Super Chief (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 3) --by Joseph Flynn

Fiction / Mystery

220 pages / 3419 KB

5 Stars

Want to make a statement? Want to commit an act of domestic terrorism and not have anyone die? Steal a train! Not just any old Amtrak train, but the Super Chief, spiffed up and on its way to a museum in Chicago. Make it disappear. Then hope and pray that John Tall Wolf isn't sent to find you. (Your prayers will not be answered.)

Tall Wolf, the Apache and Navajo adopted by Haden Wolf and his wife Serafina Wolf y Padilla, finds himself being forced to go the one place he swore he'd never go – onto a reservation. Not just any reservation, but the one his birth mother was from. And some members of his blood family still want him dead. But not all.

If you've not read any of the series, you can start here, but I highly recommend you start at the beginning and read sequentially. Many of the minor characters move through the books, and I think you'll enjoy the series more if you get in at the beginning.

Once again, Tall Wolf is playing well with others, local cops, train cops, and feds. Coyote is still trying to get Tall Wolf, but something changes. Just barely. True, she wants Tall Wolf, has claimed him, and that claimed ownership makes her meaner than a mama bear when someone else goes after him. They are still dancing around each other, and my advice is, don't get between them as Tall Wolf's cousin, Bodaway, found out.

A terrific series to binge read

War Party (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 2) --by Joseph Flynn

Fiction /  Mystery

155 pages / 2182KB

5 stars

John Tall Wolf is Apache and Navajo who works as a BIA cop. His boss is Coyote. If that's not enough to grab your attention and hold it, as a Fed, he should be in competition with other Feds, like the FBI &c. Instead, Tall Wolf plays well with others including the local cops and actually prefers others get the credit. 

Eight 'Indians' rob a bank in New Orleans during a city-wide hacking job where all traffic lights go 'green.' Due to the Native American ethnicity of the robbers, Tall Wolf is called in. 

Why eight? What kind of sign language do they use during the robberies (yes, there's more than one)? What tribe do they belong to? All good questions, and eventually, all is made clear.

There was one major mistake in the story. Is Mr. Flynn using Aaron Elkins's tactic of deliberately placing a mistake in his books to get letters from readers? I don't know. Was their a mistake in Book 1? I don't remember. And, no, I'm not divulging said mistake. If you catch it, you'll chuckle like I did. If you don't, it won't affect the story at all.

A great read. In this time of Novel Coronovirus, I think I'll binge the whole series.

Other Ways to Pray --Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

Nonfiction / Poetry

61 pages

5 Stars

A friend cleaned out his bookshelf the other day and gave me his copy of Different Ways to Pray, because he knows I'd love it and appreciate it. He was so right!

Ms Nye is bi-cultural (American/Palestinian) and finds the commonality in peoples throughout the world. Many of these poems are from a time she spent in South America, there is at least one for her grandmother in Palestine. They show how people the world over pray, not by rote or ritual, but by love and living. 

I have, and have read these books by Nye. Unfortunately, I read them before I started this blog, so do not have reviews posted:

19 Varieties of Gazelle

Yellow Glove

Fuel

Hugging the Jukebox

Mint Snowball

Red Suitcase

Words Under the Words

What Have You Lost? (anthology selected by Naomi Shihab Nye)

Never In a Hurry (essays)

Upstream, selected essays --by Mary Oliver

Nonfiction / essays

187 pages / 1778 KB

5 Stars

I am so sorry I never had the opportunity to meet Ms. Oliver, and so delighted to live in an age of books, where I can have her at my beck and call.

She has long been one of my favorite poets, and now she is also one of my favorite essayists. These essays, like her poems, are of everyday observations – the gull she rescued, the turtle she watched who laid her eggs, the dog who climbed fences and the dog catcher who brought him home. She saw beauty in everythin, and shared it with us.

The news is filled with Covid 19 as it rages around our planet, this book is filled with beauty and peace. It is a perfect antidote to our situation today.

Other books I've read and reviewed by Mary Oliver

Felicity http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2020/01/felicity-by-mary-oliver.html

A Poetry Handbook http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-poetry-handbook-by-mary-oliver.html

New and Selected Poems http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2017/11/new-and-selected-poems-by-mary-oliver.html

Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2020/01/owls-and-other-fantasies-poems-and.html

Wabbits --by Weld Champneys

Nonfiction / poetry

118 pages

5 Stars

This book of light verse is just what the doctor ordered for these stressful times. Some will make you chuckle, some may make you laugh out loud, and some will give you pause for great thoughts.

Poetry Pickles, written with his daughter, Lisa, is marvelous! And Grinner Groaner will, indeed, make you grin—and groan. 

I do believe Ogden Nash would love this book! 

Other books by this author I've reviewed:

 Jabberosity. http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2019/01/jabberosity-by-weld-champneys.html  

Moral Defense (Samantha Brinkman Book 2) --by Marcia Clark

Fiction / Legal Thriller

428 pages / 3548 KB

5 Stars

This was a two-sit read. I would have been a one-sit read, but I started it too late in the day. I read fiction for enjoyment and escape. Period. If I'm thrown out of a story too often (for any reason) I don't finish it. Ms. Clark has never thrown me out of her stories. Some of her characters/plots are a bit close, but nothing serious.

It might help to read them both in order and if possible relatively close together so one doesn't get confused with characters of an earlier book re-appear in the current one. 

If you enjoyed the early The Closer tv show with Kyra Sedgwick, I think you will really enjoy Samantha Brinkman. Both women have that same attitude that tells them rules are to be followed at all times unless they get in the way of justice.

An adopted teenager, Cassie, is accused of killing her brother and parents. Come to find out, she was sexually abused first by her brother who was a bully, then by her father, and when she told her mother, her mother didn't believe her. Her mother kept telling her how lucky she was to have a family like theirs. Really?

Samantha is trying to save the girl's life, and then discovers there was an adult there the night of the murders. Cassie doesn't want to admit it, but she's pretty messed up. And Sam needs to get information to the cops without breaking confidentiality. And being the armchair sleuth I'm not, I was pretty sure I had it figured out--until I didn't.

Books (and one story) by Marcia Clark I've read and reviewed:

Guilt by Degrees, http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2013/03/guilty-pleasure-by-degrees.html

Guilt by Association, http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2013/04/guilt-by-association.html

If I'm Dead, http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2013/04/if-im-dead.html

Blood Defense, http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2020/03/blood-defense-samantha-brinkman-book-1.html 

Blood Defense (Samantha Brinkman Book 1) --by Marcia Clark

Fiction / Legal Mystery/Thriller

400 pages /3140 KB

5 Stars

I have read some of Ms. Clark's earlier books, and found them quite enjoyable, but I do think this is the best I've read so far. This book introduces us to Samantha Brinkman, a smart, fearless, defense attorney who is barely making it. Her office manager and BFF since school days convinces her to take on a high profile case where a cop is accused of killing his girl friend, a famous and well-liked actress just coming back from addiction, and her roommate.

While preparing for trial, the cop drops a bombshell into Sam's lap—he knows her biological dad, a person she's never met, and her mother can't remember his name as it was (allegedly) a one-night stand. And someone leaks information to the press that the cop in question was also investigated a year or so earlier for raping a hooker.

Sam is convinced the cop is innocent, that the roommate was the primary target. And even if he is a jerk, he is her jerk, and she will defend him to the utmost because she believes in the law and that innocence must be defended. Ms. Clark takes us through some of the seamier aspects of LA, and brings us out at the end, a bit singed perhaps, but oh-so-much wiser. And very eager to read the next in the series, which I have already ordered.

Books (and one story) by Marcia Clark I've read and reviewed:

Guilt by Degrees, http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2013/03/guilty-pleasure-by-degrees.html

Guilt by Association, http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2013/04/guilt-by-association.html

If I'm Dead, http://lenoragood.blogspot.com/2013/04/if-im-dead.html