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Big coal, big problems
A few years ago, I flew as a passenger in a small private plane over a mountaintop-removal coal mine in West Virginia. The image of that huge, ugly wound on what had been a beautiful wilderness still haunts me. Most people will never see the ravages of modern strip-mining up close, but John Grisham’s new…
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Say it ain’t so, Bo
While I’m still more or less in holiday mode, Tom Dillon is back to business with a review of what threatens to be the last in one of his favorite mystery series. He’s right: It’s time to get things going for 2015. My New Year’s resolution is to be as industrious as Tom! Reviewed by…
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Looking through Easy’s eyes
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson I’ve come late to the Easy Rawlins mysteries, mostly because my longtime reviewer friend Robert P. Moyer always snatched them up. Bob’s thoughtful praise for Walter Mosley’s books always made me want to read them, but the downside of running a book review page or site is that you feel…
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Where angels watch
Here’s the latest in a long-running crime-novel series. Don’t worry if you missed out on the earlier books. You can always go back and enjoy them, too. Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson DEATH ANGEL. By Linda Fairstein. Read by Barbara Rosenblat. Penguin Audio. 11 CDs, 12½ hours. Also available in hardcover from Dutton. Alex Cooper,…
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What do bison, prairie dogs, nuclear weapons and cable TV have in common?
As I’ve said before, it’s a pleasure to receive a review from Tom Dillon, because he writes well, thinks clearly and reads interesting books. He’s also willing to try something different. Reviewed by Tom Dillon LAST STAND: Ted Turner’s Quest to Save a Troubled Planet. By Todd Wilkinson. Lyons Press. 378 pages. $18.95, paperback. Authorized…
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For sheer entertainment, listen to a Clive Cussler tale
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson When it comes to audiobooks, I’m a more eclectic reader than I am with the printed volumes. Sure, I love listening to books I’d probably read or have read anyway – I’ve listened to all the novels of Jane Austen, for example, and whenever I get a new installment in…
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When the smoke clears
A new novel from Deobrah Crombie is always a welcome arrival. She’s one of those much-to-be-envied American writers who have made a career of writing detective stories set in contemporary London. Too bad about all the time she has to spend traveling from her home in Texas to do research across the pond… Reviewed by…
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Small packages – when less is more
So many of the audio books I “read” go on and on. That can be good if you want to get hooked into a book that will be with you for a while, say on a long road trip. But it’s refreshing to encounter a couple of novels that are more understated. Each of these…
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Wacky and oh, so true
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson Understandably, when newspaper reporters try writing fiction, they’re likely to have a newspaper reporter as a major character. Stephen Roth, who spent 12 years in the trenches as a reporter for newspapers in Missouri and Florida, gives us a good one in Pete Schaefer, an aspiring novelist who’s stuck in…
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Grand and terrible
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson I’d seen the large monument in the cemetery at Hospital Point on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. It’s a structure of rocks, topped by an ice-glazed cross and an anchor. I suppose I’d even read the inscription. But there are a lot of monuments on the…