Murder in the Air by Bill Crider

For Sheriff Dan Rhodes, things are a mess in Clearview, Texas. There is a pig on the loose in people’s gardens. An elected county official wants Rhodes to buy an M-16 to be ready for the eventual flood of terrorists that surely will be streaming across the nearby border. Rhodes has 2 deputies that yank his chain by never giving him a straight answer. Then there is the constant threat of a few people illegally noodling for catfish in ponds and streams (that’s ‘fishing’ barehanded using your hand as bait). And Lester Hamilton’s industrial chicken farm has fowled (sorry) the air lowering the quality of life for the locals. Oh, don’t forget that a ‘Robin Hood’ is flinging arrows in protest to various local issues.

Old man Griffis is out fishing one morning and discovers a body floating near the shore. Lester Hamilton, the most hated man in the county and noted noodler, looks like he drowned when a catfish he’d grabbed bit back and pulled him under. Problem is who wouldn’t have wanted Lester dead considering what hundreds of thousands of chickens can do to the air.

Crider then takes us on a gentle ride in and around Blacklin County and its kookie and colorful denizens dropping in on the little general store, a roadside fresh food stand, scattered lakes and rivers, a couple profs at the local community college, and, of course, a pallet-filled storeroom in the local WalMart.

Robin Hood confesses, sort of, and the last of a dying breed, a local reporter, confronts who she thinks is behind the murders. Sheriff Rhodes tracks down our intrepid reporter to the final confrontation in, of course, one of the barns of Hamilton's industrial chicken factory (where the Sheriff wishes the county really had bought that M-16).

Despite all the desperate issues on the dashboard of his Charger squad car, Rhodes is still lucky enough to always know where he can find an ice cold Dr. Pepper and a frozen Zero bar. That’s some fine eating for a very good lunch.

I learned of Bill Crider from a strong recommendation by a friend of Men Reading Books, Charlie Stella’s blog. Your brief tour of Blacklin County will take only a couple sittings as this gentle tale is short, interesting, unpretentious, and entirely entertaining. All are requirements for an enjoyable travel diversion or when you are looking for a fun story while waiting for new titles in your power rotation. Crider deserves a hardy recommendation – you won’t regret quietly wandering about Clearview, TX.

East Coast Don

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne

The scholarship of this nonfiction work is remarkable, and it offers many new insights into life on the frontier during the 19th century. As the title suggests, it chronicles the rise and fall of the Comanches, and it particularly tells the stories of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah. Cynthia was with her family who were so far out on the frontier that there was almost no one behind them, between their location in West Texas and civilization. The Parkers underestimated the danger they faced, and then most of them were murdered and Cynthia Ann was captured at the age of 9 in 1936. She was held captive for many years and bore her husband, the great Comanche war chief Peta Nocona, three children, including Quanah who became a greater warrior than Geronimo. Gwynne does a good job putting all these events in the historical chronology of events that we know about, like the Alamo and Custer, but he adds so much more that I had never heard about. All of this is well documented from personal reports of the people involved and from contemporary documents. The story of Cynthia Ann was a particular famous one at the time and one that I had read about before. Gwynne did a great job telling the stories of the conflict of cultures, not only the advancing white Americans and various Indian tribes, but also the many Indian-Indian cultural problems. He clearly explained the lack of central organization of the Comanches. The history of the Texas Rangers was particularly telling and offered a good background to the McMurtry trilogy. There were times when I thought Gwynne was too detailed so that the action unnecessarily slowed down. This book could be seen as a reference work, one which should be consulted anytime someone was writing about this era in U.S. history.

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

This is not one of our usual adventure/crime novels. Rather, it’s a true-life historical novel about the life of a woman who was born and came of age in the southwestern U.S. at the start of the 20th century. The author, Jeannette Walls, wrote about her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, who was born in 1901 in a home dug out of the earth in Salt Draw, West Texas, which is not far from High Lonesome. What was captivating about this book was the graphic detail that Walls brought to this story, the real life story of the hard lives that Lily, her parents, and her siblings lived. Walls brought a believable mix of narrative and dialogue to the reader to tell a very believable story. It went on to capture Lily’s interactions with and thoughts about her fight to have a high school and then college education, becoming a teacher who wanted to be in control of her curriculum, her students and her fights with their parents and communities, the solid man she married, and the children she raised. Having read this book, I feel like I have a better grasp on this era and this region of the U.S. than I’ve had before. The book flowed easily and I read it in a day. Despite this novel being out of our usual genre, it gets my strong recommendation.

Step on a Crack by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Michael Bennett is NYC’s chief hostage negotiator who happens to be the foster parent for 10 children, thanks to his wife’s generous heart. But, his wife is now dying of cancer, and is hospitalized in the final stages of that disease. Meanwhile, the former president’s wife, Caroline Hopkins, dies unexpectedly from what is a cleverly disguised murder. Then, at her all-stars-only funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, there is a terrorist takeover with many hostages taken, all of whom are wealthy celebrities or famous politicians. Bennett is in charge of negotiating with Jack, the lead terrorist, but he does not know about the inside guy, “The Neat Man,” who has predicted every move that the police and Bennett would make. The bad guys get their money, all $73 million, and all but one gets away – at least at first. The story line is a simple one, and there are not that many characters involved. There were some very interesting minor characters like Bennett’s grandfather, a priest, and his nanny, Mary Catherine. At the same time, the story is compelling and surprising. Patterson does a good job making Michael human, as well as portraying the agony of having a dying wife and the joy of raising his remarkable children. This was a quick and enjoyable read, one of the better “airplane” books that I’ve read in a while.

Voltaire's Calligrapher by Pablo De Santis

The lyrical quality of the prose is what struck me first about this book, from the opening paragraph as De Santis captures the flavor of living in the 18th century, the Enlightenment period in which this book is set. The quality of the writing reminds me of Zafron in Shadows of the Wind. Voltaire himself is a peripheral figure in this book and is only used as a source of action for the main character, the calligrapher, Dalessius. The author beautifully captures the history of, as well as the artistry and philosophy behind the dying art of calligraphy, which is appealing to this bibliophile. He bridges the gap between the mysticism of the Dark Ages and the beginnings of modern thought, while at the same time, providing a compelling historical mystery.

The Killing of the Tinkers by Ken Bruen

I love Ken Bruen books, but this one was not my fav. It was his second one of this crime series, obviously about the serial killing of Tinkers, or gypsies. His main character, Jack Taylor, is in the midst of a major alcohol/coke addiction, and he is often barely able to walk and breathe, repeatedly screws up his relationships with people around him -- a totally unsympathetic character. But, Bruen also makes Taylor out to be a remarkably literate guy who makes references to various authors like Pellicanos, Harry Crews, Tom Kennedy, Paul Smith, Paul Theroux, Robert Irwin (Satan Wants Me, An Exquisite Corpse), Samuel Beckett, and Lawerence Block. I know Pellicanos' and Theroux's works, so I'll have to check out the others.

Savages by Don Winslow

This was (just to use a couple action novel clichés) an action-packed, page-turner. It was a recommendation from the formerly-literate scribophobe nephew Chris. I’ve read and reported on Winslow before (The Dawn Patrol and The Power of the Dog), and this is a much better book. Like his other books, this has to do with the drug trade that spans Mexico and the U.S., and all of the characters who are involved. There is a cartel war in Baja and a struggle for control of the U.S. trade in Southern California. This one was very close to home for me, or at least my children, because one of the main protagonists is Ben, the son of two psychotherapists, who has grown up in a very liberal tradition. Ben graduated from Berkeley with a double major in agriculture and marketing. He follows his dream of making the best marijuana on the planet and selling it to a very high-end clientele. But, the real drug boys don’t like the competition. Ben is paired up with a volleyball buddy from Laguna, a former SEAL, who is now using his talents to keep their operation safe. But, the whole matter escalates out of control. They are both doing the same girl, Ophelia, otherwise known as O, which surely stands for orgasm, something she is very talented at achieving. The boys are satisfied with this arrangement and don’t need to fight for that territory. O’s mother is Paqu, passive-aggressive queen of the universe, really, a queen ditz. One of the lines from O as she prepares to go off on a shopping spree in Newport, “I don’t adore myself, so I adorn myself.” As Ben gets up to speed with the deaths that are happening around him and shakes off his previously nonviolent stance, the author writes, “Now Ben. Find your inner Taliban.” The writing is staccato-like, creative, fun. The ending is not what I expected, but it made sense. I read it in two sittings, and will now spend some time looking at Winslow’s website to choose my next book.