Book Reviews

Title: The Edge of Freedom
Author: John Willingham
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: John R. r. Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1592994466

The Alamo resounds in memory and myth...Goliad whispers from the shadows. Along with the familiar stories of Jim Bowie, David Crockett, and William B. Travis-the heroes of the Alamo-it is time, in the 175th anniversary year of the Revolution, to understand the more complex stories of James W. Fannin and his Mexican counterpart, José de Urrea. In The Edge of Freedom, these and other historical figures show that the search for peace at Goliad was as dramatic as the fight for glory at the Alamo.

Title: Another Colorado Kill
Author: Bob Doerr
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1590957857

Another Colorado Kill is the fourth book in the Jim West mystery/thriller series. In this fast paced story, Jim and friend Edward “Perry” Mason are in route to Colorado Springs to play some golf when they discover a dead body, an apparent murder victim, at a rest stop along the interstate highway. Perry’s stress levels hit the max during the subsequent police interview. He has a heart attack and the golf outing falls apart.

When the police find two more murder victims the next day, both killed with the same weapon that killed the victim whom West had discovered the day before, and the female victim has his name written on a notepad in her purse, their focus on West intensifies. West explains that by chance both the female victim and he had eaten at the same restaurant, but at separate tables, the night before. She had been with two men at the restaurant and had left before he had a chance to talk to her. They had met a few times in the past, but weren’t close. A Sheriff’s deputy, Lieutenant Michelle Prado befriends West, and the two work together in an effort to find the real murderer. As their relationship develops, West finds himself physically attracted to her, but does she feel the same way?

Soon an attempt is made on Jim’s life and he realizes that for some reason the killer, like the police, believes that West knows more about the killings than he has admitted. Jim finds himself playing “cat and mouse” with the killer while trying to convince the police that their focus on him is a waste of time and resources.

When the FBI moves in to help out, the pressure to solve the case mounts. West and Lieutenant Prado discover the local murders may be connected to a larger, nationwide FBI investigation into organized crime and political corruption. West finally has permission to go home to Clovis and is about to leave when the killer shoots Ollie, a young female Deputy whom had become friends with West. The killer leaves her to die on a dirt road. The killer had gone too far. As Michelle leaves with Ollie’s crumpled body in her back seat, West picks up Ollie’s issued 9mm and heads off into the woods to track the killer. The time had come to stop the killings. If he can catch up with the killer, only one of them will return alive.

Title: Latin Blues: A Tale of Police Omerta
Author: Joe Sanchez & Mo Dhania
Genre: Literary Fiction
Reviewer: Bob Flournoy

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1601790007

We don't talk about it. That's what the veteran policeman from Brooklyn’s 92nd Precinct, a good and honest cop, told his rookie partner one day. We don t get mixed up in it not the graft, not the shakedowns, not the abuse, not the endless turf battles among higher-ups. We deal with these things however we can. But we don't talk about it. One day, a good cop dies and, talk about it or not, his comrades know they have to do something about it. A tale of what went on behind the New York s Blue Wall in the roaring 70 s... Let the f**ks kill each other. That was the credo of Captain Maximilian Leopold, of Brooklyn’s 92nd precinct. But even Joe Picon, the rookie cop, knew the f**ks didn’t always kill other f**cks. When the f**ks began to converge the Jimenez Gang, the Brass Knuckle Rapist, Skinhead Ramos, turf-hungry bureaucrats, bean-counting number crunchers, and the lust-crazed Captain himself the victim who died wasn't a f**k at all. He was a good cop from another precinct, and he had been blindsided by another credo even good cops follow: We don't talk about it.

Title: Saga of the Sioux
Author: Dwight Jon Zimmerman
Genre: Young Adult
Reviewer: jim greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0805093648

This new adaptation of Dee Brown's multi-million copy bestseller, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, is filled with photographs and maps to bring alive the tragic saga of Native Americans for middle grade readers. Focusing on the Sioux nation as representative of the entire Native American story, this meticulously researched account allows the great chiefs and warriors to speak for themselves about what happened to the Sioux from 1860 to the Massacre of Wounded Knee in 1891. This dramatic story is essential reading for every student of U.S. history.

Title: The Hidden Legacy of World War II: A Daughter's Journey of Discovery
Author: Carol Schwartz Vento
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1934597813

Daughters, fathers and war – three words seldom used together. In The Hidden Legacy of World War II: A Daughter’s Journey of Discovery, Carol Schultz Vento weaves life with her paratrooper father into the larger narrative of World War II and the homecoming of the Greatest Generation. The book describes the seldom told story of how the war trauma of World War II impacted one family. This personal story is combined with the author’s thorough research and investigation of the reality for those World War II veterans who could not forget the horrors of war. This nonfiction work fills in the missing pieces of the commonly accepted societal view of World War II veterans as stoic and unwavering, a true but incomplete portrait of that generation of warrior.