#BlogTour: Two Good Men by S.E. Redfearn

Superbly Written Thriller Will Make You Reconsider Your Ideas Of ‘Justice’. On the one hand, a man has identified a way to identify serial sexual predators – and is committed to stopping them before they can strike again. On the other, a law man absolutely committed to the Rule of Law and that *everyone* has the right to a second chance once their sentence is complete. Which one is “good”. Which one is “just”? How can we as readers of this text reconcile the two competing ideals? Should we? How can we as a society reconcile these ideals? Should we?

Redfearn – yes, the same Suzanne Redfearn of In An Instant, Moment In Time, Hadley & Grace, and Where Butterflies Wander – here presents her most thoughtful book to date, damn near an Atlas Shrugged level deep, *deep* philosophical dive – without Rand’s overt political diatribes. Indeed, the text here in some ways is also remeniscent of NPC by Jeremy Robinson, which also features such deep examinations from two different sides by two people of equal mental acuity – though in the Robinson text, the questions at hand are more existential in nature rather than centered on justice for all, particularly those deemed the lowest of the low by society at large.

This is one of those books that could have gotten quite preachy rather quickly in any number of ways in a less deft hand – as Rand was known to do, despite her own great storytelling abilities – and yet never actually does. It questions and it shows pros and cons of both sides, with quite a bit of real (enough) logically paced and logically executed action. While it can be read as a straight up thriller, and many might, it is one of those texts that really deserves and demands to be more deeply considered and examined. Perhaps particularly in the weeks leading into an Election Day, though that has nothing at all to do with the book and is nowhere present in the text.

This was the 157th book I read in 2024. I’m reasonably confident (at the moment at least, we’ll see what happens in my final rankings in December) in saying that if you read just a single book this year… make it this one.

Very much recommended.

This review of Two Good Men by S. E. Redfearn was originally written on October 24, 2024.

#BookReview: The Highest Law In The Land by Jessica Pishko

An Imagined History. Pishko starts off this text openly admitting that, as the Southport NC Police Dept cop who murdered Keith Vidal in North Carolina a decade ago this year said less than two minutes after encountering Vidal – and 14 seconds after Vidal had already been Tasered and was being held on the group by two other cops when the kill shot was fired -, she “doesn’t have time” (paraphrase from her, exact words of the murderous cop) to do any real investigative journalism that might show any degree of nuance or any alternative explanations for anything she writes about in this book. She openly admits in the prologue that she is going to label anything and anyone who is not a leftist progressive as “far right” because “The intent of this book is not to desegregate all of the complexities of the far-right movements – I do not think I could if I tried – which is why I have opted for the simplest terminology. Most important to me is the acknowledgement that these sheriffs and their supporters are plainly opposed to the left and progressives.” (An exact quote from page 18 or so, at least of the ARC text I read.)

Thus, Pishko proceeds to concoct her imagined history, complete with narrative-defining boogeymen, the “Constitutional Sheriff’s And Peace Officer’s Association” or CSPOA, as it is so frequently noted on seemingly every other page throughout the narrative. Pishko “cites” well-debunked “facts” such as Donald Trump calling the Nazis at the Charlottesville, VA “Unite The Right” rally “very fine people” (actual fact: He openly decried the violence of this group specifically, noting that *other* people *not associated with them* were the “very fine people” that happened to be at the rally as well), or the repeated-three-times-throughout-the-narrative-that-I-caught bald-faced LIE that “the leading cause of death of children is gun violence”. Even when looking at the CDC data *that Pishko herself cites*, the only way to get to this is to include people that are not legally children – indeed, some of the 18 and 19yos included in these numbers are actively serving the US military in war zones! Pishko also claims that “AR-15 SBRs are the weapon of choice of mass shooters” despite the number of homicides via rifle – any form of rifle, not just so-called “assault weapons” – proving that to be untrue for many years now. She claims that she observed a man walking around at one rally with an “automatic” rifle. While this is *possible*, it is also *extremely* rare – and without inspecting the gun in question (which Pishko does not detail that she did, if she did it at all), there is no way of knowing from a distance that the rifle at hand was fully automatic.

No, as with one of her criticisms of one of her primary targets of scorn throughout this text – Pinal County AZ Sheriff Mark Lamb – the best that can be said of this text is that while it is well documented, clocking in at 33% or so documentation, it is “light on substance and heavy on [extreme leftist] vibes”.

Read this book – if your politics are to the left of Bernie Sanders. You’ll find a new boogeyman to scare yourself with in your fantasy world.

For anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders and living in the *real* world, don’t bother with this drivel. There are *far* superior books about the problems with modern police and how we got to this point, such as Radley Balko’s Rise Of The Warrior Cop.

Not recommended, unless you’re an extreme leftist or extreme masochist.

This review of The Highest Law In The Land by Jessica Pishko was originally written on August 26, 2024.

#BookReview: A World Of Hurt by Mindy Mejia

Fast Paced Action Thriller Featuring Atypical Hero – Yet Set During “Real”-World Collapse. Straight up: This would have *easily* been a 5* book for me had it been set in literally any period of human history *other than* 2020 – 2022… unfortunately, where it as actually set. Kara is awesome as a non-straight (it is never made clear in *this* text exactly what her sexuality is, though it may have been clarified in the preceding book, To Catch A Storm, which I read 20 months and 300+ books ago) badass with a certain condition that Mejia works with well to show its uses and detriments. Max is excellent as the more by-the-book cop just trying to do his best to do his job and get back to his wife and son, particularly during the period the book is set in. Together (and separately), they’re going to find themselves in some pretty cool to watch action sequences that would get most of us real dead, real fast in real life. But ultimately, that is exactly what you’re coming into a book like this for – escapist action of a near cinematic quality, and other than the time period this is set in (which, to Mejia’s both benefit and detriment, she *does* show all too realistically and all too well), this book *is* that very action first with solid backstory and drama kind of tale that is generally so pleasing to read.

So for those of you who can withstand a book set entirely within the COVID lockdown period… this is one of the best books I’ve seen written telling a story within that period. But for those of us who – for whatever reason – *don’t* want to read a story set in that period… unfortunately you’re going to miss out on a truly fun, kick ass book unless you can overcome that particular mental objection.

Very much recommended.

This review of A World Of Hurt by Mindy Mejia was originally written on August 19, 2024.

#BookReview: Beyond Policing by Philip V. McHarris

Laughably Dumb? You Decide. This is another of those books where my own experience with the topic absolutely plays into my judgement here, so up front: I’m an Autistic who studied police brutality for years after some… unfortunate… (though mild, comparatively) encounters with police throughout my life. I actually became quite an expert in tracking police murders, helping with a now-defunct project similar to MappingThePolice – MTP being a project McHarris cites in this text. I was also active in CopBlock many years ago after watching its founders have their own unjust encounter with police. I’ve even known one of the victims – though to be clear, I knew him as a toddler and it was over a decade later that he was murdered by police. I’m a former Libertarian Party official at both State and local levels and 2x rural small town City Council candidate. I’ve even given a presentation at the Georgia Sociological Association’s conference. Which is a lot to say that while Mr. McHarris has me beat as far as degrees go, I’m not some bum off the street who doesn’t have both lived and academic experience with this topic as well. 🙂

As to the title of this review and the substance of the book, really all you need to know here is that Mr. McHarris’ aforementioned degree, at least one of them, is in African American studies from Yale. That alone clues you in immediately to the extreme leftist and even racist bent you’re going to get from this book, either proclaiming all white people as racist or dismissing white concerns related to the topic. How you feel about that bent is largely how you’re going to feel about this book. Also, to be clear, the actual “Laughably Dumb” bit was the comment a friend made when I showed them a one of the points we’ll get to below. 🙂

But wait! It gets better! First, some truly, truly great things: 1) The documentation, though slanted, is at least reasonably thorough, clocking in at around 20% of the text. Using the Sagan Rule (“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”), perhaps that might not be enough for the claims of this text. But it *does* fall in line with the norm of my experience with similar texts, and at least some of the sources cited are some of the very same ones I would cite as well, were I writing a book on this topic myself – including The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, Rise Of The Warrior Cop by Radley Balko (whose history of policing is far more complete and balanced than the one McHarris offers in the first third of this text), and Torn Apart by Dorothy Roberts, among others. Furthermore, though from a clearly extreme leftist position, McHarris does indeed offer some interesting ideas at times, delusional though they may be in terms of his exact preference of implementation. But at least he is proposing *something*, and some of the ideas truly have merit.

And then we get to the stuff where you really need to decide how laughable you think they are. For one, McHarris proclaims the LA riots after the Rodney King beating to be an “uprising against police”, and uses similar “uprising” language to denote the mass riots of 2020. As if that weren’t bad enough, McHarris, while still coming from an “all whites are evil racists” perspective, openly advocates for “direct participatory democracy” to make “all” political decisions. Can you, dear reader of my review, please tell me why that may be a *horrible* idea indeed for minorities? As in, if you truly believe that all white people are evil racists and that there is nothing good about them, why would you want to give them such absolute power in so many areas?

Ultimately, it is this very utopian failure to fully consider his own thoughts and their ramifications that I believe is an objective enough reason to deduct the star here. As noted above, the documentation is reasonably solid enough and McHarris cites some of the very same texts I would (and do) on this topic. Some of the general ideas for moving away from police and of the need to at least consider how it could actually be done are reasonably well thought out, at least in initial conception of end goal and *rough* parameters. But McHarris is clearly blinded by his own ideology in just how doomed to failure so many of his implementations truly are, and for that reason I simply can’t award all five stars.

As I said from the beginning, you decide, dear reader of my review, what you’re going to think of this book. I absolutely think everyone should read it, just know that roughly half of you, perhaps more, are going to want to defenestrate it from the highest available window fairly early and fairly often. Still, stick through it. Finish it. Review it yourself. And *then* defenestrate it, if you truly need to. 🙂

Very much recommended.

This review of Beyond Policing by Philip V. McHarris was originally written on July 12, 2024.

#BookReview: You’ll Never Find Me by Allison Brennan

Solid Series Starter. This has pretty much everything one would want in a family based PI / police procedural type drama series starter. Complicated family dynamics, a compelling case – where in this particular instance (series?) family members find themselves on different sides of the case -, an interesting mystery, and the storytelling to put it all together quite well indeed.

As is typical of such a series, this is clearly going to be a “freak of the week” type with an overall lore and mythos, and both look to be compelling going forward.

Fans of the genre generally will find a lot to like here, and those who haven’t really dabbled in this kind of tale before will also find a lot to like that could potentially bring in new fans.

Ultimately, this is one of those series starter books that does everything it needs to do and does it all quite well.

Very much recommended.

This review of You’ll Never Find Me by Allison Brennan was originally written on June 26, 2024.

#BookReview: The Mountain Mystic by Russell W. Johnson

Solid Second Book In Series. This is one of those tales where both the author and the reader are going on an adventure- ok, the first book was *awesome*, but I had all the time in the world to write the thing and now I need to produce a sequel in a timely manner since my name isn’t GRR Martin… so what do I do?

Johnson’s answer here is a thrilling ride that perhaps doesn’t have the same level of social commentary from the first book – though to be clear, there is still *some* here – yet manages to keep up with the action and even introduces some wrinkles not seen in the first book, going in a direction not often seen, but which makes perfect sense within this world.

And then… just when you think everything is all said and done… Thanos appears. No, not really. But there *is* that stinger scene at the end that reveals the storm clouds on the horizon… storm clouds that portend one *intense* battle coming up. Will we see that battle in Book 3, or will we simply edge closer to the storm? Yet again, I for one can’t wait to find out.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Mountain Mystic by Russell W. Johnson was originally written on April 29, 2024.

#BookReview: Death Pact by Matt Hilton

Gruesome Crime Horror/ Thriller Starts With A Bang. Seriously, the start of this book feels like Hilton read Jeff Guinn’s Waco, because it truly feels like Hilton took Guinn’s hyper realistic descriptions of what actually went down there to scaffold his own fictional version.

Which is actually a *phenomenal* way to begin this particular tale.

The rest of the tale then flashes forward a bit and crosses the “pond”, becoming a UK based police/ crime tale featuring some particularly horrific murders that fans of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter trilogy or Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Pendergast series will absolutely enjoy. The pacing of the investigation is solid, and the way the various characters meld together is done quite well.

Surprises late are well executed, and by the end you’re going to be questioning if this is meant to be a series starter afterall…

Overall truly a great crime story excellently told, and a solid change of pace from Hilton’s Grey and Villere thrillers in particular in that while the action is equally intense, the criminals here feel so much more decidedly dark and truly evil. Very much recommended.

This review of Death Pact by Matt Hilton was originally written on April 14, 2024.

#BookReview: Danger In Numbers by Heather Graham

When You Can Read A Series Out Of Order And It Still Somehow Make Sense. Seriously, I don’t know what to say about a book series that you can read it completely out of order- as I will have, when I read book 3, Shadow of Death – and it still actually make sense. I read Book 2, Crimson Summer, as an ARC in 2022. Going in to read Book 4, The Reaper Follows, for an ARC due in a couple of weeks, I picked up what I *thought* was Book 3 but turned out, as I found out getting ready to write this review, to be Book 1. Yet I’ve now already read The Reaper Follows immediately after reading this book… and yet somehow it still manages to make perfect sense to me? As in, there were no callouts that I was blatantly missing in this book to book 3? Though perhaps it was a detail thing about toy horses and island vacations, as it could in theory be possible to end each book with both of those and begin each subsequent book with both of those, but different particulars?

Regardless of all of the above, this was a fast paced compelling creepy mystery set in and around the Florida Everglades, and it worked quite well on several levels. I thought it was thoroughly enjoyable – one of *very* few books I’ve read of late in one sitting without really stopping. (Which could in part be due to how I was trying to squeeze both this book and The Reaper Follows in with barely 48 hrs before I left before a week long vacation, and actually finished both books within about 30 hrs of starting this one.)

Overall I thought this tale was fun, interesting, and pretty well everything I expect from an action-packed mystery/ thriller. Very much recommended.

This review of Danger In Numbers by Heather Graham was originally written on March 15, 2024.

#BookReview: Before The Badge by Samantha J. Simon

Victim Blaming And Typical Academic Ideologies Mar Otherwise Remarkable Work. Primarily in both the early and late sections of the book, the author frequently goes the typical anti-capitalist, everything is racist rants so common throughout both Academia and the field of sociology in particular. While the “everything is racist” bit is also found in the middle, it is toned down a bit as the author more proactively describes what she actually saw during her year of embedding herself within police academies to study exactly how new police cadets are trained.

It is within this section in particular that the book truly shines – and the problem of police brutality is exposed as beginning even in the earliest stages of a cop’s career, in how they are forced to think just to survive training. The psychopath David Grossman and his “Killology” are briefly discussed, though Radley Balko’s work tracing the militarization of police and the increasing frequency of police brutality in his seminal work The Rise Of The Warrior Cop is never mentioned at all. Through this section, we see in stark detail just how police are trained and what at least some of their instructors seem to genuinely believe – and while many will agree with these positions, many more will see just what any attempts to reform policing are truly up against.

It really is the conclusions, where despite Simon claiming to have no real suggestions on how to proceed, then proceeds to make sweeping suggestions of how to proceed, that mars this text more than anything – and I openly admit here that this is absolutely one of those points that will encourage many to buy the book and encourage many others to burn it. Here, Simon proceeds to blame the victims of police brutality for being victims of police brutality via claiming that because guns are so prevalent in the United States, cops are of course warranted in assuming that everyone is armed at all times and thus of course their lives are in danger at every moment – exactly what Simon exposes they are trained from the very beginning to believe. She also ultimately believes that policing as we currently know it should be completely abolished *and replaced with some other system*, seemingly not realizing that *any* State system is force from its very nature, and that ultimately *any* State system of policing will result in exactly the same problems the abolition movement claims it is trying to solve.

Still, the text is reasonably well documented, with its bibliography clocking in at about 21% of the overall text, and the actual reporting of what she saw and experienced was quite well done. Truly, even those who may want to burn this book after reading it *should still read it first*. And then either defenestrate it or burn it, if you feel so led. 😀

Seriously, read this book no matter your thoughts on policing in America. At minimum, you’ll gain a much more detailed understanding of how police officers are recruited and trained, and ultimately more knowledge – even when so skewed as this text is – helps make stronger arguments for whatever position one may have on any given issue. Recommended.

This review of Before The Badge by Samantha J. Simon was originally written on March 3, 2024.

#BookReview: DARE To Say No by Max Felker-Kantor

Well Documented History of DARE Marred By Undocumented Editorial Commentary. Coming in at over 30% documentation, this is one of the more well-documented books I’ve come across in my ARC reading over the years. However, the weakness here is that while Felker-Kantor cites nearly every word he says about the DARE program and those involved with it, he then proceeds to make quite a bit of left leaning social commentary that he then fails to document *at all*.

Which is sad, because this is a program that I too grew up in – the first uniformed cop whose name I remember is Deputy John Morgan of the Bartow County (Ga) Sheriff’s Office, the DARE officer for much of the Bartow County School System (if not the *entire* school system, at first) in the early and mid 90s. Deputy Morgan became a local legend there in Cartersville and Bartow County, to the tune that he could well have challenged either his then boss or his newer boss when he retired a few years ago for the top job – all because of his work with the DARE program. I even actively went to church with the second Deputy to begin teaching DARE in the BCSS – Deputy Richey Harrell, who was very active with the youth of Atco Baptist Church when his own kids were small and who served on the Deacon Board of the church with my dad.

But despite knowing Richey in particular so well – though as his sons were closer in age to my brothers, they knew him and his family even better than I myself did – as an adult to say my views on policing have changed would be an understatement. Which is where I approached this book from – having been a former DARE student who now sees just how problematic the entire program was, from top to bottom, and indeed who even concurs with Felker-Kantor on just how problematic the program’s insistence on using active duty police officers as front line teachers really is.

Not to mention agreeing with him on how truly ineffective it is. Not even just with a police officer teaching children he isn’t connected to outside the school. Again here, I know people directly who went through these same DARE programs in the same system and also knew Richey as well as my family did – and who later fell so deep into drugs that they lost pretty well everything except their actual life, yes, including their kids.

Had Felker-Kantor at minimum documented his editorial comments such as about the disparate impacts of the war on drugs based on race – not hard to do – or other related commentary about mass incarceration (also not hard), the rise of the militarized police force (ditto), or any similar editorial comments, this would have been a slam dunk five star book, even with the left leaning commentary. It is that strong and that complete a history of the program, including discussions of its *continued existence* in a much diminished capacity – something I myself did not know until reading this book.

So read this book for a truly comprehensive history of something so many of us experienced first hand, particularly those of us who grew up in the 80s through early 2000s. And may we finally kick this particular program to the curb in favor of something that might actually work.

Recommended.

This review of DARE To Say No by Max Felker-Kantor was originally written on December 31, 2023.