Author: ekkarn

Book 16 – Gideon’s Sword – Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

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Book 16 is the latest book from the writing team of Douglas Preston and Lee Child Gideon’s Sword.The book is the first book in a proposed series featuring Gideon Crew. I go back a long way with Preston and Child to the first book in the Pendergrast series Relic published in 1995! Unfortunately, I only read the first book and parts of the second Reliquary. That series is now up to book ten and I have several on my Mount to Be Read pile! Anyway rather than go back and catch up I thought I move forward with the new series! At twelve years old Gideon sees his father killed in a hostage stand-off involving his work for the government. On her death bed his mother his mother reveals that his father was a scapegoat concerning a failed project that left twenty six CIA agent s dead! Gideon sets out to clear his father’s name and does that rather quickly in the book. After revenging his father’s death Gideon returns to his favorite fishing hole and thinks he will just resume his normal life. Soon he is contacted by a subcontractor for the Department of Homeland security and offered an assignment to steal the plans for a new weapon from a Chinese scientist who is entering the country. This plunges Gideon into a whole new world, but he may have the talents for it because along the way the reader discovers that he is a master of disguises and a former Art Museum thief. The action is fast paced with several twists and turns. I enjoyed the read but in places found some events very implausible, but sometimes that in these types of books, so you just suspend belief and go along for the ride. The ride is pretty damn good so check it out! I enjoyed the character of Gideon Crew and along the way I learned a few things particularly about the Falun Gong and the Potter’s Field at Hart Island in Long Island Sound. So again check it out as for me I guess I need to go back and read some of those Pendergrast books!

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Books 14 and 15 – Ultralongevity and The Bone Yard

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So I have finished two books in the last week Book Number 14 is UltraLongevity: The Seven-Step Program for a Younger, Healthier You by Mark Liponis and Book Number 15 is The Bone Yard by Jefferson Bass. Both were very good reads! Mark Liponis is the Medical Director of Canyon Ranch Health Resorts and author coautrhor of the book UltraPrevention. The book outlines a seven step program for “a younger and healthier you”! The book is based on the latest research on aging and the immune system. From the dust jacket:

According to the latest scientific research, you can control the aging process, simply by paying attention to one thing: your immune system…. Dr. Liponis also offers an innovative and practical seven-step program that not only gives you guidelines for a healthier life; it reveals some startling facts about aging…..

I found the book very informative and am going to go back through it again and try to implement as many of the aspects of the plan as I can!! You can pick up the paperback at Amazon for $4.46. The links on the sidebar! The second book I finished was Jefferson Bass’ sixth Body Farm novel The Bone Yard . Once again the writing team of Bill Bass, the director of The Body Farm at the University of Tennessee and Jon Jefferson have written a great book! In this installment Bill Brockton is called by a forensic analyist with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Officer Angie St. Claire to help her investigate her sister’s suicide and to determine if she was actually murdered by her husband! While he’s in Florida he’s asked to take a look at a skull of a murdered young child… this leads Bill into the world of the North Florida Boys Reformatory and The Bone Yard! This is a fast paced book that I couldn’t put down! I always enjoy Bill Brockton character and this book is no exception, however, this book is disturbing for it’s portrayal of the grim world of the Reformatory!  So if you like Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell but haven’t read Jefferson Bass do yourself a favor and pick up one of their books! You won’t be disappointed! 

Book 13 – Vince Flynn – Consent to Kill

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Yeah finally finished Book 13 for 2011 Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn. Constent to Kill is the sixth book in the Mitch Rapp series by Flynn, The series is now up to Book 11, so I have some reading to do to catch up on the series! Mitch Rapp is a  CIA assassin working deep Black Ops. in the book prior to this one Memorial Day. Rapp saved Washington from a nuclear holocaust and along the way made some very powerful enemies! Now those enemies have put a price on his head and hired a very savvy assassin to do the job!

Overall I enjoyed the book like all of the Rapp books. I thought this book moved a little slow in the beginning and I kinda knew what was going to happen, but once “the event” occurred the book picked up and moved well from that point on! I enjoy Rapp’s character well as the supporting cast of Irene Kennedy, the Director of the CIA and Mitch’s friend Scott Coleman. I’m looking forward to the next adventure Act of Treason (#7) which is on my bookshelf along with books 8 and 9!!  But I’m sure I’ll find something else to read before diving into them!

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The Secret Soldier – Alex Berenson (John Wells #5)

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Ok, quick quiz , Who is the current King of Saudi Arabia? Who is his son? Brother? Dis everyone get it right! I wouldn’t have! But they are all main characters in Alex Berenson‘s new John Wells adventure The Secret Soldier. This is book 12 for the year, (boy am I way behind!) and the fifth in the Wells series. After several terrorist attacks in the Kingdom, King Abdullah contacts new ex-CIA operative John Wells to determine if his brother Saed and Saed’s son were involved in the attacks. Saed thinks that he is the rightful heir to the throne, while Abdullah wants his son Khalid to succeed him, and Saed is none to pleased with that.   Soon Wells is immersed in a mission not only to make the determination, but also to save US and Saudi relations!!

I enjoy the character of John Wells and have liked all of the previous adventures. I thought that this book started a little disjointed and slow but once it got rolling there was no stopping the action until the last page was turned!

It’s funny!  I wrote a couple weeks ago, that I picked up Vince Flynn’s Constent to Kill a Mitch Rapp adventure and Saed was also a character in that book! Because I was confusing the plots I stopped reading that book, but now that I’m finished I’ll go back and complete that adventure!

Oh, one more question do you know where the largest clock in the world is??

Here’s a picture of it! It sits atop the  Abraj-al-Bait hotel in a Saudi Arabia city! But you’ll have to read the book to find out where and how it ties into the storyline!!

 

Book 10 – The Breach – Patrick Lee

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Book 10 of 2011 was Patrick Lee’s The Breach.

The Breach is the first book of what’s now a two book series featuring Travis Chase, Paige Campbell and the Breach. The second book, which I read first is Ghost Country. The book is an action adventure book with some sci-fi thrown in.

The Breach itself is an anomaly, like a ripe in space, through which entities are sent to Earth from some other vastly more intelligent world. The entity that is the focus of this book is The Whisper.

The Whisper knows all and it’s mission is to cause trouble and in the book it certainly does! From the opening chapter when a plane carrying the Whisper and the First Lady of the United States goes down and the Whisper is stolen, to the last pages where the home of the Breach Border Town run by a group known as Tangent is attacked the action is fast and furious with lots of twists and turns.

I really liked both of the books and I’m looking forward to more books featuring the likable team of Chase and Campbell!

“It’s all here: brilliantly devious enemies; nifty, innovative gadgets and weaponry; hang-on-to-your-hat action; and razor-sharp plot twists aplenty.”
—Publishers Weekly (read the full review here)

Book 8 – The Ark – Boyd Morrison

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So this time a scientific word that was not coined until 1982, (well after my high school and college days were over and parenting was in year three of son number one and we were waiting for son two), is the center of Book 8 for 2011! The word is prion and the book is Boyd Morrison’s debut novel The Ark. So what is a prion? From Wikipedia:

A prion is an infectious agent composed of protein in a misfolded form.[2] This is in contrast to all other known infectious agents, which must contain nucleic acids (either DNA, RNA, or both) along with protein components. The word prion, coined in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner, is a portmanteau derived from the words protein and infection.[3] Prions are responsible for the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies in a variety of mammals, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as “mad cow disease”) in cattle and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. All known prion diseases affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue and all are currently untreatable and universally fatal.[4]

The novel The Ark combines a little history revolving around Noah’s Ark and a lot of action adventure involving a madman whose plan is to destroy mankind except for those he has handpicked to save and restart civilization!

The action starts when archaeologist Dilara Kenner is contacted by Sam Watson an old family friend who says he has information about her missing father.  When Dilara meets Sam at the LA Airport rather than speaking about her father Sam starts talking about Noah’s Ark (her father’s archaeological obsession) and the possible death of billions! Before he is able to fully explain Sam is killed by a mysterious woman. With his dying breaths Sam tells Dilara to find Tyler Locke.

Two days later Dilara finds Locke on an oil rig off Newfoundland. After an attempt on Dilara’s life (her helicopter crashes) and an attempt to blow up the oil rig Locke is convinced that Dilara is in need of help and agrees to help her discover the secret behind Noah’s Ark and her father’s disappearance. Oh, and they also have to save the world from that madman! The more they find out and link together other attacks the more they realize that they have a short time to find this monster and save billions!  And how do prions fit into all this?  Well you ‘ll just have to read the book to find out!

The action is fast and furious and the pages flew by. I liked the lead characters Dilara and Tyler and Tyler’s associates.  The back cover is riddled with quotes from some of my old favorites like James Rollins and Douglas Preston along with  new favorite  Chris Kuzneski. Here’s what James Rollins says:

“Boyd Morrison’s novel is a stunning thriller with a premise as ingenious as it is flawlessly executed. Lightning Paced, chillingly real, here is a novel that will have you holding your breath until the last page is turned. One of the best debuts I’ve read this year.”

So if you want a good read that mixes, history and science and leaves you slightly concerned about the future of mankind,  read The Ark!

Book 7 – Virus of the Mind – Richard Brodie

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So I want all the folks who graduated high school and college prior to 1977 who know what a meme is to raise their hands! Did lots of hands go up! If they did then you’re better than me.

Until I read Richard Dawkins The God Delusion I did not know about memes. But now after reading that book and Book Number for 2011 Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie I know a little more about this basic unit of cultural transmission and imitiation and memetics which is the study of the working of memes, how they interact, replicate and evolve

. A meme (rhymes with cream) is an idea that forms itself into a distinct memorable unit and then is spread through a culture. They are the cultural equivalent of the gene. The term was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. Memes can exist concerning any thing in life like danger, fear, sex and religion. Those that are best at replicating themselves keep evolving while others don’t far as well and are replaced.

An example would be the Roman and Greek Gods for many years their memes were strong and dominated the culture but when science explained things they lost their ability to replicate and soon faded. Likewise religions like Mithra-ism a and other pagan religions flourished and died, while the memes of Christianity and Islam continued to replicate and be spread.

Memes can include anything like “Things go better with Coke” or other advertising slogans that have infected us and are spred throufhout the cultural. Memes do not have to be necessarily good for you, just good at replicating themselves!

The book was a good start at looking at memes and I want to explore the subject in more depth, possibly in books like The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore. Richard Brodie writes well for the common man and I just picked up his first book Getting Beyond OK at the library today.

Brodie wrote the original version of Microsoft Word during his years at Microsoft. Now I have to get cracking on some mysteries as the non-fiction has surpassed the fiction for the first time in a long, long time.

Book 6 – The Rise of Islamic Captialism – Vali Nasr

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Book No 6 is another book concerning the Middle East The Rise of Islamic Capitalism – Why the New Muslim Middle Class is the Key to Defeating Extremismby Vali Nasr. Nasr was born in Iran and is a professor of International Relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University. The main thesis of the book is that the way to win in the Middle East is to support and strengthen the capitalism of the growing middle class. He believes that the majority of the populous of the Middle East want not a fundamentalist Islam but a more modern Islam that will blend religion with a strong economy. The book traces the failures of secularism throughout the Middle East and delves into the failure of the Iraniam Islamic revolution to spread. He discusses the current Iran predicament, Pakistan and finally folds up Turkey as a country that may have gotten it right. I found the book enlightening and informative! Here is a quote from the cover:

A brilliant guide to the complex landscape of the Middle East. The rise of trade, capitalism, and the merchant life is the most important trend at work there, one could counter the pernicious force of religious extremism” – Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World

I believe the above quote sums up the book correctly. It will be interesting to see how the current events in Egypt, Libya and Yemen play out in the coming months in relation to Nasr’s writing. Hopefully, he will be correct and the result will be a more democratic Middle East rooted in the Islamic faith but with a modern capitalistic middle class that will counter the extremism of Al-Qaeda.

Book 4 – Ghost Country – Patrick Lee

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So this week has been work filled. Like I said earlier in the week after being on furlough last week I was working with the drilling department this week. I spent my work days, which started at 7:15 am, in Philly in the area around the intersection of Girard and Lancaster Avenues. Throw in back to back nights at Target until 11:00 pm and by the end of work last night I was beat! The only good thing was that there were periods of the day when I had to wait to take readings on the percolation test so I got to read! I took a paperback that I had picked up at Borders with my gift card that Andrew gave me for Christmas, so Book 4 for 2011 became Ghost Country by Patrick Lee. The book is actually a sequel to Lee’s first book The Breach and by the time I figured that out I was too far along and the storyline so engrossing that I couldn’t stop. If I had it to do over I would read The Breech first!! Anyway this book starts with Paige Campbell an employee of Tangent Corporation, a company that monitors strange entities that come through the Breach.  Some seem benign and others dangerous. As the book opens, Paige and her co-workers are returning from a meeting with the President of the US after showing him one of the entities. The motorcade that they are traveling in is attacked and everyone killed except Paige who is captured. Prior to that capture she gets a message to a co-worker Bethany to take the matching entity to the one Paige has and leave Tangent’s Border Town. Then she should  find Travis Chase, because he can help her. Exploring the entity Travis and Bethany discover that the entity opens a window that can be accessed to travel into the future. When Bethany and Travis use the entity,  they see a US about seventy years in the future. The Washington DC that they see  is crumbling  devoid of people and cars! It appears that the event that caused the havoc is just four months away! That knowledge sets Travis and Bethany on a mission to save Paige and the world!!!

From the cover:  “In a word: Brilliant…..left me breathless and awed – James Rollins

“Wow! Double wow! Starkly original Ghost Country will make Asimov and Heinlein cheer with the angels. The techno-thriller meets sci-fi and the rsult is mind-blowing” Stephen Coonts

I agree the book was great and the action kept me turning pages quickly! I enjoyed the characters and my only regret is that I now have to go BACK and read The Breech!!!

Book 3 – The Lost Throne – Chris Kuzneski

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By Chris Kuzneski

Book No 3 for 2011The Lost Throne by Chris Kuzneski is the fourth book of five in the Jonathan Payne David Jones series and it’s a good one.  I love books that are based on history and teach me something! This one certainly did!  After seven monks are brutally killed at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Greece, Nick Dial, head of Interpol’s Homicide Division is called to investigate the crime. Video footage of the murders reveal that the murders appear to have been commited by Spartans!! Meanwhile ex-special forces officer Jonathan Payne receives frantic calls from a Richard Byrd in Russia who is afraid he is being followed and will be killed! After Byrd is murdered Payne reaches his assistant, a graduate archeology major at Stanford, Allison Brown. Brown, Byrd;s assistant was set to meet Byrd and leave Russia when he was killed. Payne sets out to rescue Brown and discover why Byrd was killed. The remainder of the story revolves around Byrd’s search for the The Lost Throne of Zeus and that puts Payne and his partner on a collision course with the murderers in Greece! The story was great the characters believable and likable and I am certainly going back to catch up on the series! But what did it teach me?

Well, while the story was set in St Petersburg I learned some facts about that city, including the fact that because of  all the rivers and bays it is known as the “Venice of the North” and that because of the geology and water the subway system is the deepest in the world!! Part of the action took place in the Nevsky Prospekt Station. (See photo). Another setting was the St Isaac Square where Jon and Allison where Allison was telling Jon about The Bronze Horseman statue when they were confronted by Russian soldiers and Allison was told to tell the soldier something he didn’t know about the city and she responded by telling him  that Peter the Great opened the first museum in St Petersburg but was afraid that no one would come so he offered a free shot of vodka when they reached the exit of the museum a tradition that continues to today! But back to the statue which stands in the middle of  St. Isaac’s Square and honors Nicholas I, the former emperor of Russia. The statute depicts Nicholas riding into battle. The statue was hailed as an architectural marvel when it was built because it was the first equestrian statue ever with only two support points, the rear legs of the rearing horse! When I was looking for the picture of the statue I saw in Wikipedia that the station rests on a pedestal created by the largest stone ever moved by man!! you can read about it here.

The majority of the story though takes place in Greece, where the monks were killed at the Holy Trinity Monastery one of the six monasteries of the Meteora (suspended rocks) of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Greece, second in importance only to Mount Athos. The description of this monastery took me immediately to Google to look for images and they are breathtaking. You can read more about them here The final action of the book takes place at Mount Athos the most important center of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Greece. The Mount is located at the end of a peninsula in the northeastern corner of Greece. There are twenty monasteries spread across the peninsula and only males are permitted and access is limited it is a self-governing territory like the Vatican!

So when people me ask, why do you read fiction? I respond that it takes me to places I’ve never been and teaches me! That’s why I love the writing of James Rollins, Clive Cussler, and Dan Brown and others of this genre. Hopefully, I can say the same about Boyd Morrsion whose debut novel The Ark I started this morning! So I hope I peeked your interest and you’ll pick up The Lost Throne,,,,,,,,oh yeah remember the guy in Russia was looking for the lost Statue of Zeus…… wonder where it could be????????