Sunday, December 29, 2013

The SHADOW RACER by Meg Gardiner ****

The story begins with Sarah running away from a burning house containing the body of her sister, she is running with the dead sister's baby Zoe. That's your set up. When typing the title I'm wondering what the hell that means in relation to any part of the book. Not a fuckin thing.

Meanwhile as time goes by and Sarah changes her name etc, she works as a skip tracer. A school bus is in an accident and the hospital spots a chip or RFID like you put in dogs in Zoe and compare blood samples saying it's not her kid (sisters and their kids would pretty much be similar/bloodwise unless they are stepsisters which they are not). Do not believe. Her daddy belonged to some super strange religious cult with like ten members in it and supposedly daddy died the day of the fire because Sarah shot him.

So the cult is made up of crazies, (isn't that normal for a cult?) then they somehow find out about Zoe being alive and her chip contains way more information than a dog's chip, like she's a super computer chip kid with bank accounts and stuff like all the people's names from the cult (all ten of them and their kids). Some of the FBI or cops are inherently nasty creatures calling her a killer of her sister and chasing her down like a dog or using her as bait. Who would actually do that without her permission? Anyways, one cop is on her side a Marshall of some sort but meantime she and a friend or two are on the run, helping each other and the marshall is helping (in a limited way of course, he's never around during the terrifying moments she endures till the last minute) and on and on she runs with throwaway phones but the cult is smarter than her of course and it all comes to a showdown in some podunk town full of dead airplanes near Rosewell NM. That's all folks. I found it a little over the top in believability, hell I was told over and over by editors that Backyard Dog was hard to accept the suspension of disbelief. Where are you now editors? This book is rank with suspension of disbelief.

That's my take on it. Recommend library or borrow. And welcome to suspending your disbelief.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

THE HIT by David Baldacci *****

Very well written thriller, about 2 people who are working for a secret cabal for the US killing as snipers people that are dangerous to this country and other nearby countries. Maybe their policies don't jell with ours or they hate the US and we don't want them in charge.

So these two are usually separate and doing their own job. One day a hit man is killed doing his job and both are fearful of each other and the company they work for. Female Reel is going rogue for some reason and Robie has to find out the reason. They are equal in talent but Robie is hired to kill Reel. Instead they become a duo to take out a secret group that was trying to infiltrate our government and take it over by slaughtering everyone from heads of states all at once.

Both dodge bullets constantly throughout the novel by some faction or another, people are killed all over the place until the end. It's a fast paced story and interesting not a hard core page burner but close enough. I would buy it.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King *****

The continuation of The Shining, actually time has passed since the hotel fiasco and Dan Torrance is still alive. This book covers his alcoholism and his next troubled ghost story. Since having a bad  drunk he moves to another town and becomes an orderly or something like that at a hospice. A cat named Azzie sleeps beside someone ready to die and then Dan goes in and helps them to the other side because he has special powers of intuition that can help them. While in town he meets up with other new people he's living in NH and finds a girl who as a baby writes her name on something in his house "Abra" and as she grows and he recovers from alcohol they finally meet. Abra has very strong "shining", more so than Dan and that's how they begin their connection.

Not to give it all away, a cadre of camper people traveling the road, similar in every way with old time gypsies are going around sucking the "shining" from children. They first torture them really good so their power is strong then breathe in the dying breath of the kids they then bury them. One kid leaves behind a nice little gift for them and they begin dying off and feel a need to get Abra stronger than anything else they can do.

Several have a run in with her on her turf and it pisses off the head female who wears a top hat assumed to carry badness. Anyway if you've read King before you know what to expect. Lots of supernatural occurrences, intuition, friends helping out and the good guys usually win. Most of them anyway. So read it. Great scary novel. Recommend even buy it.

Monday, December 9, 2013

NEVER GO BACK by Lee Child ****

I think Lee Child writes intriquing novels. Sort of different involving government figures, CIA, FBI, spying etc. this novel is a little difficult to put into one paragraph. Jack Reacher and another commanding officer (CO) named Susan Turner are both jailed. Jack for things he supposedly did 20 yrs ago one of which includes having a child he never knew about. The other CO was also jailed for some reason I don't recall.

The entire book is both of them on the run with throw away phones attempting to figure out what they did that put them in trouble and attempting to find any proof. Of course they didn't find proof of any wrongdoing and for all the confusing army/CO/crap thru the entire book were of course innocent and found out why they were framed. The end.

I personally was only half in thrall and wouldn't buy it, I would get it at the library.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

MY STORY by Elizabeth Smart/Chris Stewart **

Big yawn to be honest.  Smart was kidnapped July 2002 and spent about 9 months with her captors. If you're not religious you're not going to like this book. Her captors Mitchell and Barzee were nutso about religion believing they're the disciples of god or something and god wants Mitchell to have a lot of virgins (man? no duh). They are a filthy dirty disgusting couple who are pathetic in their ability to get a frickin job. But I don't get why Smart thinks her god is better than their god. Like if you're going to ridicule a religion, don't leave any of them out because they're all the same weird fiction inside your head. To this day she's pious and religious, travels around trying to convert others to being a Mormon, just like Mitchell tried to do to her. Weird hypocrite. You'd think she could take a lesson out of that by seeing god doesn't GAS about her or her little place in the world and creates people like her abductors. Does anyone honestly believe that god looks down at every individual, hears each breath and listens to every single person and is concerned in the least? Well if you do, read the book.

If not; welcome to boredom central. It was repetitive, slow moving and dull reading. She was fourteen, the most naive fourteen yr old on the planet but as in most super religious families like her Mormon crap they are ridiculously pious and shocked by anything outside their own experiences. Sex is more than likely a duty a woman must endure to stay married. Like an ironing board with a man on top. http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Mormons/sickos.htm

You know, Mormons/Amish breed dogs, sell the puppies and are the worst caretakers of their animals. They treat dogs as an agricultural product, they are PUPPY MILLS.
They are known for abusive treatment of most animals they breed specifically for money. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700088639/Salt-Lake-County-unveils-proposed-dog-breeding-ordinance.html
\http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,445553,445557
http://thedogwalkersandiego.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/indiana-amish-puppy-mill-video/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormons

Now just because I think the way I do doesn't mean I don't feel anything for the crap she had to put up with. But when they returned to Utah, her home area, Mitchell ran off with his big scary knife and she was alone with Barzee for days. What was stopping her THEN from running off? What? Stupidity? She tries to justify all the reasons she never told anyone questioning Mitchell about who they were, why they were there. She could have ripped her stupid face covering off at anytime and told anyone and get saved. Does she not believe in jail? Does she not understand that police are THERE for people like her if they only TALK instead of sending brain messages to them?

Lots of people tried to ask who she was and why they were in the streets. Draped in filthy sheets, hungry, thirsty, depressed and drunk a lot. Since she was raped multiple times by Mitchell in ways we'll never know cuz she ain't telling why would she not think a cop could intervene with Mitchell and end the stupid kidnapping? What blockage is in her brain? What? I think her survival instincts aren't as acute as normal, you know....Darwin. Honestly it could happen to her again she's just not that with it.

Her mother gave her good advice at the end but that's about all I liked about the entire waste of paper.


Tuesday, December 3, 2013

RAGE AGAINST THE DYING by Becky Masterman *****

This was a really good edge of the seat story. The characters stood out, they had real personalities and the plot moved along pretty quickly. There wasn't much to dislike about it. An older female FBI agent becomes involved in a serial killer string of murders and faces off with him even after he hired killers to take care of her.

I don't really have anything negative to say. Liked it a lot would buy it.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

CHRISTIAN NATION by Frederic C. Rich ****

The premise of the book: McCain won the election not Obama and McCain's running mate was of course, the crude and unsophisticated dullard Sarah Palin. So sometime after the election McCain passes way in Russia and Sarah, speaking like an idiot, tries to get the body back to the US without success.

Since Sarah is so ignorant about politics, (but very up on slaughtering wolves from helicopters) she needs help in the oval office so some evangelical clown moves in to help her. Another 9/11 type event (much worse also w/planes) occurs prior to her re-election but in the meantime she calls out the national guard, declares martial law and tries to eliminate at first the Muslims who caused the calamity then more people get in front of her gun. She either ships them where ever they choose to go or imprisons them I guess. She thinks God is pissed off and says we DESERVED the planes that crashed recently because we are ungodly and ignoring his commandments, which have now become more important than the constitution. The bible begins to rule over laws.

She pretty much, with her evangelicals, declares that we are America the Christian Nation, she has no clue about history and as other dumb super-religious people she believes dinosaurs and humans both occupied the same space at the same time. She inflitrates schools and eliminates Muslim teachings, begins a campaign of hatred of gays, atheists, and non believers and begins to allow states to decide if they want prayer in their schools and this is almost like Animal Farm without the animals. She makes abortion illegal, along with gays (sodomy in the bible).

It's very dry and long narrative language. I had a very difficult time getting 'into' it at all. I do believe yes; this can happen in America because of fear, stupidity (dumbing down of Americans) and lack of knowledge by the general public. There are laws already in place that could hasten this scenario and no one has protested loud enough to stop these laws from taking place. I really got sick of the narration, explanations, details etc. I think it's a good book for anyone interested in history, Christianity, dominance and influence of evangelicals on our system but I couldn't finish it. Sorry Fred, it was too much information not enough character. I had to re-read paragraphs over and over to understand them because my bored mind tended to wander away from the book. But I think it's a good book for people to read.