ICE

Ice, Karal Ann Marling

Here is an eclectic book!  I expected more information on ice formation, ice chemistry and physics – some scientific insights, but what a fun surprise.  Chapter 1 takes us in to the invention of ice cream and even shows us the recipe for Akutaq (Eskimo ice cream) – crisco, sugar, and berries that you fluff with a spoon and eat.  Or if you live in snow county it was suggested that you blend whipping cream, vanilla, and “clean, fresh snow bearing no signs of recent animal activity.”  You can learn about Eskimo branding that was the best selling ice cream confection – something that was developed by an Iowan after meeting with Russell Stover on a train ride (before Stover made his millions in chocolate),

That was chapter one.  Chapter two really strays into esoteric icelands.  We begin with Uncle Tom’s cabin and the famous crossing of ice floes on the Ohio river and continue to the King and I, before a short history of ice shows!

This book goes beyond eclectic.  The author looks for any and all connections to ice – literature, art, ice palaces, soldiers lost in glaciers, iceboxes to refrigerators, making artificial ice, Frankenstein, Snowmobiles, the painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware…  You get the idea.  It is like a stream of consciousness tied to ice.  Polar explorers, Moby Dick as a symbol for icebergs, eskimoes on display.  It is fun and strange.

A Boundary Water's History

A Boundary Water’s History, Stephan Wilbers

This small book is a pleasurable way to take a journey to canoe country in the winter when ice prevents the real canoes from floating.  Steve has created an unusual book - a family memoir blended with ruminations about the history of this national treasurer.

As voyeurs we can journey with their family of voyageurs as they paddle the lakes and enjoy the campsites of canoe country, but if you are not in to eavesdropping on another family and their passion for the land and lifestyle of canoe country, you can skim that portion and find the treasures of knowledge that are imparted in the quotes from Steve’s personal collection of Canoe Country books, or you can engage in thinking about the many issues that are part of this massive wilderness.

Steve introduces people and events that shape our perspective of the landscape as well as the political machinations needed to set aside this pristine beauty.  It is not written as a timeline narrative (although Steve has produced a timeline on his website that I share with my college students).  Rather aspects of the canoe country are inspired by actions, observations, and details of various trips which actually has the impact of making these wide ranging events feel more personal and related to our human experience.

Isaac's Storm

Isaac’s Storm, Erik Larson

Everyone knows about the hurricane in New Orleans, but we seldom look back at the storms that faced previous generations so this book is important to bring back the story of the worst hurricane in US history – Galveston, 1900.

The storm story revolves around Isaac Cline and the US weather service that was trying so hard to establish itself that they turned their back on the rest of the world resources.  In this case the weather service was jealous of the hurricane predictors in Cuba and were more interested in destroying the competition than listening to their warning about the storm that would finally make landfall in Galveston.

Cuban weather reports were being censored because the US weather bureau wanted to be in charge and they were not calling for a hurricane.  Isaac lived in Galveston, he was the official weather bureau agent there.  But no one really understood hurricanes and they did not think one could hit Galveston, so they were unprepared and they underestimated the signals that the clouds, wind and barometers gave out.

The book is good for understanding this classic convergence of natural forces and human error, but it is also quite good at describing the devastation and some of the personal stories that allow the reading insight into the tragedy and the terror.

Avian Architecture

Avian Architecture,  Peter Goodfellow

Suppose you wanted to describe the architectural design quality of nests, complete with blueprints – then this is the book you would want.  Illustrated with both photos and design prints you can explore the categories of each type of avian nest:

·        Scrapes

·        Holes and tunnels

·        Platforms

·        Aquatic

·        Cup-shaped

·        Domes

·        Mud

·        Hanging, woven and stitched

·        Mounds

·        Colonies

·        Courts and bowers

·        Edible nests

There are strange adaptations will placing deer pellets around the eggs as camouflage and case studies of individual bird species that use each style.  There even diagrams showing the construction process.  It is well illustrated and enlightening.

Beyond the Wall, Edward Abbey

Beyond The Wall, Edward Abbey,  1984

I have not read Edward Abbey in a long time, but I found this publication that collected 10 of his essays that were published in magazines and it was one I had missed.  What a pleasure to find new Abbey materials.

For the most part this is about Abbey’s love of the desert, but it also includes two river trips – Grand Canyon and in Alaska which are nice additions to the book since they break up the theme of no water.

However, it is Abbey the iconoclastic curmudgeon who entertains and shares his love of sparse and rugged.  These are the essays that put you in his backpack and let you wander the hot and dry.  I recommend a good cold drink in hand while you read.

My favorite excerpt, the one that captures the flavor of the collection is:

“There is something more in the desert, something that has no name.  I might call it a mystery – or simply Mystery itself, with an emphatically capital M.  Unlike forest or seashore, mountain or city, plain or swamp, the desert, any desert, suggests always the promise of something unforeseeable, unknown but desirable, waiting around the next turn in the canyon wall, over the next ridge or mesa, somewhere within the wrinkled hills.  What, exactly?  Well … a sort of treasure.  A kind of delight.  God?  Perhaps.  Gold?  Maybe. Grace?  Possibly.  But something a little more, a litter different, even from these.

“So there you are.  The secret revealed, the essence uncovered, we come right back to where we started.  The desert rat loves the desert because there is something about it that he cannot explain of even name.”

Ethan Allen

Ethan Allen, Willard Sterne Randall

I had to get this biography – Ethan Allen did not make furniture, but it seems as if that is all people can think of now.  He was a rebellious American before and after the war of independence and he and the Green Mountain Boys are a colorful part of our colonial/revolutionary history.  In fact, this man embodies rebellion and free thinking to the point where he made the other patriots nervous!

His story goes from Massachusetts to Connecticut to Vermont and in the end his story is the story of Vermont, the 14^th state.   His first brush with controversy is when he challenges the religions that were dominating and dictating to the colonies.  He challenges the religions, the religious leaders, and their message.  I loved it.  Of course it got him kicked out of multiple towns and began his adventures.

Eventually he ends up in that no man’s land that both New Hampshire and New York colonies are trying to claim.  Each colony wants the settlers to pay for their land and that would mean buying it twice.  To complicate things the royal governors of both colonies are selling the same land grants to different people.   And of course this is not something that Allen will tolerate.  He runs off the NY posse and gets a price on his head.  It does not bother Ethan Allen.

Allen organizes the Green Mountain boys and even leads the country in to battle when he takes Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain while the colonial leaders for insurrection are still talking about what to do.  Then he leads an attack on Montreal.  His military success was set back by captivity.  He was captured and kept in terrible conditions for 32 months with the British refusing to acknowledge the revolutionary men as soldiers – they are treated as criminals.  Put on a boat, kept in a box, taken to England and back to America, Allen survives the ordeal and writes a book that becomes a best seller about his time in the hands of the British and the loyalists.

“Between 1778, when he was released from captivity, and 1784 Ethan Allen served as commander in chief of Vermont’s militia, unelected member of its assembly, chief diplomat to the Continental Congress and the New England states, close personal adviser to Governor Chittenden, and ex officio judge of Vermont’s court of confiscation.  The war hero, the counselor of state, he became the public face of Vermont, inside and outside the republic.  All bluster and dash on the surface, Allen was all the while careful to urge Governor Chittenden to grasp any opportunity to correspond over the heads of the Vermont government and the Continental Congress, directly with General Washington.”

Statehood was denied over and over because of the bitterness of New York and Allen even negotiated to be recognized as a separate nation with Britain as a ploy to get the new US to bring him in.  He sympathized and sheltered the Shays Rebellion members and continued to threaten and push for things he felt was right.  In the end, Washington intervened on behalf of statehood.

Then Allen went on to marry a younger woman, to write “Reason, the only oracle of Man” that expressed his rejection of the powers of the church.  He attacked Christianity and other forms of revealed religion as a “torrent of superstition.”  And stated, “As far as we understand nature, we are become acquainted with the character of God, for the knowledge of nature is the revelation of God.”  This was in advance of Emerson and the transcendentalists.  Of course he caught ‘hell’ for expressing his views.

He died relatively young having never compromised on his belief in what was right and what was right was based on reason.  Vermont entered the US with a state constitution and laws that were much different than the rest of the nation and included the first complete exclusion of slavery.  There is a lot to admire here.

Last of the Mohicans

The Last of the Mohicans Graphic Novel

I have read the original book, but not for years, I have seen the movies, and my grandson Matthew loves the old black and white tv series (John Hart and Lon Chaney) that lasted for just a year.  Here is the story of the white and Indian partner far before the Lone Ranger and Tonto and it stars Indians both good and bad and white people both good and bad.  Cooper really did right epic works in a series of books on Hawkeye and Chingachgook.

The book I just read is very different, not in story but in style.  I like graphic novels and Marvel in its breif history of doing classic books did an outstanding job with this story.  Roy Thomas was the person who pulled the graphic presentation together and it features a nice artwork that is dark in design to capture the drama of this story.  Imagine allowing the Indians to take the two white women so the others could go free!

This is true to the original and pulls you into the story with more honesty than the movies have done.

Branch Rickey by Jimmy Breslin

Branch Rickey Jimmy Breslin

This is the Jackie Robinson story, but told about the leadership and drive of Branch Rickey to make the integration of baseball into a reality.  Rickey was financially tightfisted, but otherwise progressive.  He was a baseball man and led the St Louis Cardinals before taking over the Brooklyn Dodgers and bringing in Jackie Robinson followed by Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe to force integration on the major leagues.  Later he would be at Pittsburgh when Elroy Face and Mazeroski brought in the pennant against the mighty Yankees.

He was willing to experiment and he was always watching for an edge.  He was an amazing executive and this book is written by a classic baseball writer.  It is not personal, some nice interesting stories that give a clue about Rickey and he is was, but even the historical materials were about Rickey playing ball.  But Breslin like the old writers knew what he wanted to tell – it was the baseball story.  

The idea of integrating baseball began as a dream in the mind of Branch Rickey. In 1947, as president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, he defied racism on and off the field to bring Jackie Robinson into the major leagues, changing the sport and the nation forever. Rickey's is the classic American tale of a poor boy from Ohio whose deep-seated faith and dogged work ethic took him to the pinnacle of success, earning him a place in the Hall of Fame and in history. Bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jimmy Breslin is a legend in his own right. In his inimitable anecdotal style, he provides a lively portrait of Rickey and his times, including such colorful characters as Dodgers' owner George V. McLaughlin (dubbed "George the Fifth" for his love of Scotch); diamond greats Leo Durocher, George Sisler, and Dizzy Dean; and Robinson himself, a man whose remarkable talent was equaled only by his resilience in the face of intolerance. Breslin brings to life the heady days when baseball emerged as the national pastime in this inspiring biography of a great American who remade a sport---and dreamed of remaking a country.

ROBERT SERVICE

 Robert Service, Elle Andra-Warner

A short and enlightening biography of the Canadian writer Robert Service.  Best known as the poet who wrote The cremation of Sam McGee and The Shooting of Dan McGraw, but in fact he published numerous books of ballads (poems) as well as novels (three made in to movies).

Here is a short synopsis of his life

·        Born in Scotland, rebellious attitude gets him kicked out of school

·        Finds a way to get to college and his attitude blocks success there too

·        Leaves for Canada and a real beginning.  Here he works as a swineherder, sheepherder, cattle wrangler, carpenter, and ultimately a bank clerk

·        Makes it west to Vancouver and Vitoria, then down to San Francisco and Los Angeles where he lives life as hobo and odd-job man

·        Back to Canada and bank jobs.  Success as a banker gets him transferred to Whitefish and Dawson.

·        Finds his voice in ballads and the stories of the Klondike

·        Books of poems sell so well he eventually lives off royalties

·        Has some adventures walking, canoeing, crossing the wild landscape from Edmonton to Klondike.

·        After success he marries and moves to France with his wife.  Buys property there and is caught up in WWI.  Publishes book of verses based on WWI.  Drives ambulance like Hemingway, John Dos Passos, etc…

·        Travels back to Canada, then to Hollywood where he writes novels, gets three books made in to movies and appears with John Wayne in small part in Seekers.

·        Leaves family in LA and spends two months in Tahiti by himself

·        Gets bad health report and redoes his life and diet and devotes himself to being healthy

·        Travels back and forth through into Russia and Germany and becomes disillusioned with the politics and actions of both.  Almost trapped in Poland at start of WWII

·        Has to abandon home in France during WWII – returns to Canada and LA

·        Returns to France after war and dies there.

I learned about the man and his inspirations.  For example – hearing a surgeon tell about having to cremate a body of a man he could not save and could not bring back to civilization.  He also could not bury the body in the frozen ground so he found an old derelict boat and put the body in the boiler to cremate.  Service was a listener and remember stories and ideas from the characters he met throughout his life and then built around those vignettes to create a voice for the Yukon:

The Cremation of Sam McGee

by Robert W. Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, Where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the South to roam 'Round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold Seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he'd often say in his homely way That he'd "sooner live in hell". On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way Over the Dawson trail. Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold It stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze Till sometimes we couldn't see; It wasn't much fun, but the only one To whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night, as we lay packed tight In our robes beneath the snow, And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead Were dancing heel and toe, He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess; And if I do, I'm asking that you Won't refuse my last request." Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; Then he says with a sort of moan: "It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold Till I'm chilled clean through to the bone. Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread Of the icy grave that pains; So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, You'll cremate my last remains." A pal's last need is a thing to heed, So I swore I would not fail; And we started on at the streak of dawn; But God! he looked ghastly pale. He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day Of his home in Tennessee; And before nightfall a corpse was all That was left of Sam McGee. There wasn't a breath in that land of death, And I hurried, horror-driven, With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, Because of a promise given; It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it's up to you To cremate those last remains." Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, And the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, In my heart how I cursed that load. In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, While the huskies, round in a ring, Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay Seemed to heavy and heavier grow; And on I went, though the dogs were spent And the grub was getting low; The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, But I swore I would not give in; And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, And it hearkened with a grin. Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, And a derelict there lay; It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice It was called the "Alice May". And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, And I looked at my frozen chum; Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "Is my cre-ma-tor-eum." Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, And I lit the boiler fire; Some coal I found that was lying around, And I heaped the fuel higher; The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- Such a blaze you seldom see; And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, And I stuffed in Sam McGee. Then I made a hike, for I didn't like To hear him sizzle so; And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, And the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled Down my cheeks, and I don't know why; And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak Went streaking down the sky. I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; But the stars came out and they danced about Ere again I ventured near; I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside. I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; . . . Then the door I opened wide. And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, In the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, And he said: "Please close that door. It's fine in here, but I greatly fear You'll let in the cold and storm -- Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, It's the first time I've been warm." There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

THE SWERVE

The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt

The book is advertised as How the World Became Modern – and by the end the first step might be taken, but in fact for three fourth of the book that is misleading.  It is about – “(Gian Francesco) Poggio Bracciolini (February 11, 1380^[2] – October 30, 1459) was an Italian scholar, writer and humanist. He recovered a great number of classical Latin texts, mostly lying forgotten in German and French monastic libraries, and disseminated manuscript copies among the educated world.” (Wiki) and is his life story with the most important accomplishment being the finding of the text/poem of Lucretius in a remote monastery and having it copied and brought back to the world after 400 years.

It is about the first half of the fourteen hundreds and another of those periods of papal irresponsibility and malfunctioning.  He had perfected his handwriting, which in this era of no computers, typewriters… was a very important art.  It was so good that he rose to the position of private secretary to the first John XXIII (first because he becomes excommunicated and removed from office and the name was taken up again over 500 years later in 1958 when another pope took the name John Paul.

It shows the culture and life of Italy and Rome and is really enlightening history and Poggio’s life culminates in the struggle that tried to unite the church under one pope again – there were three.  It shows the degradation, sexual follies, financial mischief, the fortunes in indulgences…  At the conference to end the divided papastry Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague came to offer their dissent from the actions of the church – two admirable men who were given safe passage to the convention where they were then arrested and burned (Hus) or jailed in a dungeon for a year and then burned alive (Jerome).  This is not a book to make you feel good about religion (if you still do).

Poggio then goes on a quest to find old manuscripts and his prize is Lucretius poem which opens up many ideas (ideas that would get you killed in the upcoming inquisition – another great religious invention).  It also tells a lot about books, libraries, and the fact that it is amazing that we have anything from the age of the Romans left to us.

What did Lucretius write in his poem Cari De Rerum Natura?

·        Everything is made of invisible particles (atoms) 

The church was against atoms just as it opposed the heliocentric solar system and a moving and not flat earth.

·        The elementary particles of matter – “the seeds of things” – are eternal

·        Elementary particles are infinite in number but limited in shape and size

·        All particles are in motion in an infinite void.

There is not beginning, end, middle or limits.

·        The universe has no creator or designer

·        Everything comes into being as a result of a swerve

It is the slight movements that create collisions, combinations, shifts in events and objects.  If everything simply moved in straight lines the world would be simple and we would have no life and no variety.

·        The swerve is the source of free will

·        Nature ceaselessly experiments

·        The universe was not created for or about humans

·        Humans are not unique

·        Human society began not in a Golden Are of tranquility and plenty, but in a primitive battle for survival.

·        The soul dies

·        There is no afterlife

·        Death is nothing to us

·        All organized religions are superstitious delusions.

·        Religions are invariable cruel

·        The highest goal of human life is the enhancement of pleasure and the reduction of pain.

·        The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion

·        Understanding the nature of things generates deep wonder

Poggio brings it back, the church denounces its ideas, but is somehow convince that it is okay as poetry – just don’t believe what it says.  Poggio goes back to work at the Papal court and eventually returns to his homeland near Florence.  He fathers 14 by his lover in Rome and deserts them when he goes home and marries and settles in to an estate.

The text ends with a little ride through Galileo, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and a few others connecting thought and philosophy to this one piece of ancient Roman literature and the challenge it made to the prevailing (forced) attitudes and beliefs.

Once I figured out the real path of the book and what the author wanted to tell I enjoyed it and the good writing.

The World in 2050

The World in 2050, Laurence C. Smith

This book is written by a professor at UCLA – the same college as Jared Diamond who has written the classics – Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse.  Taking up the need to analyze the civilizations of the world and the reaction of culture, economics, geography, and environment like Diamond, Smith chooses to look forward instead of backward and tries to project a possible future – one that is within the range of many of the potential readers.

His projections are based on four criteria:

·       Demography – both change in population numbers and population distribution

·       Demand upon our natural resources, services, and gene pool of the planet

·       Globalization of the economy, as well as, political and cultural ideas

·       Climate change

He then makes us accept that for the projections we must anticipate that the models are correct, that these four issues will continue on the path that they are currently on, and a few other basic assumptions that are necessary to limit the possible scenarios this book might find.

This book also does not engage in the pseudo-science debate about climate change, it is a fact and science and facts, not politics and religion are the basis for his writing.

"From Spittlebugs in California to butterflies in Spain and treees in New Zealand, it is a broad pattern that biologists are discovering. By 2003 a global inventory of this penomenon found that on average, plants and animals are shifting their ranges about six kilometers towards then poles and six meters higher in elevation every decade."

That is equivalent to having your lawn move north 5 1/2 feet a day or your birthday coming 10 hours earlier each year.

Population is not judged good or bad, the growth of population and the leveling of population in various parts of the planet are accepted statistics:

“For the last two decades, cities in the developing world have been growing by about three million people per week.  That is equivalent to adding one more Seattle to the planet every day.”

“The modern city survives upon constant resupply from the outer natural world, from faraway fields, forests, mines, streams, and wells.  We scour the planet for hydrocarbons and deliver them to power plants to zap electricity over miles of metal wire.  We take water from flowing rivers with distant headwaters of snow and ice.  Plants and animals are grown someplace else, killed, and delivered for us to eat. Without this constant flow of nature pouring into our cities, we would all have to disperse or die.”

The limit of natural resources is analyzed, along with the new opportunities that ice free Arctic Ocean and a warmed northern region represent.

“After the US oil peaked in 1970 at 10 million barrels per day. “American oil comp”anies launched an epic search to find new domestic reserves.  Within ten years the United States was drilling four times as many wells as during the peak, but its production still dropped anyway to 8.5 million barrels per day and falling.  By December 2009 it was down to just 5.3 million barrels per day.  So much for ‘drill baby drill’ as the solution for energy supply problems.”

"Tar sands are an environmentalist's nightmare. The extraction process gobbles enormous quantities of energy and water. Migratory birds land in the tailing ponds and die. Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulates are released into the air alongside up to three times more greenhouse gas than released by conventional oil drilling. Depending on the technology, it takes 2 - 4 cubic meters of water, and 125 - 214 cubic meters of natural gas to produce a single cubic meter of synthetic oil."

"The tar sands are one of the biggest reasons why Canada not only failed to meet her pledged reduction in carbon dioxide emissions under the Kyoto Protocol (to -6% below 1990 levels), but actually grew them +27% instead."

He has plenty of personal travel and research as he projects his ideas to 2050.  He admits that regional wars, regional economic agreements can change the outlook and that there will be a disparity in the benefit and damage of the climate change.  While islands will disappear and some places will become deserts his research says that from 45 degrees north upward there will actually be an increase in water resources – more rain, more thawing and thus more disparity between the water haves and have nots.  He sees the nations bordering the Arctic having a potential boom and interestingly in Canada where there has been the creation of native run subdivisions of the tundra created as political entities over the last few decades, those indigenous people could be winners, if there cities and homes do not disappear into the thawing permafrost. 

It is a chaotic projection and one to fear, even for those potential winners.  As I write this review today I have just read a NYT article on the research related to the permafrost and the release of more greenhouse gases:

“Experts have long known that northern lands were a storehouse of frozen carbon, locked up in the form of leaves, roots and other organic matter trapped in icy soil — a mix that, when thawed, can produce methane and carbon dioxide, gases that trap heat and warm the planet. But they have been stunned in recent years to realize just how much organic debris is there.

“A recent estimate suggests that the perennially frozen ground known as permafrost, which underlies nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, contains twice as much carbon as the entire atmosphere.

“Temperatures are warming across much of that region, primarily, scientists believe, because of the rapid human release of greenhouse gases. Permafrost is warming, too. Some has already thawed, and other signs are emerging that the frozen carbon may be becoming unstable.”

Another Man’s Moccasins, Craig Johnson

 A Vietnamese woman is killed in Wyoming.  Sheriff Longmire must solve her murder and relive in his mind the death of a Vietnamese woman when he was serving in the war.   Sheriff Longmire is the series star and is tough, has lost his wife, has a daughter recovering from injuries, and is surrounded by a cast of characters – Indian, Mexican… He has a female deputy trying to seduce him, a giant Indian found living in a culvert under the freeway that manhandled him and two of his group, and a selection of possible murderers for a Vietnamese woman who was killed and dumped on the freeway. 

He has to sort out his Vietnamese past and the war that he struggles to get past, and he has the job of being the super cop of the lonely landscape of Hole in the Wall and other lonely locations in his jurisdiction that centers on Sheridan. 

There is some good dialogue and some good action.  Like the last two books the lead character has a personal relationship to the case – I do not know if this is a trend or just a coincidence.  Most characters are clichés and at least for me only the sheriff has a developed personality.  It is the fourth book in the series so I might have missed something in the first three stories.

Bad Bird Chris Knopf

An entertaining book.  Lightweight like so many mysteries: the characters are interesting and developed well.  I am a little tired of the family connection aspect of the mysteries since this is the second of three in a row where the author has needed to have the hero have a personal connection to the crime.  The female lead is an attorney, but has an attitude that is slightly edgier than the Kinsey Milhone character of Sue Grafton.  The problem is that I am still trying to figure out the reason for the toss of a camera to the heroine that begins the book – it makes the story, but I am not sure it stands up.

The book has a good number of errant leads and give and take conversations. 

Jackie Swaitkowski investigates the death of a female pilot who had a family tree filled with ex-cons and a passenger list packed with Hamptons high society. Just before Eugenie Conklin's plane took a nosedive, she tossed out a camera case that held an unusual set of photos. While defending Eugenie's husband during the accident investigation, Jackie realizes that she recognizes more than a few of the faces in those pictures. They may be able to prove her client's innocence, but Jackie soon learns that to find the answer to Eugenie's death will mean uncovering a mystery from her own family's past as well. (audible.com)