Month: March 2025

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#BookReview: Copaganda by Alec Karakatsanis

This Book Has So Very Many Problems. Read It Anyway. First, let’s dispense with the fact that this is a fairly well documented book, clocking in at about 26% documentation… even if Karakatsanis’ sources are pretty clearly slanted one direction… which we’ll get into momentarily. No matter what else is said here, everyone considering reading this text should at least appreciate that Karakatsanis clearly shows his work. 🙂

Because of my own work and experiences within the anti-police-brutality spaces and indeed even the projects I was working with before giving them up in favor of book blogging, I bring a lot to this particular book that not everyone will have… which gives me a fairly unique perspective on it overall.

I can tell you that even as a former Libertarian Party official and activist, and thus someone who knew a lot of people of a *very* wide range of political persuasions… I’ve known *few* over the years who would be to the left of Karakatsanis. Indeed, your opinion of terms like “pregnant person” and “wage theft” is likely a good barometer of how often you’re going to want to defenestrate this particular text. “Wage theft” seemingly a phrase Karakatsanis is particularly fond of.

This noted, *from his perspective*, the narrative here is at least largely coherent, and even from such a far leftist perspective, he brings up a fair amount of solid points that every American *should* read and understand… even if you have to squeeze your nose so hard you’ll be afraid it will turn into a diamond as you do.

The problem, and the star deduction, comes from the simple fact that very nearly every single logical problem Karakatsanis decries in others… he also largely *employs* in building his “arguments” against them.

Hell, he even manages to fall into former Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington’s “perception of crime” problem – claiming over and over (and over and over and over and over…) that “statistics say” crime is down (which, as he points out, is *always true*… when you’re selective with your time ranges 😉 ) even as people report seeing ever more crime. As Richard Pryor famously said – “who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?”.

Indeed, part of the star deduction also comes from the pervasive “no true Scotsman” problem that runs rampant through this text. No matter how far left the politician, no matter how hard the most progressive activists pushed for a particular policy – especially in California and particularly the Bay Area – Karakatsanis *insists* that the policies were never actually progressive, that it was instead the bureaucrats and the media (“controlled” by the usual leftist scapegoats) – those he deems the “punishment bureaucracy” and that the *actual* leftist policy had never been implemented.

Still, despite the rampant problems and extremist politics, there really is quite a bit here about understanding how police and media collude and conspire to hide essential information from the rest of us, so you really do need to read this book.

Ultimately, I think there is a point Karakatsanis tries to make but utterly fails to, in his attempt to appear authoritative here:

Question. Everything.

Including this book.

And I’ll go so far as to say even this very review.

Read the book yourself. Write your own review of it – cuss me up one wall and down the other if you think I deserve it, if you think Karakatsanis is perfectly correct in all things and should never possibly be even looked askance at, much less questioned. Or maybe you’ll agree with me to some extent or another. *My* entire point here is to get you to read the book yourself and make up your own mind about it. I guarantee you you’re going to learn *something* you didn’t previously know along the way.

Recommended.

This review of Copaganda by Alec Karakatsanis was originally written on March 16, 2025.

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#BookReview: Hera’s Lament by Shaun Griffin

Unforced Errors Leave Bitter Aftertaste In Otherwise Solid Conclusion. It seems like every book in this trilogy, Griffin seeks to explore almost an entirely separate genre of books… all while telling what is essentially a scifi vampire story.

Here, we get into a near-dystopia, where in the fallout from Book 2, Faith has been unleashing the vampire virus all across America in an attempt to lure Anastasia out.

And yet again, the story absolutely works. We get a lot of excellent vampire action, we get the expected human soldiers, we get human tech trying to give humans an edge on the vampires, truly all of the expected stuff one typically sees in a book like this, done particularly well within this story.

Along the way, we even get some strong character growth from both Faith and Anastasia, which is always awesome to see.

Indeed, as a conclusion to this trilogy, this book was *nearly* perfect. But there are a couple of elements in the last 10% or so that give a bitter aftertaste, and at least one of the two was absolutely unforced – preachy politics that had no real place anywhere in this story.

The other… to avoid spoilers, I have to be a bit circumspect in describing, so allow me to mention that I tell a particular story often, I think I may have mentioned it in a review here or there, that I once read another trilogy specifically because its last book was getting *DESTROYED* in the reviews over the ending. All I can say here is that my thoughts on the ending of that trilogy and this one… well, there are reasons I say this one leaves a bitter aftertaste. As an action sequence, it was actually rather badass. But did it work for that character as portrayed to that point? How about you, oh reader of my review, read this trilogy and tell us in your own review whether you think I’m off base here.

Still, truly, truly excellent work on this entire trilogy and even this book itself. Easily one of the best vampire trilogies I’ve ever read, right up there with David McAfee’s Bachiyr series and *well* above that fucking sparkling “vampire” one. Is it Stoker? No. But is it an awesome, gory thrill ride with some interesting twists on the overall lore? Absolutely.

Very much recommended.

This review of Hera’s Lament by Shaun Griffin was originally written on March 13, 2025.

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#BookReview: What She’s Hiding by Art Bell

Noir Thriller Blend Legal Thriller Reminiscent of Early Grisham. I think the most recent of John Grisham’s books I’ve read was Bleachers, and that was *far* from a legal thriller of any form. But I read a lot of his earlier works (The Firm, The Chamber, The Runaway Jury, The Pelican Brief, etc) many years ago, and here Bell brings to mind a question of “What if Grisham had taken a more noir tone with those books?” I honestly think the answer to that question is that you’d get something remarkably similar to what Bell has created here.

If you’re more a fan of small town / low stress tales… this one isn’t for you. If you prefer spice levels akin to a warm glass of milk… you’re gonna get the vapors if you read this book, as its spice level is more akin to a jalapeno or so. Spicy enough to feel, without necessarily making your nose run like Niagara Falls.

Indeed, another decent comparison here – without the sheer brutality of that book – is Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, where both romance and thriller elements combine to make the tale as strong as it is, and with both thriller and romance elements being essential to the overall tale.

Except that, to be clear, this is no White Knight hero the way even John Clark is portrayed as. Bell went to great lengths to use a normal guy in a normal (ish) job as his central character here, and he does a great job of sticking to that ideal throughout this. So yes, our main guy is going to make mistakes. Things are going to be confusing and scary and awesome and nearly surreal at times… but that’s because *life* is all of those things at times, and Bell is committed to showing at least elements of all of this.

Overall a solid tale within its type that bends and breaks enough conventions or even rules as to be refreshing, while at the same time conforming to enough of them to be comfortable for fans of its types of tale.

Very much recommended.

This review of What She’s Hiding by Art Bell was originally written on March 9, 2025.

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#BookReview: Bazaar by Miles Joyner

Pulse Pounding Thrill Ride With Non-Preachy Commentary. This is one of those books that *is* overtly political… *because it is dealing with political assassinations in and around Washington, DC*, among other topics. So while not all books are political and not all reading is political, this book absolutely is – though the act of reading and reviewing it is *not*.

Joyner’s background writing for the screen is evident here with his quick cuts to seemingly random groups of characters, which can be a bit hard to follow at first until you manage to get a grip on who everyone is, but at that point the story really does begin to flow quite readily.

And what a story it is. The action is relentless and seemingly non-stop, and yes, the aforementioned quick cuts actually help in this regard. The inventiveness of the reasonings, techniques, and tactics of both our bad guys and our good guys are truly something to behold – Joyner clearly has a lot of ideas here, and for the most part they tend to land exactly as desired.

There is quite a bit of class-based commentary baked into the flow of this story, though it never really becomes preachy and is even at such a level that trying to determine the author’s actual views are… not as clear as some would likely want them. For example, commentary on the dark web seems both technology-forward *and* pro-police. Similarly, commentary on class speaks to the lower classes *no matter* their race, and even points out how even some black characters would never face certain things in certain situations. And commentary about immigrants both shows their plight *and* cautions against the rise of illegal immigration. And yet every bit of this commentary is done well in-world and thus seems true to the characters taking each position as they take them, thus avoiding sounding preachy to the readers.

Overall truly an interesting book with a perspective and topic rarely seen in fiction.

Very much recommended.

This review of Bazaar by Miles Joyner was originally written on March 6, 2025.

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#BookReview: Viper’s Den by J.M. LeDuc

Contains Most Brutal, Most Sadistic Scene I Have *EVER* Read. Truly Even Better Than Reacher. With this particular entry in the series, LeDuc takes Sinclair O’Malley places that Reacher has gone – and beats him! – *and* gives O’Malley a depth of character that Reacher will never obtain.

And yes, it is via the said most brutal, most sadistic scene I have ever read. I’ve read some dark, twisted shit over the years, including books with on screen child sexual abuse, rape, and other brutalities. *NEVER* have I encountered one book that had all of that… *in a single scene*. Truly the darkest, sickest, most twisted scene I have ever encountered across reading literally thousands of books across nearly every imaginable genre and niche out there… and yet LeDuc *absolutely* makes it work to further his character and finally more fully explain some of her own more brutal – excuse me, “direct” – methods.

Then there is the one scene in particular where O’Malley takes on one of my absolute *favorite* Reacher scenes in that entire franchise (and yes, I read them all until a book or two into the Andrew Child books)… and LeDuc outdoes Lee in even that type of scene. The scene here is different than the Reacher scene, but to be clear, the scene I’m talking about in Reacher is the sniping competition Reacher has with the militia leader in Die Trying, where Reacher pulls off a particularly impressive feat.

There’s a LOT going on in this book, and a LOT – even beyond the scene above – that will be disturbing for some people, including some blatant on screen racism deep in the book (from the bad guys, to be clear), but revealing some of this stuff gets deeper into spoiler territory than I feel is warranted in this review. (I have no problems mentioning the types of stuff in the scene above, mostly because I understand how deeply traumatizing that stuff can be even in one scene, and because it is *only* in the one scene and doesn’t really give away much else about the book. I also spoke in generalities that don’t even fully give away that particular scene. The other things I’m alluding to here are far more central to the book, and thus even mentioning them would be too much spoiler.)

This may well be the best book in the series to date – and likely absolutely is. But there is also a lot of backstory here that you need to read *at minimum* Book 4, Eastern Drift, to be prepared for, and really you should start at the beginning of this series and work your way to this book, if you haven’t yet. Trust me, the reward will absolutely be worth it, *and* this book sets up the future of the series very nicely.

Very much recommended.

This review of Viper’s Den by J.M. LeDuc was originally written on March 4, 2025.

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#BookReview: The Gray Ghost by David Wood And Stephen John

Maddock AND Bones. Back Together! And Taking On A Civil War Mystery! This is what I love to see from Wood. Both Dane Maddock and Uriah ‘Bones’ Bonebrake back together again solving archaeological mysteries and kicking ass when needed.

The mystery – and adventure – here are awesome for this Son of the South who frequently notes how the Civil War is literally still visible in my home region between Atlanta and Chattanooga… and it isn’t even hard to find in that particular region. While this mystery starts in Virginia, it does in fact also find itself in a location I’ve been to a few times – even taken a date or two out there, *many* years ago. Atlanta’s Stone Mountain Park, home of the largest bas-relief sculpture in the world… and site of many anti-Confederacy protests over the years.

But even if you’re not from the Southern United States and haven’t grown up with this history all around you (as only certain regions of even the South have), the mystery here is still top-notch, and the action is even better. If you like say National Treasure, the 2000s era movie where Nic Cage steals the Declaration of Independence… now imagine Nic and his best friend are both former US Navy SEALs, with action – and danger – ramping up to challenge even them.

Ultimately this was the same type of dangerous (for the characters) yet fun (for the reader) action/ adventure tale that makes this series so excellent, and this was yet another truly great entry in this long running series.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Gray Ghost by David Wood and Stephen John was originally written on March 2, 2025.

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#BookReview: His Truth Her Truth by Noelle Holten

Slow Front Builds To Frenetic End. This is one of those stories that starts out with a bang in its prologue before going back in time and achieving the pace of… well, probably a tired slug racing an exhausted turtle. In other words, it is rather S L O W in the beginning.

But hang around, because as things start picking up they also begin spiraling, and soon enough your heart is beating faster as your brain is getting a good workout trying to read at the pace of the plot.

There’s a lot going on in these pages, and a lot that a lot of people won’t like – particularly so much domestic abuse, among other issues. But there is also a lot to like overall here, and Holten does a solid job of telling exactly the story she seemingly wants to tell at exactly the pace she seemingly wants to tell it at.

Ultimately, this is one that will have you gripping the final pages, desperate to see exactly how it ends… and that is pretty much what most people want of our thrillers, right?

Very much recommended.

This review of His Truth Her Truth by Noelle Holten was originally written on March 1, 2025.

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#BookReview: Starbound by Ed Regis

Solid Look At Complexities Both Scientific And Ethical Regarding Interstellar Travel. This is exactly what the title says – a solid look at pretty well all aspects of the complexities of interstellar travel from both scientific and ethical directions, with discussions of the sheer distances involved, the various proposed types of habitation possibilities, propulsion technology, and seemingly every other conceivable facet of the topic at hand.

At 300 ish pages with just 11% or so of that being bibliography, the actual discussion is somewhat brief while still being comprehensive. Technical enough in both science and philosophy to underscore the key issues, yet informal enough to be easily followed along with by most readers. Indeed, the only real problem I had with the text was that 11% bibliography – it needed to be 50% ish larger, from what I’ve seen across my several years of reviewing advance review copies of nonfiction books, as I’ve done here.

Overall truly a fascinating book and a great primer for anyone even remotely interested in the complexities of actually achieving interstellar travel.

Very much recommended.

This review of Starbound by Ed Regis was originally written on March 1, 2025.

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#BookReview: Grocery by Michael Ruhlman

Memoir That Happens To Contain History. This book is less a history of the grocery store and absolutely less about the even then-current (nearly a decade ago as I write this review) grocery store practices and more about this one particular food writer’s experience in… Cleveland, of all places, home of Michael Symon, MTV and WWE’s Mike ‘The Miz’ Mizannin, and apparently this Michael… and his love of grocery stores. In particular, a local brand that while has expanded to Chicago, apparently hasn’t spread too far outside of the general Ohio region. And I get it, grocery stores in America are *highly* regional. Outside of supermarket chains like Walmart, Target, and Costco, there are few if any national grocery store chains here in the US – and Ruhlman certainly doesn’t go into any of the few (such as Kroger) that exist, instead harping incessantly about the aforementioned supermarkets and their impact on the industry.

Read as more memoir and personal shopping/ cooking / eating philosophical text, this is a clear love story for the grocery store and the author’s dad, which is quite awesome – to use Mizannin’s word – to read. That aspect worked quite well, for what it was.

But the bibliography alone – a bare 11% of the text – shows just how little actual details of grocery store operations you’re going to get, and a very large chunk of what we do get comes from the author’s direct interviews with – and being taken to trade shows by – executives from the local grocery store chain that Ruhlman’s dad took him to all those years prior to the writing of this book. Which are insightful, so far as they go, but also pale in comparison to the more comprehensive look at the topic through multiple eyes that we see in say The Secret Life Of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr, which is absolutely recommended more than this particular text if you’re looking for a more comprehensive examination of the grocery store and its practices. It is this dearth of bibliography that is the reason for the star deduction here.

Still, organized as it is around the various sections of the grocery store, this book works well for what it actually is and how the author and editors chose to organize the information it does present, so I’m comfortable with the single star deduction overall.

Recommended.

This review of Grocery by Michael Ruhlman was originally written on March 1, 2025.