The Pirates Lafitte: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf --- by William C. Davis

 

If nothing else, it's a great reference book, and the final chapters were then a pretty good read. I have something against any book, article, or visual entertainment that allows a visible monotony. This one did in the pre-Battle of New Orleans chapters, when the brothers Pierre and Jean were mostly smuggling into New Orleans from Barataria, using various bayous and methods. It was difficult to manage, but a good, energetic developmental editor should have taken over there.
Author William C. Davis had a four-page acknowledgement section, crediting the research army help he had to take on this giant task. The Pirates Lafitte left no doubt that older brother Pierre has been cheated out of his share of the attention usually given to his younger brother Jean. Pierre managed most of the non-sea action, and there was plenty of that, too.
Davis did a good job addressing the Jean Lafitte mystique, legends, and myths. But he published too early for the latest story from Lincolnton, North Carolina that Jean Lafitte did not die in Mexico, but he changed his name, and lived out his years in Lincolnton. That story says he's buried under the assumed name of Lorenzo Ferrer. I haven't read the locally written related book, yet.
Personally, I was hoping for more information on their possible accomplices. I strongly suspect that the Manila men (Filipino) community, located right across the bayou from Grand Isle could've supplied some help, and there's a former Greek pirate who was a Lafitte crewman at one time. I would like to learn more there, as well.
I'm glad I read it, but it was a heavy book to be lifting over my face, too.
4/5 stars.

The Wife You Know -- by Chad Zunker

 Not disappointing at all. It was a battle to take a break. The story gave very little rest and looks like it could be the start of another series. Author Chad Zunker has written them before.

This one was centered around the short, new, second marriage of Luke Driskell to an artist named Ashley, or so he thought. The circumstances, and his pursuit of the truths, taught him there's more he didn't learn in their courtship. There were plenty of other things he could only learn in a trek across the country, and with professional, high-level, help.

It starts when she steps unwillingly, and unknowingly into the spotlight by jumping out of her car to rescue eight children from a burning classroom. It was a great feat, but someone recorded it on their phone, and it went viral on the internet. Ashley wasn't the same after that, and in hiding until the end of it all on a remote, unnamed, far away island somewhere.

The story, without any further spoilers, involves China, and its ambassador's family, as well as a U.S. Senator, and the reader's ability to keep turning pages.

It's a terrific read, and many might find a battle within themselves on the length. It's just under 200 pages, and could be read in one sitting, if life doesn't call you elsewhere.

Zunker makes full use of modern things like Facebook, cell phones, and private jet travel. The Wife You Know was also almost flawlessly edited. Exceedingly close to perfection. Toward the end I found an instance where the word of was missing. The chapters were short and well placed, helping the reading speed, and reader breathing.

I found it enjoyable, and very glad I was selected to receive my review copy. An easy five-star selection.

Zunker is originally from the Houston-area and played wide receiver at Texas in the mid-90s while earning a Journalism degree.

I read a review copy sent in advance of the book's release.

The Prophet -- by Kahlil Gibran

 

Kahlil Gibran wrote many general observations and truths in his 105-page The Prophet. It is largely centered around the informal ceremony of he and his family sailing away from the Middle East toward the United States. 

It is all people-focused, and he covered a lot of ground before sailing away.

"Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.

Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?

Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived."

He notes many balances in life which normally cannot be controlled by the average person. He was largely a poet and artist, often adding his own drawings to the 13 books he wrote.

Kahlil lived between 1883 and 1931. The Prophet was published in 1923.

Further reading about Kahlil can be found in This Man From Lebanon, A Study of Kahlil Gibran, by Barbara Young.

The Crossing -- by Michael Connelly

 

A great ride all the way through, wrapping up with a first-class courtroom hearing equaling, or surpassing anything I've read or seen previously. I grew up watching Perry Mason, and other courtroom battles, and witnessed some as an adult news reporter. Author Michael Connolly is guilty as charged in writing another winner.
The book's design, either by smart plotting, or just writing daily what Connelly was capable of, worked very nicely, too. The rising tension, and drama was captured extremely well throughout, leaving the reader wishing that they had the capacity to keep on reading through the night.
The Crossing was set in Los Angeles, a city I knew quite well as a child. Connelly's detailed writing with actual street names, restaurants, and various businesses and buildings took me back there. It was a nice trip, and I didn't have to battle the traffic. Thank God!
This was another book my late Mom had saved for me. She got it at a discount for only $3. The sticker is still on the front cover. Thanks again!
The story revolves around the dirty deeds of two rogue vice cops, and forcibly retired detective Harry Bosch brought into the case by his lawyer half-brother, Mickey Haller after his regular investigator had been deliberately injured on his motorcycle ironically by those two same rouge vice cops. Those two crooked cops were trying to frame someone, and Haller was his attorney. There were eight murders before it all ended, and Bosch was almost number nine.
I try to avoid wasting time on bad books, and this was at the opposite pole. Very far away.

A Kim Jong-Il Production -- by Paul Fischer

 Author Paul Fischer did quite well in his debut. A Kim Jong-Il Production was largely journalistic in nature, and structure, noting facts and sources all the way to the end.

Some readers might ask why there wasn't more balance, more from the North Korean side of events. The answer is the dark nature of North Korea: speak ill of the Great Leader, and you would likely wind up imprisoned or dead. Or both. If there were any sources to enlighten us on things in The Hermit Kingdom, remember that the dead don't talk.

Kidnapped South Korean moviemakers Shin Sang-Ok, and off-and-on, wife Choi Eun-Hee were thrown back together to make good films for dictator Kim Jong-Il, and for about three years they did. They might've made more, but Shin was delayed in meeting with Choi, due to his propensity to try and escape, sending him to prison. Both had been kidnapped separately out of Hong Kong.

Fischer, and his sources didn't spare us on the horrors of North Korea's prisons and justice system that rivaled anything Nazi Germany ever had. Cruelty was the norm. 

A reader learns a lot about the Koreas, and moviemaking in this one. A lot about people, too.

Ironically, I found this book on the cheap rack at Dollar Tree. It deserved much better.

Cow People -- by J. Frank Dobie

 

J. Frank Dobie saved the best for last, but that might be debatable. The book was filled with so many stories of good, bad, ugly, unusual, and hard-to-describe people associated with the cattle business.

Charles Goodnight was the subject of the last chapter. He was co-founder of the Goodnight-Loving Trail, and wisely and judiciously chose to use his gifts, decision-making, and broad experiences to better those around him. Charlie Goodnight is still quite revered in several places, not just in Texas, but pretty much wherever he went. He was only bad to the bad guys. 

Dobie kept the reader entertained and reading until it was time to sleep, or some other priority got in the way. He tried to quote some of the stories just as he heard them, but seldom used quotation marks. Some of the content was quite gritty, and not meant for those that can't understand how exclusive much of our world was during the 19th Century, mostly after the Civil War. It takes a while longer for some people to get civilized and live peacefully with others.

Cow People was sociological, historical, violent in places, and very colorful with plenty of character development. But just enough. It is a pretty good book. I got a lot out of reading this one I think my mother had been saving for me. I caught myself getting very nostalgic for those times back in the 1980s when I ranged about the sports fields and arenas in and from Alice, Texas. I could hear the quiet down there. Something, a therapeutic thing, that I could only find in a few places around the world. Unless someone honked a horn miles away, I was in some on the best stress relief known to mankind. Yes, anyone might miss that, and it was a strong trait of J. Frank Dobie's South Texas Brush Country.

I'm sure it helped him become the writer he was. He entered Alice High School in 1904, and I was sports department at the Echo-News 80 years later. 

Thanks again mom, and to J. Frank for educating me about the Cow People world, and that instant when I could distinctly remember the quiet.

You really feel like you've been somewhere after reading Cow People. 5/5 stars...

Under A Darkening Sky, The American Experience in Nazi Europe 1939-1941 -- By Robert Lyman

 

Robert Lyman is one smart Kiwi. The New Zealand native, and one-time major went to that path least taken by most everyone else. He researched and wrote about those happenings in Germany, and Europe, that might have been covered largely between 1939 and 1941 then but were swept out of mind once the U.S. entered the war after Pearl Harbor.

There was plenty of American involvement in those obscured days leading up to WWII. Too much for me to cover here. 

And Lyman's Under A Darkening Sky was up to the task. His writing could be fast and action-packed, or more fact-filled and carefully informative. He's good, and I want to read more like this explosive cheapy I found down low at Ollie's some time ago. I need to quit hiding good books from myself.

Lyman also made it personal, bringing in testimony from people I grew up watching on TV like younger versions of Eric Sevareid and Howard K. Smith. This was some very good journalism. 

Important to a story which happened so many years ago were the summaries. The Battle Of Britain in 1940, still called the Blitz there in London, noted the community approach shown by most Londoners.

Lyman put it like this, in Sevareid's words:

"When this all over, in the days to come, men will speak of this war, and they will say, I was a soldier, or I was a sailor, or I was a pilot; or others will say with equal pride: I was a citizen of London."

I lived in London, studying for my master's, and saw the markings and scars from this fight from 2001-through most of 2002. Very moving.

Lyman summed up that period of seemingly endless Nazi victories very well in one sentence.

"Early successes in the East and West not because of Wehrmacht brilliance but because Germany's neighbors naïvely believed that the Great War had been fought to end all wars and failed to protect themselves."

There's still a lot of potential for more books, movies, and such in these pages. I believe Herman Wouk's The Winds Of War captured some of it. If I was teaching anywhere, I might approach my department chair with this book in hand. It's many years after the facts, but a young freshman journalist would immediately improve by reading it.

I also noted that there is a city in Ukraine bearing the author's name. Maybe that's a connection we'll read about someday.