A Demon Slayer, a Lizard King and White Rage Power the Start of My September Reading
Over the first eight days of September, I finished three books, bringing the total number of books I have read in 2017 to 41. Goodreads says that I am back on pace to read my projected goal of 60 books. The three books I finished are……
The Night of the Living Demon Slayer by Angie Fox
Ok or it’s not War and Peace, but it’s more fun! I have never read War and Peace but I don’t think there are any necromancers, voodoo priestesses or granny motorcycle riding witches in it. So what fun is that!
From Amazon….
Lizzie Brown is all for letting the good times roll…until a dark voodoo church rises up in the bayou outside of New Orleans. Now ritual fires are burning long into the night and the dead are having a hard time staying that way.
Lizzie goes in undercover to put a stop to the madness. Good thing she can count on her sexy shape-shifter husband, as well as her Grandma’s gang of biker witches. Too bad nobody’s watching her trusty dog, Pirate, who has become way too friendly with the phantom haunting a long-forgotten Victorian séance room.
Secrets and spirits abound. Nothing is what it seems. And when legions of the dead threaten the city, there may be no stopping them.
Ok or it’s not War and Peace, but it’s more fun! I have never read War and Peace but I don’t think there are any necromancers, voodoo priestesses or granny motorcycle riding witches in it. So what fun is that!
Bottom line: Ratings Goodreads 4.3 A Sixties Man 3.5
I gave this book a rating of 3.5 out of 5. My reasoning is that while Angie Fox’s books are always filled with great dialogue and interesting characters. They aren’t War and Peace. i.e. while the books are great fun, they will never be mistaken for great literature. And actually that is not a bad thing!!
Author’s Website
Paradise Valley – C J Box
Paradise Valley is the fourth book in The Highway Quartet from C.J.Box. The series started with Back of Beyond, where readers met Cody Hoyt. Hoyt travels Back of Beyond to save his son from a killer who may be leading a multi-day wilderness horseback trip into the remote corners of Yellowstone National Park that his son is on. In this book the reader meets a young fourteen year-old girl Gracie Sullivan.
In book two of the series Cody has lost his job as a detective after falling off the wagon but he sets out to discover what happened to two young teenage girls who vanished on a lonely Montana highway. One of the girls is young Gracie Sullivan, Cody works with his old rookie partner Cassie Dewell to track down the girls The main suspect is a long-haul trucker who may have snatched the girls. And it may not have been his first kidnapping and he may not be working alone!
In book three Badlands, Cassie moves to North Dakota and again confronts the killer from The Highway now known as The Lizard King. The name comes from the many prostitutes he has killed on his long-hauls across the country.
Finally book four comes full circle and Cassie eventually follows the Lizard King to Paradise Valley for potentially a final confrontation.
Bottom Line: Ratings Goodreads 4.3 A Sixties Man 4.5
As always C.J. Has written a page-turning story with great characters. I love the way Box connected the last book back to the first book.
While The Highway Quartet may conclude that quartet of books, I hope it is not the end of Cassie Dewell. Maybe the offer from “Bull”!Mitchell’s daughter who is a lawyer for Cassie to become an investigator for her opens a new avenue for Box to explore. Maybe Cassie can even join Joe Pickett for an adventure! You can listen to C.J. Box talk about Paradise Valley here. In the interview CJ. discusses the possible future of Cassie Dewell
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide – Carol Anderson, Ph.D.
In the short and powerful White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide author Carol Anderson traces the racial divide in America from the end of the Civil War through the election of our first black president Barack Obama. While this book is quite short (164 pages) it is very powerful and super information Actually I would be hard pressed to list be the number of times I thought “I didn’t know that or that is unbelievable” while I was reading this book.
Natasha Trethewey, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Native Guard and two-time poet laureate of the United States wrote this about the book
” White Rage is a harrowing account of our national history during the century and a half since the Civil War. – even more troubling for what it exposes about our present, our deep and abiding racial divide. This is necessary reading for anyone interested in understanding and perfecting – our union.”
As I read White Rage I thought, this should be required reading in most High School classes and definitely in all college history or political science classes!
In the book Ms Anderson looks at the struggle for black equality and justice through Reconstruction, the Great Migration, and he aftermath of Brown vs Board of Education. As well as, the Civil Rights movement and the rolling back of those Rights from Nixon to Reagan. Particularly disturbing was the section of Reagan and the creation of the crack epidemic!
Ms Andersen also discusses the effect of the election of our first black president. And the Republican’s subsequent attempts and success at voter suppression. All aimed at disenfranchising black and Latino voters.l
Read More about Carol Anderson Ph. D. here
Bottom Line: Rating: GoodReads 4.39 A Sixties Man : 4.75
Definitely required reading for all Americans who are concerned about the current racial divide in our country. It is a divide that must be closed. Particularly, if we as a nation want to live up to our national ideals. Especially the ideal -“that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”!
