Author: ekkarn

“Into the Morning” with music from Hungary’s Söndörgö – “Jozo” from the album Tamburocket Hungarian Fireworks!

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How about we go “into the morning” with the opening track “Jozo” from the album Tamburocket TamburocketHungarian Fireworks by the Hungarian band  Söndörgö From their website:

Söndörgő is one of the most active and interesting world music groups in Hungary. They play a style of music that is hugely attractive, but little known and quite different to the traditional, fiddle-led hungarian repertoire. Their aim is to foster and preserve Southern Slavic traditions of the Serbs and Croats as found in various settlements in Hungary. Most of these communities are situated along the Danube, but quite isolated from each other.
The group was founded in 1995 in Szentendre a small Hungarian town near Budapest, with long-established Serbian tradition. The Eredics brothers got acquainted, and started to play music together with (bass player) Attila Buzás during their high-school years. Partly because of family reasons (Kálmán Eredics, the father of the Eredics brothers, was a founder member of the Vujicsics ensemble), all the group members are profoundly touched by, and drawn towards Southern Slav folk music. Söndörgő’s mission is to research it, arrange it and perform it on stage. The current members of the group are: Áron Eredics, Benjamin Eredics, Dávid Eredics, Salamon Eredics and Attila Buzás. Continue Reading

SondorgoSome press….

“Söndörgö are proving themselves to be one of Europe’s most versatile and exciting bands.”
Simon Broughton, Songlines Magazine

“Their music sparkles with virtuosity and foot-tapping joie de vivre” London Evening Standard

I only listen to a little of the album the other day, but what I heard I liked, if anyone wants to write more about the band let me know! Here’s a performance of “Jozo” get your toe tapping feets ready!!!

Missing You – Harlan Coben

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Missing You – Harlan Coben – Journeys into the Past are necessary and often painful!

 

When NYPD Detective Kat Donovan sends her ex-fiancée Jeff Raynes “Their Video” on the dating site  You are just my type.com and his response is “It’s Cute”, Kat doesn’t understand his response.  Eighteen years earlier, before he dumped her and left town, their love was real and magical. Sure his dating site biography says he is a widower, but should his response be that lame? Well, he just wants to move on thinks Kat and so does Kat.  She has more important things to do too, her father’s murderer is dying and she needs to visit one more time before he dies.  When she does the hit man who killed her father, once again proclaims his innocence.

Soon the son of a woman who has gone from her Connecticut home visits Kat in hopes that she will help him find his mother. Why thinks Kat- because the man she ran away with is none other than Jeff Raynes!  So begins Kat’s quest in Harlan Coben‘s latest  Missing You!. Maybe I should say quests because Kat needs to know what happened on the night of her father’s murder, along with what happened to Dana Phelps, the missing Connecticut woman and Brandon’s mother along with the reason that Jeff ran out on her with no explanation.  None of the quests are free from potential pain to those involved!!

So once again Harlan Coben builds  great story around a simple action i.e. a friend signs you up for an on-line dating service and the first time you go in you find an old love. How will he or she react?  Is it better to leave the past behind??? This time throws a potential danger in getting carried away by an on-line dating service!! The book is Harlan Coben at his best. It is one of the few books that I couldn’t put down this year!! When I found the book in the library I had a few days previously checked out two other books. I thought no I’ll just wait and read it later. Then I thought, no it’s Harlan Coben, it will go fast and it will be great! I was right on both counts.

This is the 19th book I’ve read in 2014.  if I can finish to more before the end of the month I’ll be averaging 3 books a month. That will be a great recovery considering the way that the year started!! It is also the 19th Harlan Coben book that is one my Goodreads bookshelf. And they all are good reads!!!

 

 

 

Missing You by Harlan Coben – Journeys into the Past are necessary and often painful!

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Missing YouWhen NYPD Detective Kat Donovan sends her ex-fiancée Jeff Raynes “Their Video” on the dating site  You are just my type.com and his response is “It’s Cute”, Kat doesn’t understand his response.

Eighteen years earlier, before he dumped her and left town, their love was real and magical. Sure his dating site biography says he is a widower, but should his response be that lame?

Well, he just wants to move on thinks Kat and so does Kat.  She has more important things to do too, her father’s murderer is dying and she needs to visit one more time before he dies.  When she does the hit man who killed her father, once again proclaims his innocence.

Soon the son of a woman who has gone from her Connecticut home visits Kat in hopes that she will help him find his mother. Why thinks Kat- because the man she ran away with is none other than Jeff Raynes!  So begins Kat’s quest in Harlan Coben‘s latest  Missing You!. Maybe I should say quests because Kat needs to know what happened on the night of her father’s murder, along with what happened to Dana Phelps, the missing Connecticut woman and Brandon’s mother along with the reason that Jeff ran out on her with no explanation.  None of the quests are free from potential pain to those involved!!

So once again Harlan Coben builds  great story around a simple action i.e. a friend signs you up for an on-line dating service and the first time you go in you find an old love. How will he or she react?  Is it better to leave the past behind??? This time throws a potential danger in getting carried away by an on-line dating service!! The book is Harlan Coben at his best and is one of the few books that I couldn’t put down this year!! When I found the book in the library I had a few days previously checked out two other books. I thought no I’ll just wait and read it later. Then I thought, no it’s Harlan Coben, it will go fast and it will be great! I was right on both counts.

This is book 19 for 2014 – if I can finish to more before the end of the month I’ll be averaging 3 books a month and that will be a great recovery considering the way that the year started!! It is also the 19th Harlan Coben book that is one my Goodreads bookshelf and they all are good reads!!!

Patrick Lee – Runner – Sam Dryden #1 – I’m ready for Book #2 – Now Patrick!

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RunnerSam Dryden has retired after being an Army Ranger, a Delta, and spending five years doing off-the-book black ops with an elite team.t In Runner ,(Book 18 of 2014) the first book of the Dryden series by Patrick Lee, he has to use all his skill and cunning to keep young Rachael Grant alive.  Sam literally runs into Rachael when insomnia forces him out for a middle of the night run, and well, Rachael is on the run too only in Rachael’s case she has a passel of  military men after her using a lot of high-tech gadgetry, with one aim take her out! When Rachael runs into Sam, she hopes that he will save her  and Sam having lost his wife and child an accident five years earlier wants to do just that.

Together they set out to evade the killers and rediscover Rachael’s past, see she can only remember the last two months! Oh Rachael also has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these men and the hidden men in charge!

While Sam and Rachael are on the run, the reader is also introduced to Owen and “the gravel man” who talks to Owen, well actually he sometimes tells Owen what to do, not to his face but in OWEN’S mind, and well if it isn’t something Owen wants to do “the gravel man” gets him to do it by turning up the pain on Owen!! How does this tie into Rachael??

As the story unfolds, the questions continue to mount, who is Rachael and what are the extents of her abilities, and why do these guys want to kill her??? It’s a fast, and furious ride and one that no one knows, how it’s going to end! But along the way the reader surmises,  it’s not going to end well for everyone!!

Patrick LeeI enjoy that writing of Patrick Lee, his other work is the Travis Chase trilogy, that includes The Breach, Ghost Country and Deep Sky all of which are exceptionally good! That series has a little more science fiction in it, well actually a lot more science fiction, but in main characters in both books Travis Chase and Sam Dryden are heroes that you can root for!! So Check Out Runner as well as Lee’s other books! Here’s a few of the things that others say about Lee’s writing……

“Patrick Lee is a huge talent and Runner is his best book yet—breathless, involving, smart, and completely convincing.”
—Lee Child

“Pure adrenaline rush! Finally, an action-packed novel brimming with complex characters as well as genuine heart. Not to be missed.”
—Lisa Gardner, NYTimes bestselling author of Touch and Go and Catch Me

“I’m going to sue Patrick Lee for giving me whiplash: that’s how furiously paced this book is. A terrific cast of characters, unrelenting action—strap in and enjoy the ride.”
—Jesse Kellerman, author of Sunstroke and Trouble

Links

Patrick Lee Fiction
Goodreads
Facebook
Amazon

Harold Schechter Masterfully Tells the Tale of “The Mad Sculptor” – The Maniac, The Model, and the Murder the Shook the Nation

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So if you like true crime stories, especially ones that rocked the nation, then Harold Schecther‘s The Mad Sculptor – The Maniac, The Model and the Murder that Shook the Nation is the book for you, it was for me! The Mad Sculptor is one Robert Irwin, he is also The Maniac. The Model is VerThe Mad Sculptoronica Gedeon  and the Murder was the grisly slaying of Veronica, her mother and their English boarder on Easter Sunday morning in 1937 in a New York City apartment at  Beekman Place.

Author Schecther does not only a fine job of telling the tale of madman/artist Robert Irwin, but in also detailing the way that his crime fits into the history of Beekman Tower and Beeckman Place, where prior murders, that captured the attention had occurred.  These murders included, the shooting of Fritz Gebhardt by his long-time mistress Vera Stretz, and the murder of Nancy Titterton. Schechter  opens the book describing  these murders, their investigations and trials, setting the stage for the Gedeon murders.

Schechter moves on to tell  the tale of the “Mad Sculptor” Robert Irwin, son of a philandering, evangelical preacher and an equally religiously zealot mother, who hailed from a dysfunctional family! Irwin, born Fenelon, along with his older brother Vidalin and Pember, were delinquents right from the start! Both Vidalin and Pember ended up in the Oregon State Penitentiary. Robert though went in and out of madness, when he was sane, he was well read, articulate and a very good sculptor, who studied with some of the masters of the day, but sooner or later wherever, he went, whatever job he held, a violent outburst and subsequent fight would cause him to move on!  Irwin finally ended up, a border with the Gedeon’s, where he became infatuated with the Gedeon daughter’s first Ronnie then Ethel. But when he attempted to control his sexual urges by self-emulation Irwin set himself on the road to Bellevue and other mental institutes, along,  the way he met  prominent psyschiatrist Fredric Wertham who would treat and befriend him.

After his final descent into madness, and the murders, the author leads the reader through the manhunt to find Irwin. Accompanying the search was the coverage of the murder and manhunt by the New York tabloids. i.e the forreunners of Fox News, The National Enquirer and World News.  Finally, the selection of Samuel Leibowiz as his defense attorney completes the cycle, because Leibowitz, the attorney for the Scottsboro Boys and Al Capone was also the defense attorney for Vera Stretz, whose murder of Fritz Gebhardt was written about in the opening chapters of the book.

All in all ,it was a terrific read and Schechter does a great job of presenting Robert Irwin, in all his madness, as well as capturing the atmosphere of New York in the 193os. Samual Baatz, author of For the Thrill of It: Leopold Loch, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz Age Chicago writes…..(note to self – check that book out)

“Harold Schechter has unveiled another sensational murder with a cast of characters that might have stepped from a novel by Dostoyevsky. Schechter’s absorbing narrative will fascinate everyone with an interest in New York City in the twentieth century”

So check out the tale of The Mad Sculptor as told by Harold Schechter……

P.S. The mention of Fredric Wertham and his attacks on the comic book industry served as the basis of a post at Socialstudious.….. and the mention of Irwin’s fascination with the hypnotism of Franz Mesmer led me to Wikipedia to find out more about the man who is the origin of the world mesmerized!!

(Book 17 0f 2014)

 

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James Rollins – Grant Blackwood – The Kill Switch – a Tucker Wayne and Kane thriller!!

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The Kill Switch by James Rollins & Grant Blackwood

I’ve been a James Rollins fan ever since I picked up Map of Bones (Sigma #2) back in 2005. Since then, I’ve read every Sigma Force novel (except the very first) along with three of his early stand-alones — and every one of them has been a winner.

What keeps me hooked? The science… no, the action… no, the political twists… honestly, it’s the whole package!

As the Associated Press once put it:

“The science reads like the best of Michael Crichton.
The machinations of government read like the best of David Baldacci.
And the action and thrills read like the best of Clive Cussler. Rollins takes the best of all of these and creates an amazing thriller unlike any other.”

A New Series Begins

Rollins’ novel The Kill Switch — co-written with Grant Blackwood — has all those familiar ingredients, plus something fresh: two new heroes, one man and one canine.

Meet Tucker Wayne, a former U.S. Army Ranger, and Kane, his loyal Belgian shepherd. When Sigma Force director Painter Crowe calls on them for what seems like a simple mission — extracting a defector out of Russia — things quickly spiral out of control.

The defector is Abram Bukolov, often called the “Steve Jobs of Russia’s pharmaceutical industry.” And the Russians don’t intend to let him go without a fight. Soon Tucker and Kane are hunted by Russia’s military, its intelligence services, and a deadly sniper named Felice Nilsson.

The Plot Thickens

So why is Bukolov really on the run? His research centers on LUCA — the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all life on Earth. In the right hands, LUCA could transform medicine and agriculture. In the wrong hands, it could unravel the planet’s ecosystem.

The trail leads to the mountains of Namibia, where botanist Paulos de Klerck may have discovered evidence of this elusive ancestor. Tucker’s mission quickly expands: find LUCA before Russian General Kharzin does.

But there’s another danger — a traitor inside Tucker’s team, feeding intel back to the Russians. With Felice Nilsson close on their heels, Tucker and Kane must fight, track, and survive to protect Bukolov and keep LUCA from falling into the wrong hands.

Final Thoughts

With The Kill Switch, Rollins has given us two new characters you can really root for. Tucker Wayne and Kane are a dynamic duo who bring grit, loyalty, and heart to the chaos. Their journey takes you from a simple rendezvous in Vladivostok, through the rugged landscapes of South Africa and Namibia, and finally to a pulse-pounding showdown on the shores of Lake Michigan.

It’s a great ride — action, science, politics, betrayal — all in true Rollins style.

I, for one, can’t wait for their next adventure. Until then, I’ll be diving into Rollins’ latest Sigma Force novel, The 6th Extinction.

Return to Author’s PAge
Return to Branches Author’s PAge

Rediscovering the Books of Richard Hoyt – Fish Story leads to his new book Crow’s Mind!

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Revisiting Richard Hoyt – From Fish Story to Crow’s Mind

Fish Story

The first year I started keeping fairly detailed notes on my reading was 1988. I didn’t record exact start and finish dates until March, so my January and February reads are just listed by month. But I do know that the first book of the year was Richard Hoyt’s Fish Story, the fourth book in his John Denson mystery series.

John Denson, Seattle private eye, teams up with his darts-throwing Cowlitz Indian buddy, Willie Prettybird, to investigate a Cowlitz claim to Native American salmon fishing rights. A judge is murdered and dismembered parts show up in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

Denson is an ex-intelligence agent turned Seattle private eye, and Fish Story is the first of his cases on my Goodreads shelves. I don’t think it was my first Denson book, though — I’m pretty sure that honor goes to Book 2: Siskiyou.

Hoyt’s Denson books were, for me, short, quick reads with likable, quirky characters. I especially remember enjoying Willie Prettybird’s character.

Beyond Denson – Enter James Burlane

Before Fish Story, I had already read Trotsky’s Run, the first in Hoyt’s James Burlane series.
There was a six-year gap between Fish Story and the next Denson mystery (Who?), and somewhere in there I lost track of Denson until 1996 when I picked up Book 7, Snake Eyes.

Then came another long pause — eight years — before 2003’s The Weatherman’s Daughter, which I also read and enjoyed.

A New Detective in Town – Jake Hipp

Crow's Mind

On visiting Richard Hoyt’s website, I discovered a newer book, Crow’s Mind, introducing private investigator Jake Hipp. Here’s how Hoyt describes him:

I shrugged at the odds and moved on from my much-admired detective John Denson to create a private investigator truly for our times and for readers tired of reading formula mysteries. No world-weary grimacing bead of sweat narrates this story. Pothead Jake Hipp lives green. His American Indian partner, Willow Blackwing, thinks she is a shape-changing trickster Raven. (Maybe she is).

You can find Crow’s Mind at Amazon.

Praise for Richard Hoyt

  • “Hoyt has a fresh, invigorating style that grabs the reader immediately. He is a master.” – The New York Times
  • “Hoyt is an adroit and zestful writer.” – Minneapolis Star-Tribune
  • “Hoyt is a delight to discover and a treat to read.” – Library Journal

Where I Stand with Hoyt’s Books

Hoyt has given readers:

  • The John Denson mysteries
  • The James Burlane thrillers
  • Now, the Jake Hipp PI series

I still have gaps to fill in both Denson and Burlane — and now a whole new series to start. Sounds like a good problem to have.

Next Up in My Hoyt Reading

Looks like my next stop will be the very first John Denson novel, which I just discovered sitting in my Kindle library. Time to start at the beginning and see where it all began.

Past Reads: May 1987 – A First Encounter with Loren Estleman’s – Amos Walker!

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A Throw Wayback Post: From Dumas to Detroit
So yesterday I discovered two things:

The Amos Walker series is now up to Book 31!

And I will never again question whether an older author is still writing—Loren Estleman is a year younger than me!

Well, in honor of that realization, let’s all go…


Wait. No. Not Dumas Walker—we’re talking Amos Walker, not some honky-tonk in Kentucky, you duma-ass!

Back to the Beginning
Motor City Blue

When I looked back at my old Book Journal, I saw that the very first Amos Walker book I recorded was Estleman’s Motor City Blue, released in 1980. By then, Estleman had already published six books, but I made sure to start at the beginning.

Apparently, I wasn’t blown away, but still intrigued. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

“Amos Walker is looking for the missing foster daughter of a mobster. Estleman does well, maintaining excitement chapter to chapter.”

Pretty concise. Clearly, I was in full-on “efficient journaling” mode.

Goodreads Says…
“Amos Walker, a tough-talking Detroit detective, will delight mystery buffs. Loren D. Estleman has written a series of fast-paced mysteries which occur in the Motor City where murders are committed nightly within full view of the glittering Renaissance Center.”
— Goodreads

And Amazon Adds…
“If I see my name in tomorrow’s paper yours will be in the next edition. Bordered in black.”
— Thus begins Amos Walker’s first case: finding Marla Bernstein, the teenage ward of a semi-retired mobster. A pornographic photo is the only lead—and it draws Walker into Detroit’s seedy underworld of blue movies and even darker secrets.
— More on Amazon

That description actually is jogging my memory! And it reminds me why I kept coming back—at least for a while.

My Amos Walker Timeline
Looking at my Goodreads shelf, I see I read eight of the first ten Amos Walker books. Then—cue the familiar refrain—a seven-year gap between 1990’s Sweet Women Lie and 1997’s Never Street. What happened?

You guessed it. My ADD brain wandered off to chase other series.

Still, I’ve revisited Amos from time to time—most recently in Book #20 The Left-Handed Dollar. I also own Book #16 Poison Blue, still waiting patiently on my TBR shelf.

Is It Time for a Return Trip to Motor City?
Maybe it’s time to reconnect with Amos Walker. After all:

He’s still in Detroit.

He’s still grizzled.

And somehow, he’s still going—thanks to Loren Estleman, who, as I said, is younger than me and still going strong.

So here’s my advice:
If you’re a fan of classic PI mysteries and you haven’t read Amos Walker?

Shame on you.

Go fix that. Immediately.

Amos Walker book shame on you!! Get reading!!

Tell No Lies – Gregg Hurwitz – “Simply Brilliant”? – It’s True!

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STell No Lieso in keeping with the thought that one should write short I will give you my review of Gregg Hurwitz’s book Tell No Lies using the words of Anne Rice……“Simply Brilliant!”

So check it out of the library, buy it on Kindle, now you can by it in paperback just get you hands on it and see if you like me yell at Daniel Brasher  – “Don’t do it – Wait for the police!! But you see Daniel is the kind of guy that will not do that – he has to go for it, never, is he half in, never does he sit back and rest, he needs to be out there doing. He could just be sitting back and living the life of luxury like his filthy rich mother, but no he gave that life up and became a counselor to violent criminals, a position that he is about to leave to move into private practice.

Until a letter appears accidentally appears  in his work mailbox, threatening the lives of two people, telling them if they don’t “admit what they have done they will bleed for it” After Daniel reads that the first victim has been brutally slain, and the clock is winding down to the deadline for the second victim, who lives only blocks away from Daniel’ to admit what she has done, Daniel takes off to save her life! And you the reader know – this is not going to end well! True to form it doesn’t and soon……  there are more threats, including one directed at Daniel. So many questions, so little time…… could it really be one of his patients??  how are these seemingly random victims  related?  what are they to admit to, and does it all connect to Daniel?? All questions Daniel has to answer before his time is up!!

So now that I’ve used too many words to tell you about the book, I may as well give you the whole Anne Rice quote….

“Simply brilliant. Tell No Lies is infinitely more than a thriller, yet thrilling to the last page. Psychologically rich and often beautiful…A true page turner in which every phrase, every character, every little incident counts. Stylish, elegant, and absolutely riveting! An unforgettable read.” –Anne Rice, author of THE WOLVES OF MIDWINTER and INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.

Yep, it is that good, it was one of those books that I didn’t want to put down. The characters are great, the plot is terrific and the book works on several levels. The themes that the book addresses are real! I don’t really want to say what they are because they deal with the whole storyline!

I read my first Gregg Hurwitz book in 2004 The Kill Clause the first Tim Rackley book. I read the second Rackley book The Program and then three of Gregg’s stand-alones. It seems I read one about every three years. It also seems that has to change!! (Memo to self – get on the stick – take that Trust No One off of your to be read shelf, and get reading!!) So go grab a Hurwitz novel and get cracking and if you don’t like regular novels try Graphic Novels, he writes those to including Batman:The Dark Knight. Bye, I’m off to Trust No One…..

Book 15 of 2014

American Forces Begin “Operation Hastings” in Vietnam -July 15,1966

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Thoughts about the Vietnam War:
American Forces Begin “Operation Hastings” in Vietnam -July 15,1966

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On July 15th of 1966,  US forces began “Operation Hastings” an operation to drive North Vietnamese forces from the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam. From Wikipedia….

Operation Hastings was an American military operation in the Vietnam War. The operation was a qualified success in that it pushed the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces back across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). As the NVA clearly did not feel constrained by the Operation Hastings was an American military operation in the Vietnam War. The operation was a qualified success in that it pushed the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces back across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). As the NVA clearly did not feel constrained by the “demilitarized” nature of the DMZ, US military leadership ordered a steady build-up of U.S. Marines near the DMZ from 1966 to 1968.

Read More

I was 15 in 1966 and on the cusp of caring about what was happening in Vietnam, but over the next few years, as I approached draft age, my concern would obviously, grow. Eventually, I ended up on the side that thought the war was wrong, and wanted to bring our troops home.

When I think about this period of my life, the musician who comes to mind is Country Joe McDonald….”and it’s 1, 2, 3 What are we fighting for….”  No really, it’s Phil Ochs and the song that comes to mind and really sums up for me,  why we were destined to fail in Vietnam, and with a change in countries it’s “White Boots Marching in an Arab  Land”….

PS – You know just because we were against the war, it doesn’t mean we were not for the men who fought the war. What everyone wanted more than anything was for those men to come home and no more to be sent there to die in what had become a senseless war. There’s  a scene in the classic show Taxi .

When Tony angrily confronts Jim with the bitter accusation that he fought in Vietnam so that burnouts like him could stay home and get loaded at protest rallies, the philosophical Ignatowski can only stammer a heartfelt, and utterly sincere, “Thank you.” Read More

and while I did not get loaded at Protest Rallies I also say – Thank You!