Framing the Dialogue

Book Reviews

Control

controlThis is a very good book by Glenn Beck that will be devoured by his fan base and heartily ignored by most everybody else as he exposes the truth about gun control.  In Control, Beck and his coauthors use the most common arguments of the gun control crowd and not only questions the “data” that they love to quote, but shows that their data is wrong.  He also uses many of their direct quotes as an introduction to the sections.  Glenn Beck’s purpose was to give us the ammunition (I couldn’t resist that one) to respond to the lies often used by the Michael Bloomberg’s of our world.

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Hunt The Scorpion

hunt scorpionThis is the second Seal Team Six novel by Don Mann featuring fictional SEAL Team leader Thomas Crocker.  Crocker and his men find themselves in and around Libya after the fall of Gaddafi looking for weapons of mass destruction.  Needless to say in Hunt the Scorpion they find themselves in the middle of some pretty intense action.  The novel moves fairly quickly and will keep you on the edge of your seat.  The end sort of leads you to the next book which I generally dislike, but Mann completed the story well enough for my taste.

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Enemy of Mine

enemy of mineFirst off I am amazed at how far author Brad Taylor has improved as a writer and storyteller.  Awesome.  In his latest Pike Logan thriller, Enemy of Mine, the members of the Taskforce jump around Europe and the middle east trying to stop an old nemesis and discover perhaps a bigger threat.  Taylor touches on some of the terrorist organizations in the regions which would certainly cause criticism…not because it isn’t true, but because we don’t talk about it.  There are many in the Middle East who are against the peace process and will go to great lengths to stop it.

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The Numerati

numeratiImagine a group of, let’s say scientists who monitor all of your Internet transactions and searches to develop a profile of you. The Numeratido just that to attempt to reduce (or inflate) you to a mathematical model about how you work, or how you shop, or how you might vote, whether you are a terrorist, or what kind of health risk you might be to insure and even who you might be inclined to spend the rest of your life with.

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Benediction

BenedictionBenediction takes you on a journey with a small town family facing the impending death of the patriarch, Dad Lewis, after a bout with cancer.  The novel has the feel of what it must be like to live in a small town where everyone knows everyone, but there are dark stories just under the surface.  As the novel follows Dad Lewis’ slow march toward death, author Kent Haruf spins us off different side roads into the family’s past and into the lives of others from the community.

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Hunt The Wolf

hunt the wolfOne of my favorite genres of books is the thriller featuring American (mostly) heroes from special forces kicking the butts of our enemies.  Author Don Mann, a former SEAL Team Six member, takes his shot with Hunt the Wolf featuring a seemingly superhuman SEAL Team Six leader named Thomas Crocker.  Though there is plenty of action and the novel is very entertaining there is much lacking in the story and some of the connections between royalty, the CIA, other clandestine services and the bad guys are a little out there which make the story less fluid.

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Above Suspicion

above suspicionOriginally published in 2001, Above Suspicion was the first murder mystery novel featuring detective Anna Travis. As the daughter of a highly regarded detective in England Ms. Travis has a lot to live up to as she participates in the investigation of a series of grisly murders. The killer hasn’t switched MOs, but has chosen more compelling victims. Travis has a keen mind that is put to the test as she gets close to both her grumpy boss and to the murder suspect…perhaps too close.

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The Andalucian Friend

andalucian friendIn The Andalucian Friend I have to admit to being somewhat lost through the beginning as author Alexander Soderberg developed his characters.  Though this is not my favorite format the author quickly got to the point where connections were made.  Set mostly in Sweden the characters are very interesting in that the traditional bad guys and good guys don’t always follow expected norms.  This is not your typical criminal investigation novel as there are very few sympathetic characters and the ones that may be have checkered pasts.  True evil in The Andalucian Friend may not rest with the gangster.

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America The Beautiful

“I would like to see scientists and engineers get much more involved in the political process, bringing their no-nonsense common sense and logic to the table.”

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Calculated In Death

calculated in deathPresumable set in the future, circa 2060, in New York we have a successful detective and her associates involved in a murder investigation that was supposed to look like a mugging gone bad. I guess even author J.D. Robb couldn’t imagine NYC being a much better place in the future. That aside there is not much futuristic toys used in by the police except for some souped up communications and what amounts to skeleton keys for buildings in Calculated in Death.

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