Another Cornwell Victory In His Sharpe Saga!

Sharpe's Havoc by Bernard Cornwell
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It's been a while since I've read one of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books. I read most of the series some years back, but there are still one or two left that I haven't gotten around to. The series would make more sense if it were read in chronological order, because Cornwell set these books to run throughout the entirety of the Napoleonic Wars from start to finish.

However, he was also smart enough to make each book a solid stand-alone read. You can pick up any throughout the series and you won't necessarily feel lost. That's not because he loads you down with all the backstory in each book. He doesn't. The fact is, you don't need backstory to enjoy these. They're action/adventure good-time books, like romance novels for those who prefer guns over roses.

And yet, having said that, there is always a romance element. Our hero is forever saving some damsel in distress and then often getting her out of dis dress. I don't know how many ridiculously beautiful, young and ditzy English dames were flouncing about Europe in the middle of that war, but I think Sharpe found them all.

Aside from the well-described action scenes, one of the draws for me has been Cornwell's excellent eye for history. He adds some colorful period details, yes, but I mean adding actual history to his fictional series. It provides the characters and their actions gravitas. Sharpe's Havoc is set in Portugal when Wellington took over and the British were working with the Portuguese to toss the French out of the country. This was the beginning of the turning of the tide in the fight against the little dictator...or the perfectly average-sized dictator, I should say if I'm being historically accurate.

I chalk this one up as another victory for Cornwell. Solid plot, adequately evil baddies, the rough and ready Lt Sharpe's in good form and all is well in the world!

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A Showdown With An Archenemy

Sharpe's Enemy by Bernard Cornwell
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It felt good to get back in the saddle with rifleman Richard Sharpe! Sharpe's Enemy was one of author Bernard Cornwell's original books in the series. Written in the mid-80s it has all the rough and raw qualities I've come to know and love about these books!

Number fifteen balances the personal with the professional. We get plenty of fighting, Sharpe's expertise, and we get a bit of his fumbling family affairs, where he doesn't shine. Sharpe's long-standing feud with his personal nemesis comes to a head in a satisfying way. Victory and tragedy strike our tough hero and Cornwell deftly handles both.

Cornwell is great at weaving history into his fiction. Here is beats it like a blacksmith into the shape he desires. While some of the details are true to real life - there were deserters fitting the description described herein - Cornwell fudged some of the other details in order to place his main character at the center of the action. That's a-okay with me. I'm not reading these books for their historical exactitude. I just appreciate all the effort the author did make in getting the historical details correct. If you like reading fiction set during the Napoleonic Wars, you've come to the right place!

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Corpse Rider

Corpse Rider by Tim Curran
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Christina noticed an untended grave at the cemetery, she felt pity and pulled the weeds. Little did she know what horror would follow her home...

I've been a fan of Tim Curran and his horror novellas for years so I had to snap this up once I whittled the unread pile down a bit.

The Corpse Rider is part psychological suspense, part ghost story, and I'd have to throw body horror into the mix as well. Christina's one act of pity sees her terrorized by a ghost and its even more horrible progeny.

What do you do when a ghost leaves you creepy ass gifts, saying what a good mother you'll make? Freak the shit out, that's what, as Christina understandably does. With her friends Nancy and Office Crews at her side, she tries to get to the bottom of things so she can fight off the thing making her life a living hell or die trying.

I think Curran hit every color in the horror prism in this one. There's a nagging creepiness, suspense, body horror, and some nasty ass shit. Corpse Rider joins Sow as one of the only horror tales to actually make me slightly nauseous.

I really liked the gravedigger and all the background behind the thing stalking Christina. It gave the tale an extra dimension that sent it climbing out of the corpse-haunted grave that spawned it and put it on a pedestal. While not for the squeamish, Corpse Rider isn't one to be missed. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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Training Season

Leta Blake
Self-Published
Reviewed by Nancy
3 out of 5 stars

Summary

Unquestionably talented figure skater Matty Marcus is willing to sacrifice everything for his Olympic dream, but his lack of discipline cost him the gold once before. Now the pressure’s on. He needs a coach who can keep him in line, but top coaches don't come cheap, and Matty can't afford to stay in the game no matter how badly he wants to win.

When a lucrative house-sitting gig brings him to rural Montana, Matty does his best to maintain his training regimen. Local residents turn out to be surprisingly tolerant of his flamboyant style, especially handsome young rancher Rob Lovely, who proves to be much more than a cowboy stereotype. Just as Matty requires a firm hand to perform his best on the ice, Rob shows him how strong he can be when he relinquishes control in the bedroom. With new-found self-assurance, he drives himself harder to go straight to the top.

But competition has a timetable, and to achieve his Olympic dream, Matty will have to join his new coach in New York City, leaving Rob behind. Now he must face the ultimate test. Has he truly learned how to win—on and off the ice—during his training season?

My Review

Matty Marcus is a very talented figure skater, but poor performance and an injury have kept him out of competition. Now he’s short on cash and in order to be able to compete in the next Olympics, he accepts a six-month housesitting job in Montana for a friend of his mom’s. The natural beauty and tranquil lifestyle allows him time to recuperate from his injury and focus on his training without all the distractions of his friends and city life.

Rob Lovely is the handsome next-door neighbor and ranch hand that comes knocking on Matty’s door with an armful of firewood. Even though they are attracted to each other, Matty is preparing for competition and doesn’t need the distraction. But the heart wants what it wants and Matty and Rob inevitably fall in love.

I totally loved Matty’s flamboyant style and charming personality, and I loved how attentive he was to Rob’s 12-year-old son, Ben. But there were a lot of things that irritated me about him. His parents made a lot of sacrifices to get his career off the ground, and to me he took them for granted and squandered his talent. At least now he acknowledges his mistakes and is trying to make up for that.

Rob is a really nice guy, and though I don’t understand his attraction to Matty, he brings stability to their relationship. Their sex scenes, however, left me cold. They were repetitive, lacking in chemistry, and very unromantic. I could have done without the BDSM aspect of this story, as it felt out of character and completely unnecessary. I know Rob wanted Matty to do his best, but I’m not convinced that pain and humiliation is the way to help him achieve his goals or address his self-esteem issues. I also was disturbed that Rob felt he knew just what Matty needed sexually without considering his feelings or getting consent before engaging in high-risk practices.

On the positive side, there are a number of interesting and well-rounded secondary characters, male and female. I enjoyed reading about the grueling training and physical demands of figure skating and loved the breathtaking descriptions of Montana. The disturbing BDSM scenes detracted a lot from my enjoyment of this story, so I can’t rate it higher than average.

War Cry

War Cry by Brian McClellan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Teado is a shapeshifting wizard who serves on the front lines of a war that has dominated his life. His platoon specializes in ambush and sneak attacks, but they are running low on supplies. In an effort to steal the needed supplies from the enemy Teado is lost behind enemy lines and struggles to find his way back.

I'm not sure exactly what I imagined War Cry would be like. It does have the feel of a more modern war with planes, motorcycles, machine guns, and other modern technology. The world features wizards such as Fire-Spitters, Smiling Toms, and Changers. Fire-Spitters name seems self explanatory in that they can spit fire. Smiling Tom's create illusions that can be made to mask an army base. Changers seem to be werewolves that don't need the full moon to transform, but they can't pass their powers on through a bite. The world and wizards have potential.

I struggled a bit with War Cry in that I didn't truly connect with any of the characters before events really got moving. The story is told exclusively from Teado's point of view and with the exception of being loyal to his platoon, I don't feel like I knew anything about him as an individual. He's a Changer as well, but that doesn't really flesh him out. The story features some other characters who show even less personality with the exception of Bellara who just wants to use her Smiling Tom powers to make people happy rather than having to be involved in a seemingly never ending war.

The story itself also didn't really draw me in as it was a largely straightforward tale of a character lost behind enemy lines with some slight differences. I felt bad for Teado's platoon as they seemed to be largely abandoned in the war effort. I also was a bit disappointed that the author never really showed the enemy. Granted they have the same types of wizards, but outside of that they were just simple soldiers.

War Cry felt like a good idea that simply wasn't developed enough yet.

3 out of 5 stars

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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THE VENICE TRAIN BY GEORGES SIMENON

Venice Train by Georges Simenon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

”Was Calmar himself happy? Not just since Venice and the ridiculous episode on the train--but before? He never asked himself the question, or hardly ever, and when he did he quickly thought about something else.”



Justan Calmar is called back from vacation a few days early by his boss. He catches the train in Venice to go back to Paris and waves goodbye to his family. These prove to be the last few minutes that Calmar is the man that everyone has grown accustomed to him being.

Stable, corpulent, not overly ambitious, but he works hard enough to earn a good living for his family. He doesn’t really think about it, but his life is constricted down to a simple maze of traveling between his home and work with few, if ever, brief forays along the way. There is nothing remarkable about him, and if he were to suddenly do something remarkable or even do something differently than he always has, it would be a stunning revelation to those who know him. They would be made uneasy.

So the interest the man on the train takes in the most intimate details of his life is decidedly odd. ”Little by little, by asking one harmless question after another, the man had obtained a quantity of information about his life, his family, and his job, which he had supplied with a docility that made him feel slightly ashamed.” Certainly, Calmar would be amazed at the most intimate details people will share about their lives on a public forum, like Twitter, Snapchat, or Facebook. The man makes him uncomfortable, but for all that, when the man suggests he run an errand for him in Lausanne, Calmar readily agrees. I have visions of Strangers on the Train running through my head at this point.

He is supposed to pick up a suitcase from a locker at the station and deliver it to a woman at a specific address. Easy enough, except for what he finds when he arrives. ”At the foot of a pale-blue couch, he saw a pair of shoes, two legs, a petticoat, and then, finally, the neck and reddish hair of a woman. She was lying full length on a carpet of a darker blue than the couch, one arm stretched out, the other folded behind her back, as though it had been twisted.”

Really Georges Simenon and Alfred Hitchcock would have gotten along superbly. Simenon wrote suspenseful novels that would have translated well to make Hitchcock type films. There is story that sounds so vintage Hitchcock I want to believe it is true. ”Alfred Hitchcock was said to have telephoned, only to be told by Simenon's secretary that he couldn't be disturbed because he had just begun a new novel. Hitchcock, knowing that Simenon was capable of writing one novel -- or two or three -- every month, replied, 'That's all right, I'll wait.'”

What Calmar finds in the case will have a profound impact on his life. It is certainly one of those situations, if I were reading this with a book club, where the morality of the situation could be discussed at length. What would you do? Calmar does not handle the stress of the situation very well. ”Some weeks were painful, agonizing, in the office and at home. Sitting at the dinner table, he would suddenly feel his forehead bathed in sweat, his nerves knotted, a sense of constriction in his chest; at moments like these, he couldn’t bear to have anyone look at him.”

The problem of course is that he feels guilty. He feels like he has done something wrong. His shame for his actions, he is convinced, is etched on his face. His behavior becomes erratic by Calmar standards. He might even stop and have a beer on his way home from work. OMG! His wife, used to the steady Eddie she married, begins to give him the third degree about everything he does that doesn’t fit his standard pattern. He can’t hardly stand it. Lies grow upon other lies, and the question is, can Calmar find a solution to his problems before he cracks up.

This is a vintage Simenon. The plot is compelling, and the ending is superb. A Georges Simenon book or two always finds their way into my luggage when I travel. His stories make for perfect travel companions. They are concise, twisty mysteries with literary nuances that never fail to please.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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Butts... in Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

I contributed to the Kickstarter for Butts in Space and it happened to arrive in the mail on game night so we dove right in.

The rules are easy to understand and the art is hilarious. Basically, each player assumes the role of one of the Butt characters.  It's a race against time as sets are made and various pieces of the space ship are unveiled.

Building as many sets of matching cards as possible before all seven space ship pieces are revealed makes for some tense moments, especially when people start rotating the butts. I wouldn't quite put it on the same tier as Exploding Kittens or Guillotine but Butts in Space is a fun card game that will be in our regular game night rotation.

A Rootin' Tootin' Rough and Ready Shoot 'Em Up Western

Brimstone by Robert B. Parker
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My god, the testosterone just oozes off the pages of these Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch books!

The plot of #3 gets a tad more philosophical as the story dabbles with religion more than the previous two, but that doesn't make this book anymore "deep". It's still about being macho and shooting the bejesus out of a lot of cowboys, ranch hands, and whoever else strays towards the gray side in the white vs black/good guy vs bad guy scheme of things. Get drunk and mouth off? That's a shootin'. Piss off Cole and Hitch? That's a shootin'. Shoot somebody? Oh that's definitely a shootin'!

While this one is perhaps more nuanced than others, I wasn't digging quite as much as the first two. I don't know why. Perhaps the subject matter. Parker had to paint some characters particularly annoying in order for the reader to be okay with them dying. Problem is, I already find that character trait annoying anyhow, so I got an AA dose of annoying. Having said that, Brimstone's perfectly fine and I'll move on to #4. That however will be the last of the Cole/Hitch books for me, because Parker died in media res and other author took over. I'm not interested in that nonsense, so it'll be time for me to mosey...

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A Fine Finish

Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A perfectly fine finish to Parker's portion of his Cole & Hitch western series.

This one finds the pair back in Appaloosa working as hired hands for a saloon that doesn't get the protection it needs from the local sheriff. This sheriff has aspirations well beyond this podunk town and there'll be trouble for anyone that gets in his way. Cole and Hitch get in his way.

I really wish Parker hadn't knocked off in the middle of this series or at least was around longer in order to write more. I mean, these aren't the best books ever written, but they're quick, enjoyable reads. This one included.

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301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions

Vicky Oliver
Sourcebooks
Reviewed by Nancy
3 out of 5 stars

Summary

In today's job market, how you perform in an interview can make or break your hiring possibilities. If you want to stand a head above the rest of the pack, 301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions is the definitive guide you need to the real, and sometimes quirky, questions employers are using to weed out candidates.

Do you know the best answers to:

--It looks like you were fired twice. How did that make you feel?
--Do you know who painted this work of art?
--What is the best-managed company in America?
--If you could be any product in the world, what would you choose?
--How many cigars are smoked in a year?
--Are you a better visionary or implementer? Why?

Leaning on her own years of experience and the experiences of more than 5,000 recent candidates, Vicky Oliver shows you how to finesse your way onto a company's payroll.

My Review

I have been in my current position for nearly 5 years and was hoping to stay until I retire. The pay is low and the commute is deadly, but my supervisor is undemanding, lets me work from home once a week, and the work is easy. In spite of the long drive, I do quite a bit of walking (at least 10,000 steps a day, so I can enjoy all the fabulous restaurants!). Sadly, my supervisor is going on sabbatical and no longer has a need for my position. Instead of laying me off, he is allowing me to stay and use a large chunk of my workday for job search activities. Though I’m grateful he’s doing that, I’m apprehensive about being over 50 and looking for work.

These are 301 commonly asked interview questions answered by the author. In the beginning of the book, she suggests you tailor the questions and answers to your own situation. In all my years of working experience, I have not been asked many of these questions during my interviews. Thankfully so, because I am not good at those questions that have no right or wrong answer or brainteasers:

“If you could be any product in the world, what would you choose?”
“How many cigars are smoked in a year?”

I found many of the questions and answers tailored to higher-level corporate jobs. Those of us who work in public safety, service, trades, or clerical jobs would benefit by looking for help elsewhere. The information contained in the gray boxes was useful. Here you could find condensed chapter summaries, interviewing tips, how to handle personal questions or insensitive questions, etc.

Though I read it from cover to cover, and found some of the answers entertaining, they were a lot saucier than I’d feel comfortable with, and I found little that was relevant to my own situation.

Nevertheless, I got a job offer today, so it must have been helpful enough.