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Patton: The Pursuit of Destiny by Agostino Von Hassell and Ed Breslin

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Gives a solid background on one of America's iconic generals There have been thousands of generals that have served in the United States Military. Very few officers ever get "name" recognition. Washington, Grant, Pershing, MacArthur, Eisenhower. Patton stands right there with them, unique in the group of generals that I named because he was the only one that was always a subordinate officer, meaning that he was never in charge of an entire theater of war. But, Patton inspires images of a general of action - impulsive, moving, always pushing, leading from the field. Modern tank warfare may have been perfected by Patton in the sense that he truly understood the need to coordinate air, naval, armor and GI's. He did more than understand it in theory - he actually did it on the ground in real life. Patton: The Pursuit of Destiny is an attempt to dig behind the image to find out a little about the real Patton - a romantic family man (also a philanderer), the little

Chasing Darkness (Elvis Cole #12) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

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Published in 2008 by Brilliance. Unabridged audiobook. Duration: 7 hours, 19 minutes. Read by James Daniels. In my mind, Robert Crais has the second best series in fiction going right now, just after Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series. Solid, quirky, oftentimes funny, good detective stories throughout. Robert Crais Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike are on a dark, depressing case this time. Three years earlier Cole had proven that a man could not have committed a horrific murder. Now, that man is found dead with evidence that he committed not only that murder but 6 others. Cole is sure that his work in the original case is correct and this man is being set up after his death and the real murderer is still wandering the streets. Cole and Pike start to pull on some loose threads and soon they have more trouble than they bargained for. Chasing Darkness is not as good as other Cole novels such as The Last Detective (which was so good that I pulled the c

Nine Dragons (Harry Bosch #15) by Michael Connelly

  A "game changer" of a book for Harry Bosch Nine Dragons is a foray into international crime for Harry Bosch. Previously he has traveled to Mexico, but now he travels to Hong Kong to find his daughter (not a spoiler - it's on the cover) who has been kidnapped. Bosch and his ex-wife and ex-FBI agent Eleanor Wish team up to go after his daughter. But, as Eleanor notes in the very first Harry Bosch book, in these kinds of cases you are lucky if you just break even. Bosch has always been an untouchable - incorruptible, focused and driven. This book focuses on Bosch's weakness - his family. "All his life Harry Bosch believed he has a mission. And to carry out that mission he needed to be bulletproof. He needed to build himself and his life so that he was invulnerable, so that nothing could get to him. All that changed on the day he was introduced to the daughter he didn't know he had. In that moment he was both saved and lost. He would be forever connect

Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shadows of War by Larry Bond & Jim DeFelice

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A change of pace for Larry Bond Don't get worried, Larry Bond is still cranking out the war thrillers, but Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shadows of War one is not the grand sweep of a worldwide battlefield that his previous books have featured. Instead, we focus in on four people swept up in the beginnings of World War III. Those four people are a climate scientist studying in northern Vietnam who happens to have video that proves that China is instigating World War III in his cell phone, a female CIA agent who is trying to rescue him, a military wargamer (and former special forces) who is helping map out America's strategy to combat China's aggression and a Chinese lieutenant in an elite commando squad who is trying to catch the climatologist. I'll admit, it starts out slow but it builds and is a rollicking adventure by the end. This is the first of a four part series and I see it as the prologue to a much more sweeping war series that is sure to come. Th

Fault Lines (Michael Stone #2) by Anna Salter

Great thriller Psychologist Michael Stone (a female, despite the name)has spent quite a bit of time interviewing Alex B. Willy, pedophile and sadist. When he gets out of prison due to a technicality, she knows he'll come after her because she is the only one who knows the twisted way his mind actually works, despite his charming demeanor. We follow Stone as she tries to work through her out-of-whack personal life, some demanding clients and the omni-present threat of Willy. Interestingly, Willy is not fleshed out much as a character. This works well, in that Willy becomes more of an unknown threat to the reader - a man capable of anything - but we don't know where he is likely to come from or what he is likely to do. Fault Lines is surprisingly well-done, (I say surprising because a lot of thrillers featuring psychiatrists tend to get bogged down in jargon) and Stone is prickly but likable. Her world is peopled with interesting, but not terribly well-developed characters

Monte Walsh

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More of a portrait, less of a traditional movie Monte Walsh is not a plot-driven movie so much as it is a portrait of that moment in time when the Old West was disappearing and the men who made the Old West what it was had to adjust, die or just fade away. It is beautifully shot and there is a lot of attention to detail. If one is looking for a ton of action, this is not the western you are looking for. But, if you love cowboy movies this one is a real treat. It would make the watcher wistful for those days when the horse ruled the west, except that you know that Monte Walsh would have none of that pointless sentiment. No living actor looks more like a cowboy should than Tom Selleck and I'd be thrilled if he focused on those movies for the rest of his career. I rate this movie 4 stars out of 5. This movie can be found on Amazon.com here: Monte Walsh . Reviewed on October 4, 2004.