good.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  I was pleasantly surprised by nod to one of the most cutting-edge comedy acts tin television history: The Smothers Brothers Show.  It was one of my favorite TV shows at that time, and that still holds true.

Edgedancer - Brandon Sanderson

   2014; 268 pages.  Full Title: “Edgedancer: From the Stormlight Archive”.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Action-Adventure, Epic Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Meet Lift.  A child of the streets, and just ten years old.  Although that’s a bit misleading, since she’s claimed to be that age for three years in a row now.

 

    She survives on the streets by the use of her wits, plus a couple of handy talents she’s somehow picked up along the way.  Her traveling companion, Wyndle, is also a creature (a “spren”, actually) with some unusual abilities.

 

    Lift and Wyndle prefer to avoid attention.  As long as they can find a bit of food to eat and a place to sleep at night, they’re content.  When they can’t find those things, Lift uses one of her talents to find food and shelter.  For instance, she’s an excellent pickpocket and cat burglar.

 

    As is true with any street urchin, most people go out of their way to pretend not to notice her and Wyndle.  With one exception.  Lift calls him the Man in Black.  He’s been trailing them for quite some time now.  Doggedly.  Like a bloodhound on a scent.

 

    What could he possibly want?

 

What’s To Like...

    Edgedancer is set in Brandon Sanderson’s “Stormlight” fantasy world, but it is not technically part of it.  Instead, it's apparently a plot thread tangent featuring a minor character from Book 2, Words of Radiance.  The book opens with a 57-page-long Prologue (22% Kindle), and reportedly is a retelling of a portion of Book 2.  I’ve only read the first book, The Way of Kings, so it was all new to me.

 

    Both the Prologue and the main story follow the adventures of Lift and Wyndle.  The storyline is YA-oriented, which means I'm not the target audience.  Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s storytelling.  The thrills-&-spills were nail-biting, and the banter between our two protagonists was witty throughout.

 

    The character-building is equally superb.  One expects the protagonists to be well developed, and indeed they are.  But the secondary characters, such as “the Stump”, the old philosopher, and “Darkness” (the Man in Black) are deeply detailed as well.

 

    There is also a coming-of-age aspect to the story.  Lift may have some fabulous talents, but she’s not a master of any of them, and almost certainly has other yet-to-be-discovered ones.  And she finds herself facing a bunch of formidable challenges, ranging from actions that will determine who rules, to caring about the poor and homeless.

 

    I liked the way the magic system worked.  Lift has been endowed with some powerful spellcasting (she labels them “Awesomeness”), but they have limitations and are not foolproof.  For instance, Awesomeness gets used up rapidly and is only replenished by eating lots of food.

 

Kindle Details…

    Edgedancer sells for $5.99 right now at Amazon.  The five full-length (and I do mean “full-length”) e-books in the series will cost you anywhere from $11.99 to $20.99 apiece.  This may sound pricey until you look at the page-count of each volume.  Brandon Sanderson has lots of other series and standalones for your reading pleasure, generally in the $8.99-$12.99 price range, many of which also have hefty page-counts.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 18,637 ratings and 782 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14*/5, based on 153,409 ratings and 11,131 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “He told me tonight was a good night for sneaking.  I owed it to him.  Besides, I wanted to be here in case he got into trouble.  I might need to help.”

    “Why bother?”

    Why indeed?  “Someone has to care,” she said, starting down the hallway.  “Too few people care these days.

    “You say this while coming in to rob people.”

    “Sure.  I ain’t gonna hurt them.”

    “You have an odd sense of morality, mistress.”

    “Don’t be stupid,” she said.  “Every sense of morality is odd.”  (loc. 296)

 

    “What body part do you feel that you are most like?” he asked.  “Are you the hand, always busy doing work?  Are you the mind, giving direction?  Do you feel that you are more of a . . . leg, perhaps?  Bearing up everyone else, and rarely noticed?”

    (. . .) 

    Lift eyed him.  Great.  Angry twig running an orphanage; weird old man outside it.  She dusted off her hands.  “If I’m anything, I’m a nose.  ‘Cuz I’m filled with all kinds of weird crud, and you never know what’s gonna fall out.”  (loc. 1175)

 

 “Guard, do something!  There’s a dirty refugee in my grain!”  (loc. 888)

    I didn’t note any profanity in Edgedancer.  When the situation call for it, Brandon Sanderson uses the euphemisms.  “Starving” and “storming” replace f-bombs, and if you want to invoke a deity, you say “by Yaszir himself”.  I really like this way of handling fantasy world cussing.  There also were no “adult situations” that I recall. 

 

      Several reviewers felt the ending was rushed and incomplete.  They have a point, but I think such a finale is inherent when you’re penning a tangential storyline.  Edgedancer chronicles a phase of Lift’s life, but is not indispensable to the overarching storyline in the Stormlight series.

 

    Edgedancer is both a standalone book and set in what is one of Brandon Sanderson’s most popular series.  Although it’s technically true that, thanks to the Prologue, you don’t have to read the whole series first, I didn’t, and this is one of the few cases where I wish I had.

 

    Still, an author with the writing skills of Brandon Sanderson can make this work, and yey again, I found his storyline completely mesmerizing.  Despite me not being in the target audience, the book held my attention from start to finish.  Now I just have to get motivated to read Book 2 of the series.  It is a mere 1,328 pages long.

 

    9 Stars.  Speaking of lengthiness, can you think of any other book that’s 268 pages long and described as a “novella”?  I can’t.  But each of the five books in this series is about 1,300 pages long, so I guess in this case that label is applicable here.

A Dead Red Gamble - R.P. Dahlke

    2018; 163 pages.  Book 6 (out of 7) in the “Dead Red Mystery” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Women Sleuths; Crime Mystery; Arizona.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

 

    Order in the court now, somebody shot young Judge Gavin Borrega!  In the courthouse!  In broad daylight!

 

    Where’s the security video?  Where were the court guards?  Heck, rumor has it the judge had even hired some private guards for added security.  Where were they?

 

    Maybe it was politically motivated.  It’s been said that Judge Borrega was being groomed for a run for the governor’s office.  Maybe it was some jilted lover.  Gavin was indeed a handsome fellow.  Maybe it was our hero, Private Investigator Lalla Bains.  She had a meeting scheduled with the judge at the same time as the murder took place.

 

    Hmmm.  Or maybe it had to do with those dozens of fluttering, squawking chickens which somebody dumped into the courthouse just before the shooting took place!  That couldn’t have been just a coincidence!

 

What’s To Like...

    A Dead Red Gamble is the sixth, and penultimate book in R.P. Dahlke’s Dead Red Mystery series.  It is set in Cochise County in southern Arizona, in the fictional town of Wishbone.

 

    The story's structure is the usual for this series.  Lalla and her PI partner (and cousin) Pearlie get drawn into investigating Borrega’s murder, albeit in an unofficial capacity.  Lalla’s husband, Caleb, is the police chief, and would rather his wife sit this case out.  That’s reasonable.  Her father, Noah Bains, is critically ill, which leads to the problem of who’s going watch Noah’s two foster children, Rocky and Jimmy.

 

    Naturally, the initial murder case rapidly gets more complex, with other killings, both past and present, coming into play.  There are other personal and professional issues as well.  Pearlie and her beau, Harley, are no longer on speaking terms, and neither will say why.  Lalla and Pearlie’s move into a new office, only to find it’s …erm… broomed.  And the cash-strapped Bains-&-Bains Detective Agency can receive a healthy bonus check if they can provide proof that an insurance client is faking an injury.  Hmm.  How do you go about proving that?

 

    That’s a lot of plot threads to deal with in ja novella-length book, but R.P. Dahlke manages to get them all tied up.  The story is told in the first-person POV (Lalla’s), and the chapters are relatively short (8½ pages average), with 19 of them covering the 163 pages.  A Dead Red Gamble is both a standalone tale and part of a series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 326 ratings and 60 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.38*/5, based on 208 ratings and 30 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    I felt sorry for Allison.  I heard her smarts had landed her a co-anchor job on Channel Five.  Unfortunately, the station was following the growing Fox News practice of requiring female anchors to wear tight dresses and enough makeup to look like they were nightclubbing instead of reciting yesterday’s city council fights and today’s traffic jams.  Today, someone had decided that she could do without her glasses and things weren’t going too well for the poor girl.  (loc. 727)

 

    Since I promised to do Pearlie’s process serves while she went to Phoenix to get information on Judge Borrega’s stepfather, the senator, I got out her list and checked off the ones for which I’d need special props.

    What sounds really simple, hand a person a summons to court, write up a report and turn it into the court or the law firm, doesn’t always go well.  At least not for me.  Pearlie, with her big blue eyes, dimples and full-figured curves is a natural.  Women appreciate her gutsy attitude for the job, and men, well they usually drool, so process serving is easy for Pearlie.  (loc. 1423)

 

Kindle Details…

    At the moment, A Dead Red Gamble sells for $4.99 at Amazon.  The other six books in the series are all in the $3.99-$4.99 price range.  The author has three other e-books available, each priced at $4.99.

 

“You can’t hire a guy with Prosopagnosia.”  (loc. 1543)

    There’s only a small amount of profanity.  I noted just 6 instances in the first 25% of the book, five “hells” and one “damn”.  I don’t recall any “adult situations” in the story.

 

    The editing is good, and is mostly confined to punctuation issues: a missing comma here, a misplaced apostrophe there, etc.  There were a couple instances of hyphens inserted into compound words (example: news-people/newspeople), but I have a feeling those crept in during the conversion-to-digital stage.

 

    My biggest issue was with the ending,.  It felt rushed to me.  For most of the book Lalla noses around, coming up with a variety of possible suspects and motives.  That was good.  But instead of things building to an exciting climax, or Lalla using Sherlockian reasoning to peg the suspect, one of the characters simply reveals to her (and the reader) who killed who and why.  I found it disappointing.  I don’t recall the earlier books in the series having endings like this.

 

    Bottom line: if you primarily read cozy mysteries for the “cozy” human activities and not the “mystery” elements, you’ll enjoy A Dead Red Gamble, despite its brevity  However, the Mystery angle always takes precedence for me.

 

    6½ Stars.  Acronym Alert!!  The term “BOLO” popped up in the story, and without a translation.  My geezer brain tried various combinations, most of them involving “Buy One, L-Something, One”, none of which worked.  It turns out to be police-speak for “Be On the Lookout”.  Now you know.

Unwanted: Dead or Alive - Gene Shelton

   1996; 205 pages.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Buck and Dobie” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Classic Western; Crime Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Meet the cowpunchers Buck Hawkins and Dobie Garrett.  Best friends.  Good workers.  Loyal to whoever is willing to hire them.

 

    Right now, they work for W.C. Milhouse, owner of the Singletree Ranch.  At the moment, they’re freezing their tushes off because winters are mighty cold out there in the Texas panhandle, and they have to routinely go looking for Singletree Ranch cattle that have strayed out to the wilds, in a couple feet of snow, and are starving to death.

 

    Alas, that’s a hopeless task.  Even the cows that haven’t strayed away are dying from a lack of food at the Singletree Ranch. W.C. Milhouse is in financial trouble.  Buck and Dobie are worried that he's going to be forced to lay them off.

 

    I’ve got news for you two.  You’re about to find yourselves in a heap more trouble than that!

 

What’s To Like...

    Unwanted: Dead or Alive is written in what I’d call “classical western” style that you find in novels by Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour.  But Gene Shelton infuses it with a bunch of wittiness which gives the story a more lighthearted tone.  The text, especially the dialogue, is written in “Texas cowboy drawl”, which fits nicely into the book’s tone without ever getting tedious.  I was impressed.

 

    Dobie and Buck quickly find themselves out of work and framed for crimes punishable by hanging.  Since they’re being accused of being outlaws (or “owlhoots” in cowboy vernacular), our pair of heroes decide they might as well become desperados to make ends meet.  After all, how hard can it be to poke a gun at a store owner or a bank teller and tell them to “hand over the cash!”

 

    I enjoyed it that most of the story is set in the Texas Panhandle.  The company I worked for had three chemical plants in that area, including one on the Canadian River, which gets mentioned frequently in Unwanted: Dead or Alive.  The two towns cited here, Mobeetie and Jacksboro, are real places, but I'd never heard of them.  I spent my time in Dumas and Borger.

 

    There’s lots of action and plenty of clever dialogue, but things never descend into outright silliness.  Despite a scarcity of ill-gotten money, Buck and Dobie’s reputation as murderous robbers grows rapidly.  So does the bounty on their heads.  They eventually take on a third partner (revealed in the Amazon blurb) who, despite also having no experience as an owlhoot, helps them nicely learn the trade.

 

    The ending is both over-the-top and heartwarming.  Everyone gets their just desserts and our protagonists ride off into the sunset, although I wouldn’t say that they live happily ever after.  There is a sequel, but that’s as far as things go, series-wise.

 

Excerpts...

    The wind had eased a bit.

    “I’ll be glad to get back home,” Hawkins said.  “Hope the boss has got that old potbellied stove fired up.  Can’t tell where my toes are.”

    “You’ll find ‘em.  When you pull off your boots and socks, they’ll drop off on the floor.  String ‘em up on a rawhide thong and they’ll make a right nice necklace for some gal.”  Garrett spat again and wiped a gloved hand across the dense stubble on his chin.  “Ain’t toes I’m fretted over losin’.  I’m gonna have to pee sometime before August.”  (pg. 99)

 

    Buck said, “How did you find out so much about him?”

    Marylou’s slight smile held a slightly wicked touch.  “Women have certain advantages over men when it comes to gathering information.”

    Hawkins’s heart sank.  “Marylou, you—you didn’t—”

    “Sleep with him?  Hell, no.  I just let him sneak a few peeks down the front of my dress.  Get a man’s eyes busy and his brain locks up.”  (pg. 148)

 

Kindle Details…

    Unwanted: Dead or Alive presently is free at Amazon.  The sequel, How the West Was Lost, is priced at $4.99.  Gene Shelton has another dozen or so e-books at Amazon, most of which are Westerns, none of which I’ve read.  They are in the $2.99-$7.99 price range.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Swamper (n.) : a general assistant; a handyman; helper

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 3,783 ratings and 695 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.05*/5, based on 1,458 ratings and 112 reviews.

 

“Grabbin’ a wildcat by the hind leg ain’t the hard part.  Turnin’ loose is where it gets chancy.”  (pg. 160)

    There’s a moderate amount off profanity in Unwanted: Dead or Alive; I counted 15 instances in the first 10%, about evenly split between “damn” and “hell”.  Once or twice, adult situations are hinted at, but there’s nothing R-rated about it.  See the second excerpt, above, for an example of this.

 

    There were only a pair of typos, and both were punctuation errors: two persons speaking in a single paragraph; and a period where a comma should be.  Kudos to whoever did the editing.  There were also a half dozen weird links (labeled “wes1” through “wes6”) that linked to what appeared to be some sort of editing notes.  I suspect the blame for those falls on the formatters, and that they will be deleted in future e-book editions of this. 

 

     I had some difficulty keeping track of which horses belonged to which outlaws, but that cleared up once I realized that several of the characters used two horses, one for riding, the other for carrying supplies.  See the cover image above.

 

    That’s all I can quibble about.  For me, Unwanted: Dead or Alive was an interesting tweak of the classic western novel, which is not a genre I read very often.  So if you are tired of the same old formula used in writing oaters, you'll probably find this a refreshing alternative.

 

    8 Stars.  One last quibble.  The rabbit dies.

Vita Brevis - Ruth Downie

   2016; 366 pages.  Book 7 (out of 8) in the “Medicus” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Cozy Mystery; Rome; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    Heads up, Imperial Rome!  Gaius Ruso has arrived!  He’s brought his wife Tilla, and 7-month-old daughter Mara, along with him.  And not much else, other than a bunch of medical equipment, since Ruso is a Medicus (“Doctor”) by trade, and just recently discharged from serving in a Roman legion.

 

    The first thing to do, of course, is to open up a practice and get some money coming in.  He hopes his former military superior, Publius Accius, who’s somewhere in Rome, will put in a good word for him.  Open some doors.

 

    Well, speaking of opening doors, one just did.  Kleitos, a doctor here in Rome just left town unexpectedly, leaving a whole bunch of patients in the lurch and a fully furnished, doctor’s residence.  What a perfect opportunity for Ruso!  He’s moving in today, along with his family.

 

    He plans to set up quickly, and start seeing Kleitos’s patients immediately.  Oh, and he needs to get someone to remove that barrel sitting on the front porch.  It’s sealed, so who knows what’s in it, but it’s stinking to high Olympus.

 

What’s To Like...

    Vita Brevis is the seventh book in Ruth Downie’s (completed) Roman historical fiction “Medicus” series.  I’ve read the first six books, but that was ten years ago.  The series is set in 123 CE, at the height of the Roman empire, although I think this is the first one where Ruso actually sets foot in the capital city.

 

    The mystery angle starts almost immediately; the reeking barrel is left on Kleitos’s porch on page 4, with Ruso making his entrance shortly thereafter.  The chapters are short: there are 76 of them covering 366 pages.  There’s a “Cast of Characters” section at the start of the book, which I found really helpful, due to my 10-year hiatus from this series.

 

    As expected, a relatively simple mystery (what’s in the stinking barrel?) quickly becomes more complex.  Where did Kleitos go, and why?  Why do thugs keep knocking on Ruso’s/Kleitos’s door asking for payment for “services rendered”?  Can Ruso and his former boss patch things up?  Why didn't Kleitos label his potions bottles?

 

    One of the things I love about this series is Ruth Downie’s skill at setting the story in a believable historical epoch.  One example: all cities had “dung carts” in those days.  Horses and donkeys make great beasts of burden as transportation on the streets of Rome, but in a city this size, they generate a lot of poop on a daily basis.

 

    I thought the author’s handling of the sensitive issue of slaver was also deftly done.  The fate of being a slave was a dicey affair.  It all depended on the master.  Slaves also came in all colors., and many of them eventually garnered enough money to buy their freedom.  The medical scenes were also skillfully rendered.   Herbs and potions were of course commonly prescribed, but sometimes surgery was necessary.

 

    The ending is well thought-out.  It’s not filled with thrills & spills, but that's okay.  Instead it's a product of Ruso's deductive reasoning.  And his ingestion of poppies.

 

Kewlest New Word…

Bodge (n.): something that is completed quickly and carelessly.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,098 ratings and 96 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.13*/5, based on 1,456 ratings and 157 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “And how is your wife enjoying Rome?”

    “She’s very busy with the baby,” said Ruso.

    “Oh, dear, yes.  I heard something about that.”

    “Parenthood is a marvelous thing,” Ruso assured him.  “You should try it yourself.”

    “I’m glad to hear it,” Metellus told him.  “Especially after the rumors.”

    Ruso said, “It never pays to listen to rumors.”

    “Actually, I find it pays rather well.”  (loc. 437)

 

    “Horatia was only one opportunity among many.”

    “That’s all he thought of her?”

    “Don’t be silly, Ruso.  Daughters of rich families are part of the business.  They’re born knowing that.  It’s their duty to contribute, and since they can’t do much else, the least they can do is provide helpful alliances and grandchildren.  Not everyone can marry for love and live on beans like you do.”  (loc. 4348)

 

Kindle Details…

    Vita Brevis presently sells for $9.99 at Amazon, as do the other seven books in the series.  Ruth Downie also has a short story, The Bear and the Wolf, and a novella, Prima Facie, both set in the Roman Empire for your Kindle, priced at $0.99 and $2.99 respectively. 

 

Across the room, Mara put her toes in her mouth and sucked them.  (loc. 1371)

    The profanity is sparse in Vita Brevis, so little of it that I forgot to keep count.  I’m sure there were less than ten instances in the entire book.

 

    The quibbles are negligible.  The only one I can think of is subjective: Ruso can be dense at times.  You might solve the mysteries and the crimes before he does.  Heck, it took him, and Tilla, an unbelievable amount of time to determine why that barrel on the front porch smells so rotten, and why someone wants payment for delivering it to Kleitos's house.

 

    Overall, the plusses far outweigh the minuses in Vita Brevis, and it was nice to read a cozy mystery where the author pays just as much attention to developing the mystery as she does to the "coziness".  There’s one more book in this series, Memento Mori, so I gotta hit the used-book stores to find a copy since I can’t remember the last time I saw Ruth Downie’s e-books discounted at Amazon.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  Early on, Ruso scrapes up enough money to buy him a trio of slaves.  Two of them evolve into important characters in the story; but the third simply runs away the first chance he gets.  We aren’t even told his name.  I kept waiting for this plot thread to make an impact on the storyline, but it never does.  I’m hoping he shows up in the final book.

Redneck Kaiju - Wil Radcliffe

   2025; 185 pages.  Full Title: Redneck Kaiju: The Scavengers of Deep Hollow.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Dark Fantasy, Horror.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    It came out of the mist like a myth; a giant man-shaped goat.  Thorns twisted like serpents.  Muscles like tree trunks.  Cloven hoofs that cracked stone.  And eyes . . . God, those eyes . . . yellow like wildfire.  (pg. 7).

 

    And it kicked the stuffing out of a 12-man squadron of US Marines.  Patrick “Panther” McMorn was one of the lucky survivors, and still has nightmares about that encounter.

 

    But that was in the past, in Afghanistan, and who knows what kinds of vile mutated beasts all the wars with chemical weapons over there may have been spawned.  Panther McMorn is a civilian now, back in his hometown of Deep Hollow, Indiana.  The only monsters here are in fairy tales.

 

    Yeah right.  In your dreams, Panther, in your dreams.

 

What’s To Like...

    The action in Redneck Kaiju starts right away; the monster-meeting excerpt given above occurs on the third page of the text.  There are two timelines, one in Afghanistan; the other in Deep Hollow.  The text switches between the two, but it is not confusing at all.

 

    I was unfamiliar with the term “Kaiju”, but it’s not a made-up word.  Google it; you’ll be glad you did.  The character development is excellent; I especially liked how Barry’s persona evolves as the story progresses.  Kira and Panther are also well-crafted.  Heck, even the dog’s character development is deftly done.

 

    Thrills and spills and kaiju critters abound.  It’s easy to determine who the bad guys are, but the real crux of the storyline is figuring out a way to stop them, and then repair their evil doings.  There are a wide variety of kaiju creatures to meet and discreetly avoid.  They differ in size, mentality, and temperament, but all of them are lethal.

 

    Everything builds to an exciting, over-the-top, ending, with a major plot twist thrown in just when I thought the story was winding up.  The final page hints that a sequel will follow, hopefully in the not-too-distant future!

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Luchador (n.) : a Mexican professional wrestler

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  5.0/5 based on 1 rating and 1 review.

    Goodreads: x.xx/5 based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Whatever was out there wasn’t trying to hide.  Heavy footfalls.  Breathing, maybe.  Slow and steady.  He didn’t feel fear, not exactly, but his muscles tensed, trained for impact.

    If it wanted to kill him, it probably could.

    He reached down, fingers brushing the handle of the knife on his belt.

    Then a snout pushed out of the brush.  A long tail wagged behind it.

    “Seriously?” Panther said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.  (pg. 12)

 

    She laughed for real this time.  Then she stood on her toes and kissed him deeply.  When they pulled apart, T-Bone gave a jealous grunt.

    Kira reached out and scratched the giant dog’s head.  “Take care of this big dummy,” she whispered.

    “I will,” Panther replied.

    “I was talking to the dog,” she said with a crooked smile.  (pg. 125)

 

Kindle Details…

    Redneck Kaiju currently costs $2.99 at Amazon, which is a super deal for a new release.  Wil Radcliffe has another half-dozen e-books for your Kindle, from his two earlier series: Noggle Stones and The Whisper King.  They range in price from $0.99 to $4.99 apiece.

 

“Holy crap.  Chemistry is way more violent than I thought.”  (pg. 72)

    There’s a light-to-moderate amount of profanity in Redneck Kaiju.  I counted 16 instances in the first 20%, including a couple of f-bombs; which extrapolates out to about 80 in the whole book.  Not bad for a horror tale.  There was also one roll-in-the-hay.

 

    I spotted only one typo: raises/raised.  Kudos to whoever did the editing on this.

 

    That’s it for the quibbles.  Redneck Kaiju is a fast-paced, well-written tale with a bit of wit thrown in for good measure.  There were no slow spots that I recall.  Simply put, the monsters come in droves, fast and furious, and there’s just no time to slow down.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  I liked the tip-of-the-hat to acclaimed Wyoming-born American artist Jackson Pollock.  I’ve been a fan of his ever since seeing his works in a gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming years ago.  It’s nice to see him getting a nod.