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Demolition Angel by Robert Crais

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Listening to the audiobook version of Demolition Angel I learned that the author’s name is pronounced Cray, not Craise, like Lauren and I had assumed. Boy did I feel stupid. I’ve read several of this man’s books, and all the while I was pronouncing his name wrong. I doubt Crais minds, of course. As long as we fans continue buying his books, he’ll remain a happy camper, I’m sure.

Demolition Angel is one of Crais’s earlier novels, and it demonstrates what it is that makes him such a star. These are action-packed thrillers with characters we all believe in. And it demonstrates Crais’s commitment to making his stories as beleiveable and real as possible. An incredible amount of research went into this novel. Crais immersed himself into LA’s elite bomb squad unit in order to accurately depict what it’s like to work in such a dangerous evironment. And all that research paid off. The story of Carol Starkey, a former bomb squad technician who died and lost her lover in a bomb, is one that snap crackles and pops. Three years have passed since Starkey was resuscitated by EMTs and saved from the bomb disaster. Now she’s merely a shell of her former self, spending off hours in therapy, smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish. All of that woe-is-me is challenged however, when another bomb in LA explodes killing another bomb technician. Starkey is called to lead the case, and as she fights her way through alcoholism and well-hidden clues, an intriguing cast of supporting characters emerge, including a field agent of the ATF who shows up to help the LAPD nab the perpetrator.

This is one to read, folks. It’ll hold you to the very last page. Crais a master plot twister. Just when you think you’ve figured it out or just when you’re sure everyone is out of danger, Crais pushes it again, surprising you with yet another whiz bang you didn’t see coming — like those roller coasters that lead you to believe the ride is over just before it takes you down one final, gut-dropping plunge.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

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I’m LDS, or Mormon as the world insists upon calling us, so I was of course attracted to Stephenie Meyer’s teen vampire series. We fellow Latter-day Saints (as we call ourselves) have to look out for one another.

But then I actually read Twilight, and like most everyone else who has read the series, became totally engrossed in the world Meyer had created. I’d never read any books about vampires. They frighten me. And I’m a professional coward if there ever was one; horror movies and horror stories just aren’t my cup of tea, which I don’t drink either. But Twilight was different. Twilight was an anti-vampire story. Well, no, that’s not true exactly. Some of the vampires in the story fit the conventional stereotype quite nicely: savagely violent creatures out to get one thing, or better said: out to suck one thing.

And then there’s Edward, every teenage girl’s dream, a beautifully handsome, incredibly powerful, kindly self-sacrificing hunk of burning love. It’s unfortunate that Edward is a vampire, yes, but somehow every fifteen-year-old girl who’s ever laid the eyes of her imagination on Edward is willing to look past that tiny little character flaw.

As for me, I’m in love with Jasper, the taller, stronger, equally friendly vampire.

I jest of course. I haven’t swooned for any vampires. But I do enjoy the story. In Book Three, our heorine Bella is torn — isn’t she always — between conflicting forces in her life, namely Edward — who’s insisting she go to a fine ivy league college after gradutation and marry him — and Jacob, her werewolf, Native American friend, who loves her just as much as Edward does.

Add to the that the rising threat of a coven of vampires tearing it up in Seattle. Bella learns that these new vampires are somehow connected to her, and all the friendly vampires and werewolves in Bella’s life must step in to assist her.

Let’s make no mistake. This is a romance novel. Granted, a thrilling, moving, page-turning romance novel, but a romance novel all the same. And I’m not going to pretend to be above such things. I loved it. I devoured it, in fact, as the vampires might say.

A dear friend of mine hates these books and rightly points out that Bella is in a rather oppressive relationship that every parent would consider a nightmare. And she’s right. That said, I can’t deny that I love these books. They’re thrilling. Stephenie Meyer is an amazing storyteller. It all reads so easily. No clunky dialogue here. And the action sequences are just as long and vivid as they need to be. But Meyer’s greatest strength is her gift for creating characters we live for, characters who feel just as close to us as the real people in our lives. I think it’s the reason why Meyer has the following she does. Millions of adolescent girls in America are in love with a boy who doesn’t exist. Girls? What am I saying? I work with adult women who are just as obsessed with Edward. HE is the reason why these books have been so successful. Bella, the narrator and hero of our story, is probably the least interesting of the bunch.

Some of the book I did found annoying, however. How Bella treats Jacob before the final confrontation, for example. Or the idea that true love is a somewhat ambiguous emotion that one person can feel for two people at once. As true as that idea may be, I felt more like I was simply being pulled along to the next novel than experiecing one of love’s little conundrums. But who can fault Meyer for that? That’s how books are sold after all. Pull them along, pull them along, then make them buy the sequel.

Well done, Mrs. Meyer. Mission accomplished.

Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla

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In his acknowledgements at the end of the novel Stephen King admits to being influeced by a number of sources, including spaghetti Westerns — those Italian-made westerns of the 70s starring the likes of Clint Eastwood — as well as other hero films like The Magnificent Seven. Or was it the Magnificent Eight? I can’t remember. In any event, King is forthright in naming those works that have molded our deifinition of the modern western, and their influence is evident in Wolves of the Calla. It’s an archetypal story: a small remote town is threatened by a powerful villain and decides to hire a few gunslingers to do their fighting for them. It is, in fact, the same premise of The Magnificent Seven and Kurasowa’s Seven Samurai.

This isn’t to say, however, that Wolves of the Calla is not a thoroughly imaginative and engrossing read. It is. Even though the basic plot may sound familiar, everything else about The Dark Tower feels new and inventive.

Book Five spends a great deal of time introducing a new member to the gunslinger’s ka-tet, one Father Callahan, a former priest and alcoholic from the New York of our world who now finds himself in the small town the gunslingers agree to protect. I liked Callahan, and I’m eager to see what happens with him next.

The coming threat are the wolves, a mysterious pack of creatures that come on horseback from Thunderclap every quarter century or so to steal the town’s children and carry them back to whatever hell they come from. The children eventually come back, but they return ruint, or vacant-eyed, mindless shells of their previous selves.

The town has put up a fight before but always with disastrous consequences and much of the book follows the believers and the doubters as they debate whther or not to allow the gunslingers to fight in their behalf. Many are content with simply giving the wolves what they come for, sacrificing their children for the good of the town.

Shadowed in the backdrop is the story Calvin Tower, the man from Jake Chamber’s New York who owns the plot of land where the rose resides; the rose that apparently is the antithesis to the Tower; the rose that drives out all frustration, evil and worry; the rose that Roland and his ka-tet are so determined to protect.

Toward the end of the novel, King introduces the story element that is the source of greatest frustration to some readers. I won’t let the cat out of the bag by revealing what that is — I’ve given away too much already. As for me, I found the idea introduced fascinating. And I can’t wait to get my hands on Book Six to see where King takes it from here.

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

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In the afterword to this the fourth novel of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, King says that writing a love story is much more difficult than writing suspense and that he put off this story as long as he could. Well, if the task was difficult, you certainly wouldn’t know it from reading the novel. This is, so far, my favorite of the series. Wizard and Glass is mostly back story, recounting Roland’s first adventure as a new gunslinger with his first ka-tet, the always self-amused Cuthbert and the sensitive peacemaker Alain. The three are sent far from Gilead by Roland’s father to a small sea town at the edge of Mid World called Mejis. John Farson, or the Good Man, has been gathering an army to confront Gilead, and Roland’s father sends the boys away in hopes of protecting them from the gathering storm. Ironically — or perhaps because of ka — Roland and his companions find themselves smack in the middle of John Farson’s plans: the rancher’s association of Mejos is in cahoots with Farson and, with the help of some bad-blooded reject gunslingers known as the Big Coffin Hunters, are gathering fuel and horses to supply Farson’s army. Meanwhile Roland has fallen for Susan Delgado, a local girl promised to the town’s elderly, married mayor. I won’t give away any more than that. This is too great of a story to spoil. You’ve got to read it for yourself, knowing that you’ll likely experience the full range of emotions as you’re sucked into what we know is a story that can’t end well. How did Roland become the hardened man he is? Why did he become obsessed with the Tower? Book IV may not answer those questions completely (there are still three books to go, after all), but it does broaden our understanding of the man who may very be the greatest cowboy/knight to have ever graced the page or screen. And coming from a die-hard John Wayne fan, that’s saying a lot.
Grade: A.

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Nike Commercial: The Next Level

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Maybe you’ve seen this. I just saw it today and think it’s one of the best spots this year. It was directed by Guy Ritchie. Pretty amazing. Two minutes. No dialogue. Cool story arc. It even features several soccer superstars. Best of all, it gives you a sense of what it’s like to be a professional athlete. Fast paced. Incredible editing. First class all the way. Though I must warn those with a weak stomach. There’s a brief vomit scene. And a shot of a man’s bum. And a tooth knocked out.

Oh for goodness sake. Just watch the thing.

A Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

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I downloaded this audiobook after a friend of mine recommended it, and everything he said about it is true. It’s a highly detailed, exhaustively researched, scathing history of the Central Intelligence Agency from its birth after the Second World War through the book’s publication in 2007. Weiner, a New York Times correspondent, bases his history on thousands of declassified documents, known events, and personal interviews. Everything within this book is apparently true and can be corroborated with plenty of evidence. Perhaps that’s what I found most disturbing about it. This is a book about everything that’s been declassified or leaked. It doesn’t recount those CIA events we DON’T know about, those covert operations and reports still labeled classified and locked away somewhere deep in the vaults at Langley, VA. Of course, much of what the CIA has done over the years will likely never be revealed. There are no documents to declassify simply because these documents no longer exist. They’ve long been destroyed.

Of course, such conspiracies are not the basis of A Legacy of Ashes. This book is solely interested in fact, particularly fact that paints the CIA as in inept, poorly managed, incompetent, failed intelligence service, which by all accounts it is. What did I learn from this history? That the CIA has done some rather stupid things over the years. Terrible, inexcusable, shameful, morally reprehensible things. As I listened to the audiobook and followed the history through the various presidential administrations, I kept thinking to myself, “No wonder the rest of the world hates us.”

Time after time the Soviets duped us during the Cold War. Next to the KGB, we looked like a naive group of Girl Scouts. We repeatedly conducted covert paramilitary operations that killed thousands of agents and nationalists working for the agency. Even when the CIA knew the operations were failing and pointless, it continued to send people to their deaths. We’ve given guns and money to rebels who didn’t exist. Bought our way through foreign elections. Financed coups. Sold weapons to terrorist states. Put murderers in power and kept them on the agency payroll. And the list goes on and on.

I learned a great deal about the presidents of the country since Truman, and what I learned left me more than a little uneasy. Politics has perhaps tainted the seeking of intelligence more than an other factor. With every administration, the agency seemed to be slipping farther and farther from its charter and deeper and deeper into unconstitutional, unethical behavior. Our current administration is no exception.

In the end, I came away with a very negative perception of the agency and wonder if perhaps Weiner had missed some of the successes of the CIA intentionally. Surely we’re not that incompetent?

The audiobook is expertly read by Stefan Rudnicki, one of the best readers in audiobooks today, and directed by Emily Janice Card. It’s long, sometimes tiresome, and often depressing, but it is certainly worth the listen or read. It will change how you think about the value and price of human intelligence.