Ubiquitous Seaweed Poses Vexing Concerns

           

In her new book Seaweed Chronicles: A World at the Water’s Edge, Susan Hand Shetterly elevates ordinary seaweed to the exalted place in nature that it deserves. Shetterly portrays seaweed as a wild untamed force of nature—elusive in its scope and one of the most overlooked species of life on this planet.
        Our everyday interactions with seaweed are largely unconscious. We eat it, slather it on our bodies, spray our vegetable gardens with it, and use it to make  In her beer. Seaweed contributes more than half of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere. 
       Seaweeds are not plants, in a strict sense, they are algae. Seaweeds have no leaves, stems, or roots. Their fossilized remains date back millions of years. The ancient Romans used seaweed to treat skin ailments and it has been a staple of the Japanese diet for hundreds of years.

            More than a primer on seaweed, Shetterly weaves personal stories of people who forage, farm, and process seaweed—individuals who serve as the ultimate caretakers of the marine algae.

            One couple, Linette and Shep Erhart, who built one of the most successful seaweed processing companies on the coast of Maine, began by foraging seaweed for their own consumption. Before they knew it, their kitchen-table endeavor had morphed into a successful international enterprise. A few years ago the Erharts recognized that if they were to remain competitive, they were going to have to take direction from the fishing industry and begin farming their seaweed crop.

            One of the impediments encountered by the seaweed industry involves ownership. Is the right to catch fish the same as the right to cut seaweed? Seaweed is historically an indigenous, foraged crop but like other endemic species, it is currently threatened by climate change. The Fukishema nuclear accident in 2011 generated widespread fear about the safety of Japan’s seaweed and Atlantic hurricanes have taken a toll on the industry. At the same time, demand for the product has increased exponentially.

            Complicating the issues of ownership and the effects of climate change, seaweed provides a habitat for numerous species of wildlife. Sea otters depend on giant kelp for survival, as do sea urchins.

            “It’s a life-sustaining relationship,” writes Shetterly, “kept in balance by the otters: the sea urchins feed on the kelps; the otters feed on the urchins, preventing the kelps from being overgrazed and the underwater forests from becoming decimated.”

            That balance once thrived in South Western Alaska but now it is defunct. One prominent marine biologist attributes the depletion of baleen whales to the demise of the seaweed, otters, and sea urchins.

            Seaweed Chronicles is a well-written, thoughtful book that celebrates the benefits of seaweed in nature’s diverse chain of command.

Trees Answer Life's Most Provocative Questions

Sunday May 13, 2018
San Antonio Express News

From Tolkien’s Ents in “Lord of the Rings” and Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree,” to the Whomping Willow of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, trees have forever captivated the human imagination. In David George Haskell’s new nature book, The Songs of Trees, he merges a contemplative style with scientific method and concludes that man’s anthropomorphic ruminations about trees aren’t completely misguided. 

Haskell examines the lives of a dozen trees located in diverse environments from the Amazon jungle to the boreal Canadian forests and beyond. Through lyrical prose he interprets the trees’ physiognomy in a framework that we humans can understand.

The first composition is performed by a colossal ceibo tree near the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve in western Ecuador. The ceibo illustrates the immense diversity present in the Amazon jungle. When it rains, as it does every few hours, the drops encounter various objects—leaves, wings of bats, soft moss bellies, epiphyte cups—that contribute their distinct melodies. From microbes to mammals, the ceibo supports thousands of species of life. The Amazon is a tightly woven canticle of extraordinary strength. Its long-term survival is threatened by mankind’s voracious appetite for resource consumption.

Over 3,000 miles from the ceibo in the Canadian boreal forest, tinkling sounds from the crown of a monstrous balsam fir signals the presence of chickadees rummaging its cones for sustenance. Avian memories are preserved both in the chickadees’ minds and in their social network. The balsam fir manifests memory, as well, in its ability to generate genetic diversity.

Next on the tour is the sabal palm of St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia, a tree that survives hardships that would defeat almost any other species. With rising sea levels, the sabal palm demonstrates the kind of adaptation that humans would be wise to emulate.

An elegy for Tennessee’s green ash tree follows, then the artistry of Japan’s mitsumata, and the impact of Scotland’s hazel tree on modern society.

The American giants, ponderosa pines and redwoods, illustrate the effects of fire and the progression of climate change, while the life cycle of maple trees serves a more practical purpose. 

More lessons in nature follow—Denver’s cottonwoods, Jerusalem’s olive trees, and Manhattan’s pear trees. All possess a distinctive, unique sound, an ensemble of melodious voices contributing to the overall harmony of the collective.

“In all these places,” writes Haskell, “tree songs emerge from relationship. Although tree trunks seemingly stand as detached individuals, their lives subvert this atomistic view. Life is embodied network.” 

Haskell believes that all life on this planet is interconnected and that humans do not exist separately and apart from nature—we are part of nature. Our self-serving actions to reap nature’s bounties are imperiling our planet and interfering with the harmonious balance of biological networks. 

“To listen to trees, nature’s great connectors,” concludes Haskell, “is therefore to learn how to inhabit the relationships that give life its source, substance, and beauty.”

Magic, secrets, and high-stakes conspiracy proliferate in a military mortuary

San Antonio Express News

March 18, 2018 

Jim “Zig” Zigarowski is an artist, a sculptor of sorts. As a mortician at Dover AFB in Delaware, he models mangled, dead soldiers’ faces into facades of innocence and tranquility. When a military plane from Alaska crashes en route to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Zig feels compelled to handle the postmortem on the first body recovered from the site, that of Nola Brown, whose name he recognizes as a former classmate of his deceased daughter. But when he examines her corpse he realizes the dead woman isn’t Nola. Adding to the mystery, the passenger manifest contains names of magicians who died decades ago.

Zig searches for Nola’s personal effects and finds her charred boots, a wristwatch, a few burned pieces of uniform and a folded portrait on canvas. He is struck by the items that aren’t there — no dog tags, no phone, no wallet. Convinced the real Nola Brown is alive and fearful that she is a victim of foul play, Zig sets out to find her. He discovers that Nola is an artist-in-residence for the Army and travels the world painting portraits of fellow soldiers in distress.

Nola also harbors a hideous secret, so vile that it can threaten the life of anyone who encounters it. Soon, Zig is awash in a government conspiracy that revolves around magicians Harry Houdini and Horatio Green Cooke, who stood at Abraham Lincoln’s deathbed. He must confront Nola’s terrible secret and face his own annihilation.

The Escape Artist marks Meltzer’s 20-year anniversary of his first thriller, The Tenth Justice, and his evolution as a writer is notable. Frequently praised for his quirky, memorable characters, in this novel he dissects them from the skin to the soul, methodically exfoliating each raw layer until he exposes their vital force. Nola attracts trouble, and Zig jumps headlong into the middle of it. Nola is his ticket to the past — a time when life was simpler and relationships were easier to manage. Like a magician, she slips in and out, up, down, around corners, through barriers, and eludes anyone who attempts to hold on to her.

“Zig could live with the maneuverings,” Meltzer writes. “Indeed, he had to respect her for a smart play like that. No, for Zig, the real pain came from what it showed him about himself.”

Meltzer has been remarkably busy the past 20 years. In addition to a dozen cutting-edge thrillers, he has written a series of award-winning children’s books under the title “Ordinary People Change the World,” and hosted two programs on the History Channel. He also helped find the missing American flag that firefighters raised at ground zero, making national news on the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

It was a USO trip to the Middle East six years ago that fueled The Escape Artist.

“Looking back,” writes Meltzer in the acknowledgments, “it seems clear I was in the midst of my own crisis, examining my life and my place in this world. The point is, I believe every book is born from a need, and it was this book that helped me realize the difference between being alive and actually living.”

The Escape Artist By Brad Meltzer Grand Central Publishing, $28

Why '1984' is a 2017 Must Read

This is worth reading!

"Why '1984' is a 2017 Must Read" 

by Michiko Kakutani 

from 01/26/2017 New York Times

"You Are What You Eat" says Jan Tilley in her new book

July 15, 2016
The Boerne Star

Whether your goal is to avoid disease and sustain good health, to lose weight, or to insure that your family eats a healthy diet, registered dietitian Jan Tilley wants to make it easy for you. In Tilley’s new book Eat Well to Be Well: Living Your Best Life through the Power of Anti-Inflammatory Food, (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-62634-266-8) you will learn how to make wise choices in your food selection based upon you and your family’s special needs and requirements. Tilley cites medical evidence that concludes that chronic inflammation in our bodies leads to ill health. She provides room in her book for readers to make notations and she explains why inflammation is so harmful.

          In addition to working full time as a dietitian, speaker, and writer, this Bulverde author is a business owner, a “foodie,” a wife and mom, an avid cook, and a dinner party guru. Most of Eat Well to Be Well is made up of healthy, delicious, and easy-to-make recipes. She has divided the recipe section of the book into Eggs and Breakfast, Salads, Soups and Stews, Beef, Poultry, Pork, Seafood, Vegetarian, Side Dishes, and Desserts. The recipes include codes for heart-healthy, gluten-free, diabetes-friendly, and kid-friendly. Recipes such as “Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup,” “Asian Flank Steak,” “Spinach Stuffed Orange Chicken,” and “Apple Granola Bites” are fuss-free, tasty, and healthy. The final portion of the book helps the reader create a personal anti-inflammatory plan. 

          “In my years of practice,” writes Tilley, “I have realized that there simply had to be more we could do to get out in front of chronic disease and give people the tools they need to help prevent it from happening in the first place. I set this out as a challenge to my brilliant team of professionals . . . and together we have spent countless hours researching the data on anti-inflammatory foods and their positive impact on long-term health. From these findings, I have designed four easy-to-prevent steps to give you a practical approach to making [anti-inflammatory] work for you.”

          Tilley is CEO of a professional practice JTA Wellness. She and her team of dietitians accept referrals from most health insurance companies and provide services for private-pay individuals, as well. Tilley sees anti-inflammatory living as being a “four-legged stool” comprised of “balanced nutrition, moderate exercise, managed stress, and high-quality sleep.” 

          Eat Well Be Well contains beautiful color pictures of some of the recipes and is organized into an easy-to-follow format. It is available from Tilley’s website http://www.jtawellness.com/, Amazon, and other major booksellers. She has also written two other books, Getting Your Second Wind and Healthy Meals for Hurried Families.

"Tell Me Your Stories" will delight pre-schoolers

Boerne Star, Tuesday, April 19, 2016

        Child development specialists agree that learning the art of storytelling is an essential component for optimal childhood socio-intellectual development. In their book Tell Me Your Stories, Michelle Horstman and Ashley Long provide a platform for parents and educators to encourage storytelling in young children.

        The authors describe the idea behind the book as providing “a starting point for children to allow their imaginations to flow with many stories that are all their own. Using unique scratchboard engravings, we have tried to offer just a hint or two of what might be happening in each scene. Our hope is that the child might have a new or altered story to tell every time they look though this book.”

       In fact, each spread in the book consists of a rhyme printed on left pages and a scratchboard engraving on the right facing page. The book was illustrated on scratchboard by Michelle Horstman and her pictures are exquisite. Scratchboard, or scraperboard, is a technique that begins with a hardboard surface coated with a porcelain-type clay. A layer of black ink is brushed over the clay and various engraving tools are used to etch fine lines. There is an enormous amount of detail in Horstman's pictures.

       Each rhyme in the book is open-ended and asks a question. The child is encouraged to tell a story about the verse and the picture that faces it. For instance, the verse that accompanies a picture of a mouse sitting on an owl’s head is “Was it smart of Little Mouse to hide on Mr. Owl’s Head? Or was this a big mistake that he might learn to dread?”

       One of the grea t things about Tell Me Your Stories is that it can be read over and over. A child’s imagination will be sparked each time he or she looks at the book.

       Tell Me Your Stories is available through Amazon and other major booksellers as a physical book and as an e-book. You can check out Horstman’s and Long’s website at http://tellmeyourstories.homestead.com/ and their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Tell-Me-Your-Stories-439955789538436/?fref=ts.

"Uninvited" and “Unleashed” are provocative books for teens

March 22, 2016, Boerne Star

 The date is March 15, 2021. The place is Boerne, Texas. On that day, the U.S. Surgeon General releases a new report on Homicidal Tendency Syndrome, a genetic predisposition for murder. When high school senior Davy Hamilton tests positive for the “kill gene,” she is ripped from her family and friends and sent to a special camp for teenagers who have the genetic mutation.

 In her two dystopic young adult novels, Uninvited and Unleashed, Sophie Jordan tells the story of a high school senior, Davy, who is a gifted musician and a straight-A student. Davy seems to have it all—beauty, intelligence, family wealth, and an awesome boyfriend. She’s all set to attend Julliard after she graduates from high school and her future looks bright. Davy’s world, however, is shattered when all of the students in her school are tested for the “kill gene” and she is revealed as a carrier. She is transferred to another school where she will complete her senior year caged with other students like herself. While at the special school Davy is befriended by an older boy named Sean who quickly becomes her protector.

           In the first book, Uninvited, after a carrier commits a mass shooting at a Houston mall, citizens who have the “kill gene” are methodically tattooed with a large “H” on their necks and transported to special camps. Davy is taken from her home and sent to a special unit for gifted teenagers. To her relief, Sean is banished to the same camp. 

           Davy describes her journey. “They’re taking us to a place called Mount Haven. This much I glean during the van ride and plane trip. Our group grows as we travel. By the time we land in New Mexico, there are nineteen of us. . . we get plenty of stares as we’re led through the airport and ushered through security. At least ten of us bear the imprints, and people actually press to far walls and clutch their children close as we pass.”

           While at the camp, Davy and Sean hatch a plan to escape. In Unleashed, the sequel to Uninvited, Davy, Sean, and some of their friends from Mount Haven undertake a dangerous cross-country journey to Mexico to find freedom.

           These plot-driven books are full of conflict, both inner and environmental, and Jordan successfully creates suspense from numerous twists and turns. The story-line is intense and the characters are well-developed. The story is told as a first person account by Davy, the primary protagonist of the novels.

           Author Sophie Jordan grew up on a pecan farm in the Texas hill country. A former high school English teacher, she is a “New York Times” and “USA Today” best-selling author. She has also written numerous historical romance novels and now resides in Houston. She obviously understands the teenage mind and, while not overtly “preachy,” these books do carry a message. Are you satisfied with just going with the flow, or do you want to do what’s right—a theme appropriate for all teens. Check out Jordan’s website http://www.sophiejordan.net/. Her books are available from all major booksellers.

"South of Nowhere" is north of great!

When building contractor Julia Kalas discovers a male body stuffed in a coffin-sized hole under some floorboards in a farmhouse she is restoring, she braces herself for trouble. Originally from California, Julia and her husband ran a money-laundering outfit. They were attacked by a skinhead gang and Julia’s mate was killed. After turning state’s evidence and testifying against the gang members, Julia was put into the federal witness protection program and relocated to Azula, Texas. Ultimately, her cover was blown and her new identity exposed. She lived in fear that gang members would find her.

        In Minerva Koenig’s follow-up to Nine Days, (South of Nowhere, Minotaur Books, February 2016, ISBN 9781250051950), Julia’s search for the dead man’s killer takes her through south Texas to a bariatric clinic in Ojinaga, Mexico. Flush with over $50,000 from witness protection and working with a private detective, she maneuvers through a labyrinth of deception and evil and unearths an illegal human smuggling operation. Julia’s trek through northern Mexico provides the impetus for her to reconnect with her past love-interest, Hector. When she and Hector embark on a dangerous journey onto the Tohono O’odham reservation deep in the Arizona Sonoran desert, Julia reunites with her alcoholic mother with whom she has been estranged for many years.

        “I’d forgotten how small she was, and she’d shrunk a little with age, so that the top of her head now only reached about earlobe height on me. At five-two on a good day, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I knew who had to look up to me. There was some gray in her dark hair that wasn’t there last time I’d seen her, but her eyes were still like live coals in her expressionless face, full of appetite and uncertainty.”

        Despite their flaws, Koenig’s outside-the-box characters are believable and likable. Julia must deal with dissociative episodes and recurring feelings of suffocation that interfere with her ability to sniff out the bad guys and Hector is incapable of faithfulness to a single lover. Both are willing to step over a moral line, if only for a moment.  The author’s powerful and meticulously crafted narrative arc guides the reader through an unpredictable, action-packed drama that holds up to the scrutiny of the most discerning reader.

        For bibliophiles who love to be kept in suspense and who appreciate surprise endings, “South of Nowhere” will keep you guessing. One word of advice—don’t start it in the evening unless you’re willing to sacrifice a night’s sleep.

No bull—Ben Rehder’s “Bum Steer” is an entertaining read

Sept. 18, 2015, Boerne Star

     When Billy Don Craddock shoved $142,000 in chips onto a Vegas casino blackjack table, his good buddy Red O’Brien felt like the quart of cheap beer in his stomach was going to erupt. Half of the money that Billy Don just bet belonged to Red. When Billy Don first bragged to Red a few months ago that he was a damn good blackjack player, Red thought it was liquor talking. After playing a few hands, however, Red became convinced that Billy Don had been harboring a very lucrative gambling talent that could lift them from their run-down trailer trash existence into a life of luxury and leisure.

     When Billy Don was sixteen, his father took him to Vegas. “My old man drug me along ‘cause he said I was a better player than he was,” Billy Don explained to Red, “and he was right. See, you learn when to hit and when to stay, when to split, double down, and all that stuff. There are charts you can memorize that tell you what to do. But there are other times when you’re operating on nothing more than a gut feeling. Sometimes you gotta go with it. I was always good at that part.”

     Billy Don was good at adding numbers in his head, too. His dad made him deal cards for hours at a time. Even though Billy Don hated doing it, he humored his dad and even passed math that year because he had learned to add numbers at a phenomenal clip.

     In true Ben Rehder style, Bum Steer, the ninth installment of his rollicking Blanco county mysteries, is a tribute to Texas hillbilly humor. There are numerous unpredictable plot twists and turns that keep the story going at breakneck speed. Rehder’s cast of memorable characters reappear in this latest novel, but “Bum Steer” is a stand-alone story that does not require reading the previous books.

     Three weeks before Billy Don’s and Red’s foray into the Vegas world of glitz, glamour, and gambling, Rodney Bauer’s red Brangus bull is shot dead in the middle of the night. As if that is not bad enough, a deceased young woman is discovered underneath the body of the bull and Sheriff Bobby Garza calls in game warden John Marlin to assist in the investigation. Just as expected, they find that the young woman has been gored to death. The evidence suggests that she was not alone with the bull and that someone had attempted to steal the prize steer. And, of course, Billy Don and Red become entangled in a web of murder and mayhem.

     Rehder’s first book in this series, Buck Fever, was nominated for an Edgar award. He has also authored ten “Die Laughing” crime novels and several standalone books including the YA book The Driving Lesson.

     Rehder is recognized for his satirical and irreverent approach to contemporary issues. Much like Carl Hiaasen, his novels parody the circumstances of everyday life. Bum Steer is a delight.

Fort Hood massacre detailed in Porterfield book

This review was published in the Sunday July 5, 2015 edition of the "San Antonio Express News" and was written by Capt. Vincent Bosquez (Ret), who is the coordinator of Veteran Affairs at Palo Alto College in San Antonio. 

Fort Hood, home to two full-armored divisions with more than 41,000 infantrymen, cavalrymen and tankers, is the largest active duty military post in the United States.

But even an installation with a storied history and a mission designed to rapidly deploy and conduct operations to “seize, retain and exploit” the initiative to defeat any adversary around the world can fall victim to the whim of a lone gunman in its own backyard.

“Death on Base: The Fort Hood Massacre” by Texas writers Anita Belles Porterfield and John Porterfield, is an intense, transfixing look into events surrounding the worst mass shooting on a military base on American soil.

When Major Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, walked into the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center in November 2009 and viciously murdered 12 soldiers and a civilian medic and wounded 43 others, he set into motion national debates on a myriad of topics ranging from the definition of home-grown terrorism, acceptance of religious freedoms, and the perennial discourse on the death penalty.

The Porterfields succinctly cover all the salient points of events leading up to the catastrophic hour of the attack and painstakingly dissect the anatomy of the massacre. They also provide tangible comparisons to other mass shootings and reveal missed opportunities where the Army could have required Hasan to master techniques related to his profession instead of allowing him to be passed along to the next level of responsibility.

In one telling passage, the authors note that one of Hasan’s advisers recognized that over time his views on the military and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were becoming increasingly extreme. The advisor offered Hasan the opportunity to resign his commission, but unless Hasan could be assured that he would get an honorable discharge, he insisted he wanted to remain in school and in the Army.

Incredibly, during this same time period his official Army rating described his performance as outstanding with the recommendation “must promote; best qualified; a star officer.”

With sensitivity and haunting rhetoric, the book details the terror, chaos and despair the 300 soldiers packed into the crowded SRP Center felt as they heard a fellow soldier shout “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great!” and the shooting began. In the end, after more than 55 people lay dead, dying or wounded, the last person shot was the gunman himself.

The authors take us through the gauntlet of Hasan’s legal maneuvers in the aftermath of the disaster, the Article 32 hearing, which is similar to a preliminary hearing in a civilian court, and continued comparisons to other high-profile cases involving mass murders.

In what may be disturbing to some readers, the Porterfields detail how the Department of Defense and the Army initially classified Hasan’s shooting rampage as workplace violence and denied benefits to the victims that they would have received if they had suffered death or disability in a war zone.

“Death on Base” is a well-researched look into a fateful day in November when Fort Hood, also known as “The Great Place,” was delivered an incomprehensible deadly blow by one of its own. It is a superb work that will be referenced by researchers, historians and the military community for years to come.

Culper Ring Holds the Key to "The President's Shadow"

      It was an alarming discovery—a severed human arm unearthed by the first lady in the White House Rose Garden, a strange coin clasped in its clenched fist.  From one electrifying moment to another, that dismembered arm drives the plot of Brad Meltzer’s new novel, The President’s Shadow. President Orson Wallace calls upon archivist Beecher White to investigate the gory discovery and to find out who could have possibly permeated the tight security around the president’s home. 
     Beecher is a member of the secret Culper Ring, a small organization founded by George Washington to protect the presidency. One of the senior members of the ring is in a Washington, D.C., hospital fighting for his life and it is up to Beecher to act as front man in hunting down the villain.
     Beecher has other concerns, too. His friend Clementine is dying of cancer and has disappeared after helping her mentally ill father, Nico Hadrian, escape from St. Elizabeth’s sanitarium. When the strange coin points to Beecher’s dad, however, the young archivist is compelled to leave no stone unturned in finding out the cause of his father’s death and, hopefully, identifying the felon who buried the arm. It wasn’t a car accident that killed his father, as he had been told, and his dad’s death now points to a little-known military unit, the Plankholders.
     Soon, another arm is excavated from Camp David. This time the clenched hand gripped a white card with a message written in invisible ink. The disclosures in the hands of the unearthed arms contain coordinates for a secret Navy installation and all of the players—some good, some evil—converge upon one of the dry Tortugas, Devil’s Island off of Key West, the secret home base of the Plankholders. They must fight for not only their lives but for vital information that holds repercussions for the whole nation.
  This is a fun read. If you have read Meltzer’s two previous Culper Ring books, the characters in The President’s Shadow will be familiar. If you haven’t read them, you should. Meltzer’s character development is particularly superb in this book. The author is a historian and his obvious love for historical trivia is not lost in this book. He is the creator/director/narrator of the TV shows Decoded and Lost History. He has also written a delightful childrens’ book series based on historical heroes such as Helen Keller, President Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many other notables.

Death on Base: The Fort Hood Massacre

You know who he is.

You know what he did.

Now, 

You will know 

why he did it!

Available from 
booksellers everywhere

'Wink of an Eye'—small town Texas, big time crime

Feb. 17, 2015, the Boerne Star

Las Vegas private eye Gypsy Moran double-crossed a mob boss and he’s on the run back to his childhood home of Wink, Texas—a place he closed the door on twenty years earlier, vowing that he would never set foot there again. At least he could enjoy a visit with his sister, Rhonda, whom he hasn’t seen for years.

A vacation, however, isn’t in the cards for Gypsy. One of Rhonda’s former students, twelve-year old Tatum McCallen, has enlisted her help in proving that his father’s recent death was not the suicide that the sheriff’s department claimed it was. The boy found his father hanging from a backyard tree. Tatum believes that his dad, deputy sheriff Ryce McCallen, was killed for launching an investigation into the disappearances of several undocumented teenage immigrant girls.

Tatum’s mom is out-of-the picture, and with his dad’s death, the boy is being cared for by his disabled grandfather, Burke McCallen. Wheel chair-bound, Burke is a retired deputy who was almost killed by a bullet in his back. He and Tatum talk good-hearted Gypsy into looking into Ryce’s death. With his death classified as suicide, Ryce’s life insurance won’t pay a dime. Tatum is in jeopardy of losing the family home and there certainly won’t be funds for college.

Gypsy and Rhonda have something in common with Tatum—their dad walked out on them when they were kids about Tatum’s age. Gypsy is very much aware of the emotional pain that Tatum is experiencing with the loss of his father and abandonment by his mother. He reluctantly agrees to help unravel the truth.

After only a day in Wink, Gypsy runs into his former love interest, Claire, who he left in a lurch twenty years earlier. He had abandoned her just as his father had deserted him. Despite being married to a state senator, Claire is ready to rekindle her relationship with Gypsy. The attraction between them is just as strong as ever and they pick up where they left off years before.

Gypsy enlists the help of a beautiful investigative reporter to help him solve the mystery of the true cause of Ryce McCallen’s death. As they uncover an illegal human trafficking ring, they put themselves in jeopardy.

Wink of an Eye by LynnChandler Willis (St. Martin’s Press Minotaur Books, ISBN: 9781250053190) has something for everyone—a boy and his dog, murder, romantic entanglements, police corruption, high tech surveillance, and suspense galore. Willis won the “Private Eye Writers of America” competition for this debut novel and is the first female in a decade to do so. She is a natural storyteller and, hopefully, Gypsy will be back in a sequel.

Every hunter's dream -- 'Stag Party'

Boerne Star, Jan. 20, 2015

It was every hunter’s dream. From his perch in a tree, Jasper Endicott scrutinized a huge herd of agitated bucks below him.
      “As he watched, more bucks arrived. Dozens more. They didn’t emerge tentatively from the brush, wary of danger, as deer usually did. Instead, they came bursting from the woods at full speed, caution to the wind. . .Their brains weren’t sophisticated enough to understand they’d been tricked.”
      It was a special scent that 102-year-old Harley Frizzell, an eccentric recluse, invented. He wanted to sell it and Jasper’s family was interested in buying the pheromone. The Endicott entertainment empire inspired hunters all over the country with their weekly reality television series.
       “A typical episode might include the men castrating bulls, shoeing horses, repairing a tractor . . . filling deer feeders, or building a barn.” But mostly the Endicotts hunted and they had a very large following.  Throngs of “wallhanger” bucks just for the picking would surely increase their ratings.
      Stag Party is Texas hill country author Ben Rehder’s eighth irreverent installment of his Blanco County mysteries. His cast of memorable characters reappear in this latest novel, but the book is a standalone story and does not depend upon reading the previous books.
      When Harley Frizzell’s lifeless body is discovered by Red O’Brian, Sheriff Bobby Garza questions Red and dismisses him as a suspect. Red, however, believes that he is number one on Garza’s list and enlists his buddy Billy Don to help him find the killer. He and Billy Don had recently won a feral pig shoot with a bounty of $25,000.00 for each of them. Red had considered buying Frizzel’s deer scent formula, but before he could cinch the deal, the old man was murdered.
      The two bungling rubes track down Frizzell’s girlfriend, a seventy-one-year-old hippie sculptor named Sparrow Holliday, who was purportedly the last person to see Frizzell alive. Could she have murdered him in a fit of jealous rage? Or did one of the Endicotts kill Frizzell to obtain the old man’s deer scent without having to pay for it?
      At the same time, 19-year-old PETA activist Liam Mooney and his partner Jessi Winslow, 18, set out from Nebraska to Texas to protest the Endicott’s fervent incitement of the public to kill innocent deer. The two misguided teens use Google Earth to locate the Endicott’s massive compound, which overlaps Kendall and Blanco counties, and they hatch a plan to burn the main house down.
      Lurking in the background of the story is Aaron Endicott, the sociopathic son who does not appear in the television show and who the Endicotts would rather not acknowledge. Aaron is a grotesque, colossal man with a pocked face and feral eyes. Aggressive and combative, the youngest Endicott seems always on the offensive for violent encounters. When Liam and Jessi mistake Aaron’s cabin in the Endicott compound for the main house and set it on fire, Aaron confronts the young couple and fireworks ensue.
      Stag Party ( ISBN-13: 978-1505440263, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, December 15, 2014) is bawdy, clever, irreverent, and infinitely entertaining. It is available on Amazon as a kindle e-book or paperback.

GOODBYE GLUTEN: Happy, healthy, delicious eating with a Texas twist

Boerne Star, Nov. 21, 2014

Pizza. Pasta. Hamburgers. Biscuits. Fried chicken. These are forbidden foods for individuals with celiac disease or for those who have an intolerance to wheat, barley, and rye. In their new cookbook, GOODBYE GLUTEN: HAPPY, HEALTHY, DELICIOUS EATING WITH A TEXAS TWIST, authors Kim Stanford and Bill Backhaus prove that even decadent deserts can be successfully prepared without gluten.
    Over the past decade, gluten has gained a reputation as a devil in disguise. For individuals with celiac disease, gluten, a protein, causes an autoimmune response in the digestive system that can be deadly. In recent years, even people who can safely ingest the substance have joined the gluten-free bandwagon, declaring that they feel better avoiding it.
    There are problems inherent with sticking to a gluten-free diet. Many processed foods contain gluten, as do canned goods, condiments, cured meats, and liquor. Gluten-free foods are expensive, are sometimes adulterated with unhealthy additives and preservatives, and are often bland and flavorless.
    The backbone of Stanford’s and Backhaus’ cookbook is their assertion that gluten-free can be just as delicious as mainstream food. Their two hundred-plus gluten-free recipes will restore the enjoyment of great food to people who have been forced to miss out on their favorite dishes.
    When Backhaus called his former wife, Kim Stanford, to ask if she was interested in collaborating with him on a gluten-free cookbook, she responded with an enthusiastic “yes.”  Backhaus had been diagnosed with celiac disease more than thirty years before when there were virtually no packaged or processed gluten-free foods, so he and Stanford, a former financial consultant, learned to cook without gluten. Stanford continued to consume gluten until she was diagnosed with a thyroid deficiency. She eliminated gluten from her diet and also turned to organic whole foods. To her amazement, her thyroid healed without the surgery her doctor told her she needed, her allergies disappeared, and she lost weight with no effort.
    Stanford grew up in north Texas and lives in Austin. As the owner of a catering company, she borrows recipes from her childhood and jazzes them up with her own special twists. Her “Guadalajara Gazpacho,” “Lasagna with Mexican Crema,” and “Spiced Tequila Chicken” are succulent, delectable entrees that any good restaurant would be proud to have on its menu.
    After his celiac disease diagnosis, cooking quickly became Backhaus’ passion and he spent thousands of hours developing entrees like “Herb-Crusted Parmesan Chicken” and “Bacon-Wrapped Quail with Dates and Jalapeno.” A meat-lover, he has included numerous recipes for barbeque, rubs, and sauces. One notable sausage recipe, “East Austin Trailer Park Spicy Homemade Chorizo,” is downright addictive.
    Stanford loves dessert and looks forward to sitting around the dinner table at the end of a meal with a cup of coffee and a luscious sweet treat.
    “Previously,” Stanford says, “gluten-free desserts were like eating raw corn grits with sugar baked on them, then set out in the sun for a couple of days and, of course, freeze-dried for a couple of months. They were dry as concrete, tasteless, and so different from regular desserts.”
    The desserts that Stanford included in GOODBYE GLUTEN are anything but tasteless and dry. Her “Best Little Coconut Cream Cake in Texas,” “Ooey-Gooey Chocolate Brownies,” and “Southern Bell Peach Pie” will please anyone.
    Because food manufacturers add gluten to a myriad of products—cheese, chips, cereal, salad dressings, frozen vegetables, baking mixes, and processed meats—Stanford and Backhaus have included a list of gluten-free, brand-name pantry items found in most supermarkets. Even ketchup frequently contains gluten so the authors include a recipe for a homemade version.
    Some liquors and spirits also contain gluten. Popular brands of beer use barley for the fermentation process and are on the gluten-free forbidden list. Stanford and Backhaus list gluten-free beer brands and also include a bar guide in their cookbook. While vodka made with potatoes, unflavored rum, and tequila are naturally gluten-free, rye whisky and certain other blends contain the offending protein. Many cocktail mixers also contain gluten. Wine is generally gluten-free, but the authors warn the reader to stay away from malted wine coolers.
    GOODBYE GLUTEN is a comprehensive guide to enjoying a gluten-free lifestyle. At the same time it is a wonderful tool that any cook, gluten-free or not, can rely upon for a cache of recipes that will impress family and friends—with a Texas twist.