While I've grown a little cold on the
John Sandford novels that feature Lucas Davenport, I'm finding I like the
Virgil Flowers novels a lot. Shock
Wave has Flowers tracking down
a serial bomber intent on stopping a large Walmart-like store from setting
up shop in a small town. Flowers is a nice mix of irreverence, vulnerability,
and persistence, all wrapped together in a mind that never stops running.
Sandford does a good job in capturing
the small town atmosphere where the action takes place. It's reasonably
clear that someone in the town is doing the bombing, but there's a number
of people who would make good suspects. Many people in town will
be negatively impacted by the new store, and most would be happy to see
the construction stopped. But which person would be motivated enough
to kill? On top of the bombing, there's also a question surrounding
why the city council approved a zoning change after initially opposing
the site. Is the bombing also tied to the possible corruption? These
are all questions Flowers has to figure out, and it doesn't help that the
bombings are accelerating at a frightening pace.
On top of the characters, Sandford does
a perfect job in making sure the killer isn't known until the very end.
I was guessing the entire time, and found out it wasn't the person
who I thought it was going to be. I was also impressed with the use
of "crowd-sourcing" to dig up a list of likely suspects. While
I don't think it's something that would be accepted very well in reality,
it did present some interesting possibilities of involving others in solving
a crime.
I hope Sandford continues with the Flowers
character in future books. It would definitely put him back on my
"read right away" list.
Book Review - What I've Learned... So Far Part III: Banjos, Boats And Butt Dialing by Mike Ball
Mon, May 20th 2013 6:52a Thomas Duff I was recently offered the book What
I've Learned... So Far Part III: Banjos, Boats & Butt Dialing
by Mike Ball for reading and reviewing. I know I end up turning down most
of the offers I get for review copies because I'm so far behind in reading
and reviewing, but it's hard to turn down a book that can somehow link
banjos, boats, and butt dialing in a title. It also helped in that he delivered
on it.
I've never heard of Mike Ball, but it's
probably easiest to think of him [read] Keywords:
107
Book Review - Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A. J. Jacobs
Sun, May 19th 2013 10:13a Thomas Duff I've always been amused by people who
are health fanatics following some particular trend or fad that promises
to fix every issue known to medical science. A. J. Jacobs decided to follow
all the health advice he could find for a year, and the result is his book
Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection.
With the type of humor displayed in his prior books, Jacobs shows just
how impossible it is to follow all the health advice out there (or even
a small part of it). [read] Keywords:
164
Sun, May 19th 2013 9:10a Thomas Duff Nate Silver is the current rock star
of statistics and predictions based on the overwhelming accuracy of his
forecasts in the 2012 election results. His book The
Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't
does a good job in explaining the fundamentals of statistics, probability,
and predictions. If society understood these concepts, we'd spend far less
time arguing from polarized positions "supported by facts"...
Contents:
A Catastrophic Failure of [read] Keywords: notes
network
124
Book Review - Learning to Play With a Lion's Testicles: Unexpected Gifts From the Animals of Africa by Melissa Haynes
Wed, May 15th 2013 8:45p Thomas Duff This book had me in tears, both by laughter
and emotional impact... Learning
to Play With a Lion's Testicles: Unexpected Gifts From the Animals of Africa
by Melissa Haynes. The title was enough to intrigue me into considering
it for reading and reviewing. It didn't take long before I knew it was
a great decision.
Haynes went to South Africa to volunteer
on a wild game reserve, seeking to find some perspective and purpose in
her life. What sounded like an adventure quickly turned in [read] Keywords:
114
Book Review - Judaism For Dummies by Rabbi Ted Falcon PhD and David Blatner
Sun, May 12th 2013 7:40p Thomas Duff This was a book that I had put on my
library "to be read" list, but decided that getting it via Amazon
Vine was faster and better... Judaism
For Dummies by Rabbi Ted Falcon
PhD and David Blatner. I felt this was a *perfect* example of what Dummies
titles are good for... context on a complex topic, enough so that you know
where to go for more information. Toss in a fair amount of humor along
the way, and I had a great time reading this (while learning lots).
Contents:
Introduction [read] Keywords:
125
Book Review - Tell No Lies by Julie Compton
Mon, May 6th 2013 8:40p Thomas Duff Tell
No Lies by Julie Compton is the
first of a series (two so far) of novels centered around District Attorney
Jack Hilliard and his fellow lawyer and one-time lover Jenny Dodson. That's
"one-time" as in "slept with her once", but it happened
at a time and under conditions that made the two of them front-page news.
Dodson was put on trial for murder, facing the death penalty. Hilliard
was her alibi, as the night of the murder was the night he visited her
house. He's convinced that [read] Keywords:
169
Book Review - How Data Science Is Transforming Health Care by Tim O'Reilly, Mike Loukides, Julie Steele, and Colin Hill
Sun, Apr 28th 2013 2:24p Thomas Duff How
Data Science Is Transforming Health Care
by Tim O'Reilly, Mike Loukides, Julie Steele, and Colin Hill is not a large
book... in fact, it's only 26 pages. But it's a solid 26 pages that makes
the case for how health care can (and will) be transformed by the use of
massive and detailed data on patients and outcomes. Given that you can
download it for free on Amazon, there's no reason *not* to give it a read.
It's enough to shift your view of how health care technology can be much
[read] Keywords:
134
Book Review - Storm Kings: The Untold History of America's First Tornado Chasers by Lee Sandlin
Sat, Apr 27th 2013 10:09p Thomas Duff Tornados... powerful, fearful, unpredictable...
and a source of controversy over the years as people tried to figure out
what they are (or if they even existed). Lee Sandlin tells the story of
those who first tried to solve the puzzle in his book Storm
Kings: The Untold History of America's First Tornado Chasers.
I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would, but it could well
be due to incorrect expectations rather than the fault of the content or
quality of the writing. I'll [read] Keywords: connections
123
Book Review - Six Years by Harlan Coben
Tue, Apr 23rd 2013 6:06a Thomas Duff I picked up Harlan Coben's latest novel
Six
Years from the library a week
or so ago. I enjoy his books, and I was looking forward to a few days of
leisurely enjoyment. What I got instead was a book I had a hard time putting
down, as Coben kept me guessing right up to the end. Granted, I read a
lot and don't necessarily do a good job of being able to remember plots
and story lines of books I read even six months ago. Still, this is one
of the best non-Bolivar novels he's written.
[read] Keywords:
158
Book Review - Calculated In Death by J. D. Robb
Sat, Apr 13th 2013 8:49p Thomas Duff Yay... another J. D. Robb (aka Nora
Roberts) novel... Calculated
In Death. This time, Dallas is
tagged on a woman's death that looks to be a mugging gone bad. Her body
is found on the street at the base of a set of stairs leading up to a building
in the midst of remodeling. But Dallas and Peabody find evidence that she
was actually killed inside, and the street scene was staged as a diversion.
Further investigation reveals that in her job as an auditor, she had just
been given three new [read] Keywords:
