I would like to welcome my guest blogger, Matthew Pitman, a sixth-grader at Earl Wood Middle School in Rockville, Maryland. An avid reader, Matthew reviews Brad Meltzer's two new childrens' books about American heroes Amelia Earhart and Abraham Lincoln, released in January 2014, by Dial books. Meltzer plans to release four more in the coming months.

Thriller writer inspires children with stories of American heroes

by Matthew Pitman

Brad Meltzer knows a few things about heroes. He has written very entertaining books and comics featuring fictional super heroes. For the first time he has published two childrens’ books about the real-life American heroes Amelia Earhart and Abraham Lincoln.

In his book  I Am Amelia Earhart, Meltzer describes Earhart’s childhood and her career in aviation. When she was young, Amelia acted very unlady-like by the standards of the of the early 1900s. For example, she refused to play with dolls and wear dresses. Instead, she built miniature roller coasters and day-dreamed about flying.

As Amelia gets older, Meltzer describes the aviation records that she broke. She was the first woman pilot to reach the highest altitude ever recorded by flying to 14,000 feet.

Some memorable quotes that Earhart is known for are, “Never interrupt someone who is doing what you said could not be done,” and “I know no bounds.” These words are inspiring because they encourage kids to not limit themselves.

Clearly, Meltzer’s theme is to chase your dreams no matter what gets in your way. He lets kids know that dreams are not just for adults.

Illustrator Christopher Eliopoulos does a good job of making Earhart look like a little kid throughout the story which connects young readers to her and her accomplishments.

Children from kinder to third grade would enjoy this book because of its fun pictures, interesting facts, and easy to comprehend language.

Meltzer delivers another fun everyday hero story with I Am Abraham Lincoln.

When Abraham Lincoln was young he could not stop reading. He would even lie to his parents and say he was working in the corn field when he was really reading. He continued attending school even after most kids his age had stopped going.  Although he was bullied in school, he never stopped being himself.

When Lincoln got older, he put his reading to good use and became president. He had always been unhappy about slavery, and so during the Civil War he freed the slaves. And out of respect, some of the slaves came and fought for the Union.

Lincoln’s most important lesson was about equality of all people. He said, in his most famous speech at Gettysburg, “All men are created equal,” giving the people of the Union the confidence to win the war.  Meltzer shows that Lincoln’s greatest lesson is to fight for what you believe in, whether it is freeing a turtle or freeing the slaves. Lincoln is a great example of how far loving to read can take you.

The illustrations by Christopher Eliopoulos are fun, but because Lincoln is shown in a suit and a beard even as a child, it struck me as a little odd. Just like in “I Am Amelia Earhart,” the illustrations do a good job of making the story easy to read and understand because the pictures are so closely related to the story.

Children will enjoy these inspirational books. Meltzer plans to write four more childrens' books about heroes. 

History Decoded: The Ten Greatest Conspiracies of All Time"

"'History Decoded' explores fascinating, unexplained questions. Is Fort Knox empty? Why was Hitler so intent on capturing the Roman “Spear of Destiny”? What’s the government hiding in Area 51? Where did the Confederacy’s $19 million in gold and silver go at the end of the Civil War? And did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone? Meltzer sifts through the evidence; weighs competing theories; separates what we know to be true with what’s still—and perhaps forever—unproved or unprovable; and in the end, decodes the mystery, arriving at the most likely solution. Along the way we meet Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Nazi propagandists, and the real DB Cooper.

Bound in at the beginning of each story is a custom-designed envelope—a faux 19th-century leather satchel, a U.S. government classified file—containing facsimiles of relevant evidence: John Wilkes Booth’s alleged unsigned will, a map of the Vatican, Kennedy’s death certificate. The whole is a riveting, interactive adventure through the compelling world of mysteries and conspiracies."*

This is a wonderful book--fascinating and beautifully produced. I couldn't put it down. The photos and drawings, as well as the removable facsimile documents, add richness and texture. Counting down from the mysteries surrounding the Lincoln assassination, to the search for Confederate gold, to the existence of UFOs, Meltzer questions our beliefs in some of the most intriguing history mysteries of our time and presents evidence that just might change our minds about the outcomes of some of the most notorious events in history. The conspiracy theories associated with all ten events in the book will have your mind spinning. 

If you are a devote' of Meltzer's Decoded television series on the History channel, you will love this book. Even if you have never seen the programs, the book would make a great Christmas present for any history buff from age eight to eighty.

History Decoded was co-authored by Keith Ferrell, author of more than a dozen books, thousands of magazine and encyclopedia articles, and former editor of Omni magazine.

History Decoded was published by Workman Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7611-7745-6.

*from Brad Meltzer's website http://bradmeltzer.com/book/history-decoded/

The Wilder women on the Prairie

from the Tuesday, November 12, 2013 edition of the Boerne Star

It was President Ronald Reagan’s favorite TV show and Sarah Palin’s most beloved childhood book. Just like Reagan and Palin, the “Little House on the Prairie” stories are uniquely American. How they came to be written is the subject of  Susan Wittig Albert’s new book, A Wilder Rose: Rose Wilder Lane, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Their Little Houses.
From the time that they were first published in the 1930’s, the “Little House on the Prairie” books have captured the hearts of both children and adults. These endearing stories of  life on the American prairie chronicled a much simpler time in history, a nineteenth century lifestyle filled with stories of a close-knit family overcoming obstacles as they built their homestead and helped settle this country.

            While Albert’s book is fiction, it is based on fact. She used Wilder’s and Lane’s diaries, journals,  letters, and scholarly research materials as her guide. Just as Wilder and Lane were true to real life events in the “Little House” fictionalized stories, Albert is just as true to history in A Wilder Rose.

            Rose Wilder was the only child of Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder. Born in 1886, she grew up under austere conditions. She and her parents lived a hard-scrabble life working long hours to eke out a living from the unforgiving South Dakota prairie. Because Laura’s attention was focused upon physically demanding manual work, she did not have a surplus of time to spend with her daughter. Rose often felt neglected.

            Not only did Rose feel that she was deprived the mothering she so desperately wanted and needed, she suffered from the absence of childhood friends. Her classmates poked fun at her bare feet, shabby clothes, and odd ways. Rose was envious of the other girls’ fancy store-bought dresses and she longed for even the plainest pair of shoes. She was an outsider, not only because of her clothes, but also because her behavior was bizarre—she even spoke her own language that she called “Fispooko.” Rose learned at a tender age to conceal her true feelings behind a fictional façade and she carried that trait with her throughout her life.

            There was not enough money for Rose to attend college, so she taught herself to write and learned several languages on her own. She worked as a journalist, some would say a “hack,” for publications such as the “San Francisco Bulletin,” the “Call,” and the Red Cross. Many of her stories were filed from distant locations—Paris, Russia, Albania—and she lived a rather wild, bohemian lifestyle. Rose made enough money to travel to exotic places and to flit in celebrity circles. She subsidized her parents’ income so that they could have some comfort in their advanced years.

            It was largely because of Rose’s generous financial assistance that Laura gained the freedom to establish her credibility in her community. She joined ladies’ circles and began writing for the “Missouri Ruralist” and other farming publications. Throughout Rose’s life, she and her mother had a contentious relationship—sometimes openly, sometimes passively, but always grating just under the skin with only a word or slight causing an eruption.

            The stock market crash of 1929 wiped out Rose’s and her parents’ savings. Rose began ghost writing books for Lowell Thomas, Frederick O’Brien, and pulp biographies of Hollywood celebrities. Publishing houses took a beating during the great depression, but Rose was a prolific writer and managed to stay afloat. Laura had toyed with the idea of writing accounts of her childhood on the prairie and she sought Rose’s advice about the possibilities of publishing these stories. Rose saw a possible market for fictionalized versions of Laura’s life and, through her own agents and publishers, she made sure that her mother’s books were given an opportunity to succeed in the marketplace.

            Rose dutifully typed up the stories that Laura wrote by hand on orange tablets, sprucing them up and adding her own editorial flourishes and she was able to secure good publishing deals for Laura.

            “A Wilder Rose” is a fascinating story of a complex mother-daughter relationship and is a departure from Albert’s serialized fiction. On the surface, the “Little House” books are uncomplicated, simplistic stories of life on the American prairie but Albert does a masterful job of carrying the reader through the complexities of the evolution of Rose and her mother.

            For “Little House” fans this book is essential reading. For Susan Wittig Albert fans, it is pure pleasure.

 _____________________

 “A Wilder Rose: Rose Wilder Lane, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Their Little Houses,“ by Susan Wittig Albert,  ISBN-13: 978-0989203500, Persevero Press, September 2013.

"Books and Butts" chronicles high school life in the 80's

Published in the September 9, 2013, edition of the Boerne Star

With the ink barely dry on his school administration certificate, in 1980, Joseph F. Doenges, Ed.D., accepted the position of Assistant Principal of Boerne High School. During the chaotic year that followed, Doenges very quickly discovered that he would be called upon to handle disciplinary problems on an order that he could have never anticipated during his training.

            It wasn't as if he had not been forewarned. The Assistant Principal position was a new one, established in response to demands that something be done about the discipline problem in the school.

            “The graduation ceremony in May was a farce,” Superintendent Bob Chambers told Doenges during his interview for the position. “It was held in the football stadium. Some of the kids were drunk. They were throwing Frisbees and spraying shaving cream at one another. The whole thing was an absolute disgrace. All summer long there were letters to the editor in The Boerne Star about graduation.”

            “The purpose of this book is to reveal the frustration and failure, as well as the joy and success that exist in any public school system,” Doenges writes in the preface of his new book, Books and Butts: Diary of an Assistant Principal (Lulu.com, ISBN13:  9781300827177, July 4, 2013). “It is difficult to do so truthfully without offending someone. It is certainly not my intent to tarnish reputations, damage carefully nurtured images, or cast doubt on the ‘sacred cows’ of education. Nevertheless, if some are offended, reputations tarnished, images damaged, or doubts cast, so be it.” Doenges changed the names of the students whose discipline problems he chronicled.

            From the first day of school, Doenges was called upon to deal with truancy, disruptive behavior, fights, students selling their free lunches, irate parents defending their childrens’ bad behaviors, and students who repeatedly set off strings of firecrackers and deliberately clogged up toilets. 

            Three weeks into the school year, Doenges wrote in his journal, “One discipline problem after another came through my office. It was the busiest day yet. Two boys knocked a hole in the sheetrock wall in English class. Several students were put out of class by the teacher for incessant talking. Three girls were sent to the office for passing notes in class, and two more for chewing gum. Most of these problems should have been handled by the teachers involved, but it was one of those days when tolerance and patience were in short supply.”

             There were serious discipline problems, too, that were difficult for Doenges to handle. Most of these were incidents of vandalism, drinking on the school grounds, or worse, drinking and driving. In these situations he had no other option but to call the Boerne Police Department.

            Doenges kept his wife’s old sorority paddle on display in his office. It served as more of a threat than a viable method of disciplining disobedient teenagers. That is until one day he had to call a student’s father to discuss his son’s constant interruption of his teacher. The father immediately came to the school. When he saw the paddle in Doenges’ office, he got right to the point.

            “I want him paddled, and I want him paddled every time he gets in trouble in the future.”

            Doenges had never actually used the paddle, but this time he did.

            “I got Martha’s old sorority paddle from my desk, where it had been stored since August, just in case I ever needed it. The boy bent over and grabbed his lower legs while I gave him three swats as dad witnessed. I knew by his reaction that the paddle stung, and thus the desired effect had been achieved. I then reached out and shook the boy’s hand, told him there were no hard feelings, and sent him back to class. Dad thanked me, reminded me that future problems were also to be handled with the board, then left.”

            At the end of the school year Doenges did some soul searching about his role as Assistant Principal. He felt that his greatest accomplishments were that he had helped to establish order and control at the school and that he had earned the trust and respect of students, teachers, and parents. It was a frustrating year but he was satisfied that “things were better in May than they were in September.”

            Doenges was conflicted about renewing his contract. That one year had been more physically and emotionally draining than any he had experienced as a teacher. He  returned to his job in August, but it didn’t last very long. During the year the principal resigned and Doenges was appointed in his place. By May, he had decided to accept a position overseas. He returned as Assistant Principal at Boerne High School in 1985. When the superintendent of schools retired, Doenges was persuaded by the Board to take over as superintendent. He served in that capacity for eleven years.

            Books and Butts is an entertaining read filled with humor and wisdom. At the conclusion of his book, Doenges reflects upon his many years of experience as an educator and provides the reader with his personal philosophy concerning issues such as corporal punishment, school and class size, advanced placement, and foreign language instruction.

            The bottom line, says Doenges, is that expectations are too low in the American educational system. 

'Vessel of Fire' chronicles Bar-Kochba rebellion in the Holy Land

The year is C.E. 131. The place is Betsha’al, a small village in the Holy Land. Fifteen-year old Tamar is a potter’s apprentice to her father and over the years she has become a gifted artist. Her  exacting father rejects some of her creative designs and Tamar hides many of her creations in a secret cave. Although she is betrothed to a young man, Yitzak, she has no feelings for him. Throwing pots is the driving force in her life.

One evening when Tamar goes to fetch water for the family, she is accosted by a Roman soldier. She manages to pull away from his grasp just as a kind stranger named Yacob happened to be walking by. Yacob wraps Tamar in his robe and takes her home. When her parents see her torn clothes they imagine the worst. Her mother wails and cries.

“I’ve always taught you to be careful and modest. . . I teach you to be plain and unprovocative, and so you disgrace us with a pig of a Roman soldier?”

One day Roman soldiers enter Betsha’al and arrest Tamar’s betrothed, Yitzak, for treason against Hadrian, the Emperor of the Roman Empire. They murder Yitzak and drag his body through the village. With her future husband gone, Tamar has little chance for marriage. She finds herself thinking of Yacob, but she believes that a relationship with the man who saved her from the Romans is not possible.

As violence against the Jews escalates in the small villages of the region, Tamar’s father knows that if they are to escape death at the hands of the Romans, he, his family, and fellow villagers must flee to caves in the wilderness. With only the possessions that they can carry, they set out on their long journey. Once there, Tamar feels compelled to return to Betsha’al and implores her father to leave. That night, when everyone else is asleep, Tamar quietly slips out of the cave and sets out for home where she must confront the horrors of the war and come to terms with the atrocities committed by
the Romans against the Jews.

Vessel of Fire by Elena Tucker is the first book of  her “Time Pieces” historical fiction trilogy. It chronicles the life of a family during the Bar-Kochba rebellion of the Jews against the Romans. While the story takes place during a single year, Tucker explains in her author’s notes that the actual time period stretched over half a decade.  “Fighting was intense all over Judea,” Tucker writes, “centering around Jerusalem where the Tenth Legion was stationed. . . It is estimated that 400,000 untrained Jewish men gathered in a well-orchestrated revolt that began a few miles west of Jerusalem, and ended with the eventual ‘Redemption of Israel.’ In triumph, a new Jewish calendar was begun, government restructured and new currency issued.”

Tucker cleverly presents the compelling tale of Tamar and her family side-by-side with a current-day story of Dr. Lemuel Fort, one of the world’s leading Near Eastern archeologists on a dig in the ancient city of Beit Sha’al. Lem and his wife, Emily, have experienced a recent tragedy and are trying to repair their relationship. As Lem and his crew unearth the artifacts of past lives, Tucker’s story streams seamlessly back in time to Tamar and her family. At the same time, Lem cautions his students not to forget the people who made and used the relics that they retrieved.

“The problem with artifacts” says Lem, “is that we forget what they really are. . . what we’ve forgotten is who made these lamps: a man just like me or maybe some of you. Maybe he was shy. Maybe he dreamt of women as he worked the clay and sang whatever songs were popular in his day.”

Tucker’s characters have depth and they spring to life through the historical tapestry that she weaves. “What is most important to me,” says Tucker, is that we understand the flesh-and-blood-ness of ancient peoples; they were not merely abstractions or myth. They were smart, feeling, loving people who—however different their circumstances—were folks who struggled and enjoyed life just like you or I.”

This is a story of the ancient and the contemporary, side-by-side, both struggling  for the survival of their families. The book flows seamlessly back and forth through the ages, with characters whose cores resonate with the struggles of a common humanity—two cultures united by the thread of time.

Tucker is an award-winning columnist and staff writer for The Boerne Star. She has also penned a historical novel about Magellan, West About, available through Amazon.com. The Vessel of Fire and Tucker’s second and third books of her “Time Pieces” trilogy, Vessel of Hope and Vessel of Strength, are available as Kindle editions through Amazon.com for the very nominal price of $ 2.99 each, a real bargain for such good reads.

This review was published in the Boerne Star on March 1, 2013

The CIA protects the president . . . the Culper Ring protects the presidency

“. . .suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger that the end of my finger—dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world’s history as we may perhaps never realize.”


Those are the words of Dr. Edward Curtis, the physician who performed the autopsy of President Abraham Lincoln.

Every president since James Madison has attended religious services at St. John’s church, a house of worship that sits directly across the street from the White House. When the rector is murdered, Secret Service agents question archivist Beecher White because his name and telephone number have been discovered in the pocket of the suspect, along with a nineteenth-century deck of playing cards. In an effort to clear his name, Beecher and his sidekick, Tot, along with other members of the Culper Ring, jump into the fray only to discover that the prime suspect is one of Beecher’s childhood pals, Marshall Lusk, from Sagamore, Wisconsin.

While investigating the rector’s murder, Beecher finds a peephole in a wall of the church that directs his eye to President Abraham Lincoln’s pew. Coupled with the fact that the rector was murdered with a forty-four caliber, single-shot Derringer pistol, the identical weapon that John Wilkes Booth used to kill President Lincoln, Beecher concludes that the murder is a re-creation of Lincoln’s assassination. Beecher also discovers that the ace of spades is missing from the deck of cards belonging to the alleged killer.

The following morning Pastor Kenneth Frick, leader of the Foundry Church, located a scant mile from the White House, is shot twice in the back. When Beecher and Tot put together the evidence, they are convinced that the attempted murder of Frick was a meticulous re-creation of President Garfield’s assassination by Charles Guiteau in 1881. Beecher and Tot learn that Guiteau had a tattoo of a dagger with a red diamond on it. “Two presidential killers,” Beecher concludes. “Two suits of playing cards.”

Because the current president of the United States, Orson Wallace, had attended services at both St. John’s and the Foundry churches, Beecher and Tot believe that he is the common link to the murders of both pastors and speculate that Wallace is the killer’s ultimate target. Would Wallace’s assassination, like Lincoln’s, foist “mighty changes in the world’s history?”

After assassination re-enactments of presidents McKinley and Kennedy, the novel’s twists and turns take the reader over the edge into an accurately depicted but largely unknown presidential hideaway where secrets are born and honor dies. 

In his latest thriller, The Fifth Assassin,  Brad Meltzer entwines the past with the present through the use of flashbacks to Beecher’s childhood and gradually reveals the lurid backstory that drives Beecher and his childhood friends through a web of political ruthlessness, misplaced loyalties, and ultimate betrayals. As the story builds to a critical mass, Beecher must resolve his contradictory feelings in order to preserve his code of honor.

Meltzer is a student of history and this novel unfolds within an accurate historical context. He brings back familiar characters from The Book of Fate and The Inner Circle, probing their psyches and exposing their inner conflicts, and giving the reader a multi-dimensional insight into their foibles and motivations. His characters are authentic and credible and they beg for a series of novels based upon the Culper Ring. There is never a dull moment and the suspense builds with the turn of each page. The Fifth Assassin is great storytelling, brilliantly executed. 

Ben Rehder Hits a Home Run With "The Driving Lesson"

 

Fourteen-year-old Charlie Dunbar adores his grandfather, Opa, and the feeling is mutual. When classes are dismissed on the last day of school for summer vacation, Charlie is surprised to find Opa outside waiting for him. The old  man wants Charlie to drive him to a doctor’s appointment. After expressing his reluctance because he didn’t have his learner’s permit yet, Charlie finally agrees to drive him. Before he realizes it, Opa has directed him to the interstate. With each mile travelled, Charlie becomes a little bit more nervous. Finally, after an eighteen wheeler rumbles up beside Opa’s car, Charlie asks how much further to the doctor’s office. That’s when Opa tells him that they were headed for Seattle.

Just a few days earlier, Charlie had overheard his parents talking about Opa. They mentioned hospice, an unfamiliar word to him. During a driving lesson with his father the following day, Charlie learns that Opa is terminally ill with cancer. Charlie knows instinctively that the doctor’s appointment in Seattle has something to do with Opa’s condition.

By the time Charlie and Opa reach Lubbock, Charlie is feeling comfortable behind the wheel. His mom has been leaving numerous, frantic voicemail messages on his phone, but Opa isn’t particularly concerned. When they get to Amarillo, Opa asks Charlie to stop at a motel. Once inside, Charlie confronts his grandfather and demands to know what is going on. Opa explains his choices in facing terminal cancer: do nothing, follow the doctor’s treatment plan, or take control of the situation and deal with his impending death on his own terms.

“All I wanted to do was spend some time with my favorite person in the world. That’s you,” Opa tells him. “The truth is sometimes none of your choices in life are good. Sometimes you’re faced with a terrible problem, and the only thing you can do is pick the least objectionable solution. Sucks, Huh? Believe me, I wish I had a fourth option, or ten more options, but I don’t.”

Before they leave Amarillo, Charlie and Opa visit Cadillac Ranch, a sprawling auto museum/junk yard for deceased cars. In Tucumcari, New Mexico, they stop at a local café for a bite of lunch and when Charlie glances at the television he does a double-take.

“It was so totally unexpected, like when you suddenly catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror, except you didn’t know there was a mirror there. . .that’s what was happening now, because there, on the TV screen, was a photo of me in my football uniform.”

By the time Opa and Charlie get to the west coast, they’ve ditched their credit cards and cell phones, disguised their appearances, visited the Grand Canyon, driven through the breathtakingly beautiful Kaibab National Forest, and had their car burgled. They have observed their own faces in every corner they’ve traversed—television news in motel rooms, cafes, and restaurants and splashed across newspapers at every convenience store.

Ben Rehder’s new young adult novella, The Driving Lesson, chronicles the cross-country journey of a young man and his grandfather. Like Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, it’s the road trip and the companion that elevate the story. While Rehder is best known for his Blanco County mystery series, The Driving Lesson shows his depth and breadth as a writer. He skillfully and with great sensitivity weaves a difficult subject—mortality and loss—into a heartwarming, poignant story filled with humor, hope, and love. This is a story that will have you shedding tears and cracking smiles at the same time. Although it is marketed as a young adult novel, The Driving Lesson is a compelling read that adults will also enjoy.

The Driving Lesson is available through Amazon in print, e-book, and audio editions. All of Rehder’s books, including his latest novel, The Chicken Hanger, are available on his web site at http://benrehder.wordpress.com/.

Appeared in the Boerne Star, January 1, 2010
 

Only the Truth

When Billy Ray happens upon a befuddled little waif with a red suitcase standing by the railroad tracks, he approaches her. The girl’s name is Charlene and she asks Billy Ray if she can go home with him. He picks up her suitcase, takes her hand, and they walk the three miles down Makin Road to Billy Ray’s house.

Except for Big Dog, Billy Ray has no family. He’s lived his entire life in the same house on Makin road. Billy Ray’s daddy died before he was born and his momma shortly after. His aunty moved into their house and raised him but she passed on when Billy Ray was only fourteen years old, leaving him to fend for himself. Charlene fits right into Billy Ray’s uncomplicated lifestyle. They settle into a routine, unencumbered by past deeds or future longings—a life lived entirely in the present and bound by simple pleasures. But when an old man moves into the house across the street, the past rears its ugly head and life is forever changed. After the old man dies, Billy Ray must confront Charlene’s past and solve a mystery to save her life. The literary whodunit that follows draws the reader into a series of plot twists and turns that lead to a stunning end.

I like Pat Brown’s nonfiction, especially The Profiler: My Life Hunting Psychopaths and Serial Killers, one of the best memoirs I've read in a long time. I was curious if her novel could stand up to it, and it did. Only the Truth, written in a similar spirit as John Grisham’s The Painted House, is a memorable read guaranteed to hold the reader’s attention from the first page to the last. It is a simple, honest story of unconditional love and loyalty. Billy Ray and Charlene have no preconceived expectations, no desires beyond their life together, and they share a mutual adoration cloaked in naïveté. Their small town of Whitfield Glen could be any “Smallville,” U.S.A., plucked out of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesberg, Ohio, or the small Mississippi towns of Eudora Welty. Brown’s characters have a depth and richness that are increasingly absent in contemporary fiction and she weaves a compelling mystery into the fabric of Billy Ray’s and Charlene’s relationship.

Pat Brown is nationally known for her work as a criminal profiler. She is the CEO of The Sexual Homicide Exchange and president of The Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency. Her latest book, 
How to Save Your Daughter's Life: Straight Talk for Parents from America's Top Criminal Profiler will be out in August.

Only the Truth is available as an e-book from Amazon. 

Brad's Gift

When I think of Brad Meltzer and heroes, The Justice League and Identity Crisis come to mind and I conjure up images of  SUPERHEROES like Superwoman, Hawkgirl, and Wonderwoman (in all fairness I guess I should mention Superman, Cyborg, and Batman). But Meltzer’s latest book, Heroes for My Daughter (Harper Collins, April 10, 2012, $19.95), isn’t comprised of fictional heroes—it’s cut from the real thing.

Meltzer has assembled the remarkable stories of fifty-five exceptional people. These accounts are not about individuals of great wealth or enormous power. They are not about people who are driven by political ambitions or who seek personal fame. They are stories of people with indefatigable will, perseverance, and selfless pursuit of the things that are good and right in our world. These are people with limitless inner strength and the courage to stand up for what they believe. They are the very people that Meltzer wanted his newborn daughter to emulate—individuals who embody strength, compassion, ingenuity, empathy, creativity, and perseverance

In his heartwarming introduction Meltzer tells his newborn infant girl, “I didn’t want just one thing for you. I wanted everything. If you needed strength, I wanted you to be strong. If you saw someone hurting, I wanted you to find the compassion to help. If there was a problem, big or small, that no one could solve, I wanted you to have every available skill—ingenuity, empathy, creativity, perseverance—so you could attack that problem in a way that no one else on this entire planet had ever fathomed. And that would be your greatest gift, Lila: That no one—and I mean no one—would ever be exactly you.”

Meltzer tells us why Agatha Christie changed his life. He lets us know the reason why Carol Burnett tugs her ear lobe at the end of each of her performances. He inspires us with the story of Helen Keller (did you know that she graduated Cum laude from Radcliffe and wrote twelve books?). His most poignant vignettes, however, are portraits of the women who have played the most important roles in his life—his wife, his mother, his grandmother, and Sheila Spicer, his ninth grade English teacher.

We need role models for our children. We need role models for ourselves, too. That’s the beauty of Brad Meltzer’s new book—it’s a childrens’ book for adults and an adults’ book for children. He even leaves space in the back for his readers to record the recollections of their heroes.

Meltzer said it best in Identity Crisis. “One of the things I cared most about was letting the reader feel that all of the heroes’ stories—all of them—happened in a shared universe. They’re legends in a complex, interconnected world—the tapestry of continuity that ties our own lives together.”

Thank you, Brad, for your inspirational gift. You’re my superhero.

Mike Blakely's "Come Sundown" is a symphony of words

This review was originally published March 29, 2007 in the Boerne Star


Mike Blakely’s latest historical novel, Come Sundown (Forge, $27.95, ISBN 0-312-86705-0, November 27, 2007), a literary saga chronicling the clash of cultures between native Americans and the white man and the conflict of values between the American north and south is as relevant in today’s world as it was during the Civil War. Blakely’s lead character, French fugitive, whiskey trader and adopted Comanche, Honoré Greenwood, relates the story of the American settlers’ confiscation of Indian land in the midst of fighting over slavery.

Says Greenwood, “I felt as if the fate of the entire world rested on my shoulders. In reality, looking back, I was nothing more than a pawn in a trifling struggle that would scarcely warrant a paragraph in the book of world history. But it was my paragraph to write, and I was prepared to fill my ink well with blood.”

Hence, with ensanguined pen, Greenwood, called Plenty Man by the Indians, recounts the tale of his involvement with the Indians during the American Civil War.

Long time friend and confidante of Kit Carson, Greenwood finds himself embroiled in a complicated test of loyalties between his compadre and his adopted band of Comanches. Summoned by Carson to join the New Mexico Volunteers of the Union Army as a scout, Greenwood leaves behind his beloved Cheyenne bride, Westerly, and joins Kit in Albuquerque. There, in New Mexico, he enlists in the Union army only to find that his old nemesis, Luther Sheffield, is also a member of his unit. Violent clashes and heavy combat at Valverde Ford and Glorieta Pass with the Texas Confederates, renegade Indian attacks, and the constant necessity of having to watch out for Sheffield’s attempts on his life all take a toll on Greenwood. Fearing that he will soon be pitted in battle against his adopted Comanches, Greenwood resigns his post as Kit Carson’s scout and returns to his tribe.

“Trouble raged in the West, where Colonel Kit Carson’s forces had invaded the very heart of Navaho country, striking where no soldiers had ever ridden before. I knew the hoops of time would roll and whir and come crashing to earth again, and I feared they would in time come violently trundling down the Canadian River Valley to my very home,” recounts a worried Greenwood. And in time, that was exactly what occurred.

“I was in the big, bloody middle of it. It happened sixty-three years ago. . . They called it the Battle of Adobe Walls. It happened on November 25, 1864,” recalls Greenwood. “Telling this grieves me to this day. . . But you should know what I have suffered, so that you may appreciate the strength of the human spirit, and the will of man to rise above the heaviest of sorrows.”

Come Sundown is one of those rare books that you can’t put down, one that stays with you long after you’ve placed it back on the shelf. Blakely, also a singer-songwriter, skillfully crafts an unforgettable story of a war within a war—the Civil War and the Indian Wars spawned from enmities between the north and south—and does so with an approach skillfully orchestrated to have the reader feel that he/she is a character in the novel.

Blakely’s use of language is fluid, a poetic prose, and his dialogue is immaculate. His characters are endearing, believable, and enduring: Chief Shaved Head; Kills Something; seer and medicine man, Burnt Belly; Blue; Plenty Man’s wife, soul mate and companion, Westerly; Kit Carson, and, yes, even Greenwood’s nemesis Luther Sheffield.

Come Sundown is symphony for all the senses; a painting whose brush strokes have been laid on the canvas of a tale as strong and sure as those rendered by Charles M. Russell and with the bravado of a violin and bow in a baroque concerto delivered by Vivaldi himself.

Blakely is a Spur Award winner for his novel The Summer of Pearls.

Brad Meltzer probes George Washington's "Culper Ring" in "The Inner Circle"

Beecher White loves his job as a researcher at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. “As they told me when I first started as an archivist three years ago,” says Beecher, “the Archives is our nation’s attic. A ten-billion-document scrapbook with nearly every vital file, record, and report that the government produces. No question, that means this is a building full of secrets. Some big, some small. But every day, I get to unearth another one.”

In Brad Meltzer’s new political thriller, The Inner Circle, a 26 year-old secret threatens to derail a presidency wrought with lies and deceptions and pits the survival of the president against the preservation of his office.

When Beecher’s old flame, Clementine Kaye, asks him to help her search for the identity of her deceased father, Beecher tries to impress her by sneaking into a SCIF—Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility—used by the President of the United States, Orson Wallace, for viewing top secret documents. Clementine inadvertently knocks over the President’s chair and discovers a tattered and mostly gutted old “Entick’s New Spelling Dictionary” hidden in its bottom. On close inspection Beecher finds an inscription on the book’s inside front cover: Existus Acta Probat. The outcome justifies the deed. Beecher instantly recognizes the motto as an aphorism used by George Washington on his bookplates and concludes that the original owner of the book was, in all probability, our first president. Because the book was concealed, Beecher also presumes that it is serving a clandestine purpose. Beecher’s security guard friend, Orlando, instantly grasps the implication of the discovery and yanks the security system’s videotape so that no one will discover that they were there. Beecher stashes the dictionary under his blue lab coat and pulls Clementine from the room. Soon after, Orlando is found dead under suspicious circumstances.

Beecher shares the old dictionary with his mentor and fellow archivist Aristotle “Tot” Westman and they discover that the relic was used by Washington in 1775 to communicate with his Culper Ring, a small band of loyalists who spied on the British during the Revolutionary War.

“The Culper Ring weren’t soldiers. They were normal people—a group no one could possibly know—even Washington didn’t know their names. That way they could never be infiltrated—no one, not even the commander-in-chief, knew who was in it.”

When Tot checks the archive’s records he finds that that the old dictionary has been checked out by someone named Dustin Gyrich 14 times in 14 weeks, each time coinciding with a Presidential visit to the SCIF. Further research shows that Gyrich has been checking out books in the National Archives for over a hundred and fifty years.

In The Inner Circle the Culper Ring didn’t disband after the Colonies beat the British. This secret organization is still going strong and Beecher’s discovery of the 200 year-old dictionary triggers a chain of events that brings to light the permanency of the spy ring and tests the very cannons upon which our country was founded. Beecher could not foresee that he and Clementine had stumbled upon a presidential secret so important it could place their lives in jeopardy.

From the first page The Inner Circle is a high energy adventure that draws upon interesting and little-known historical facts, taking the possibilities of the future and the certainties of the present and intertwining them with the secrets of the past. As with all of this author’s thrillers, the plot and sub-plots twist and turn as the story unfolds, making it impossible for the reader to guess the outcome. Meltzer resurrects his evil character Nico from The Book of Fate as Clementine’s father and cleverly uses him as an omniscient narrator to decipher and reveal the old dictionary’s hidden missives.

As a thriller, The Inner Circle is an absorbing read. The author’s view of history adds a fascinating dimension to the story. One of Beecher’s co-workers illustrates Meltzer’s take on the history-making process. “. . . history isn’t just something that’s written. It’s a selection process. It chooses moments, and events, and yes, people—and it hands them a situation they should never be able to overcome. It happens to millions of us every single day. But the only ones we read about are the ones who face that situation, and fight that situation, and find out who they really are.”

The Inner Circle is a very well crafted story with authentic characters and a clever plot. This is a thriller that probes the dark side of political omnipotence and leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling that perhaps it is all too real.

"In the Still of the Night" is a murder in disguise

In life, as in death, things are not always what they seem. That was certainly true in the death of Ronda Reynolds. On the morning of December 16, 1998, Ron Reynolds called 911 and reported that sometime during the night his wife had shot and killed herself. Although her body lay just a few feet from the bed where Ron had slept, he claimed that he had not heard the single gunshot that took his wife’s life. The beautiful 33 year-old former Washington State Trooper lay in a pool of blood, wrapped in an electric blanket, a single gunshot wound to her temple. The cause of Ronda’s death was initially reported as undetermined, months later as suicide, back again as undetermined, and finally as suicide.

Within just a few months of Ronda and Ron Reynolds’ marriage, Ronda realized that she had made a serious mistake in her choice of a husband. The unmistakable signs that Ron was engaged in an extra-marital affair with his ex-wife and his preoccupation with money led Ronda to her decision to end the marriage. Ann Rule examines the facts and circumstances surrounding the death of Ronda Reynolds in her new true crime drama, In the Still of the Night.

“A death investigation is such a delicate procedure,” says Rule. “The best detectives must always view it first as a homicide, second as suicide, third as accidental, and finally as a natural death.”

Based largely upon statements made by Ron Reynolds, Lewis County Sheriff’s investigators assumed that Ronda’s death was a suicide. Only one detective, Jerry Berry, ascertained that the young woman’s death was homicide. Ann Rule deftly ferrets out truth from fiction in this mystery and puts the facts together as a cohesive whole that leads to the unmistakable conclusion that Ronda Reynolds was murdered.

Rule and Ronda’s mother, Barbara Thompson, worked together for over a decade to unravel the truth about Ronda’s death. Acclaimed forensic law enforcement consultant Vernon Geberth believed that the crime scene was staged and called the investigation a “major police malfeasance.” According to Geberth, “there are very few cases of which I can state with such strength and conviction that this was a homicide.” New York forensic and behavioral evidence expert, Ray Pierce, called the ruling of suicide “ridiculous.” Would a judge and jury agree? This reviewer will not disclose the results of the trial which sought to discredit the coroner who made the suicide ruling in Ronda’s death.

Ann Rule has often been called the “queen” of true crime. In the Still of the Night reinforces her well-earned title. As usual, her character development is strong and thorough and brings the reader into the story. Rule’s former police experience and her involvement with high-profile criminal cases have helped her hone and perfect her detective skills which she brings to bear in Ronda’s case. Together, Ann Rule and Barbara Thompson are undefeatable.

 

“To let a politically corrupt law enforcement agency lie, cover up, and disregard a human life to benefit their self-image is unacceptable,” says Barbara Thompson on her web site http://www.justiceforronda.com/story.htm. “The Lewis County Sheriff's Department and all other law enforcement agencies in our country need to be held accountable for their actions, so that no other parent, ever, will have to experience this type of indescribable nightmare.”

‘Following the Flag’: A chronicle of an Air Force career

I’m no student of military history so I have to admit that I had mixed feelings about reviewing Lieutenant General (ret) Lloyd R. Leavitt’s memoir, Following the Flag. Leavitt chronicles his military career beginning with his four years as a West Point cadet through 31 years in the Air Force.

Leavitt’s class of 1950 was the first to enter West Point after World War II. Of the 1,008 who enrolled in that prestigious university four years earlier, only 670 graduated. Leavitt, among the graduates, chose to attend U. S. Air Force flight training.

“It was 2 August 1950.” Leavitt writes, “I closed the car door and walked toward the operations (“ops”) building at Goodfellow AFB.” . . . “My exciting new life included not only switching from Army fatigues to Air Force flight suits and sporting the gold bars of a second lieutenant but marrying Anne Sullivan during graduation leave.” Unfortunately, many of Leavitt’s graduating class of 1950 were quickly deployed to Korea where 13 were lost before year’s end. After flight training at Goodfellow, in February, 1951, Leavitt was jubilant when he was sent to Williams AFB, Arizona for F-80 jet fighter training.

In March 1951, President Truman attempted to end the Korean War with a cease-fire proposal and, in his belief, avoid World War III. General Douglas MacArthur voiced his opposition with his outspoken eagerness to escalate the war. He was promptly fired. Just five months later, Leavitt graduated from jet fighter pilot training and became fully engaged in the Korean War and in the U.S. Air Force.

“The afternoon I graduated and received my silver wings changed my emotions,” Leavitt writes. “Exhilaration was still there, but trepidation was gone. It had been replaced by confidence. A better Air Force lay ahead, and I would be part of it. I realized the Air Force was truly my home.”

Thus commenced the colorful, amazing 31 year military career of Lloyd R. “Dick” Leavitt—a lifework that spanned the Cold War, 100 missions in F-84’s during the Korean War, flying in the Strategic Air Command, and four years in the top-secret U2 project. He simultaneously flew a mission over the Soviet Union when Gary Powers was shot down over Siberia. He performed 152 combat missions in Viet Nam, was an eye-witness to the Cuban missile crisis, and later worked as a systems analyst for the Pentagon.

While much of Leavitt’s material is technical, his approach is informal and conversational. I found myself totally intrigued with his writing style and his easy manner of presenting scholarly information. While he writes from a tactical viewpoint, he peppers his material with anecdotes, letters to his wife and children, and, from time-to-time, confessions of personal flaws. I was on the edge of my seat when Leavitt recounted his “longest day,” when in flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a destination in Brazil his U-2 had a complete electrical failure at 68,000 feet over the jungle.

“A strange emotion came over me,” Leavitt writes, “one that I had never experienced before. I knew there was no way out of this emergency. I would soon die.”

Flying by his wits, Leavitt managed to spot the Uruguay River and from that landmark he caught sight of Buenos Aires and managed to land safely. He had flown the disabled aircraft more than eight hours. When he finally landed, the U-2 had almost exhausted its fuel.

Leavitt retired from the Air Force on August 31, 1981. He continued to work as a consultant in private business for several more years. Following the Flag is published by the Air University Press.

This review was published July 29 in the Boerne Star and on November 27, San Antonio Express News

Always be nice to the fat kid

The imminent birth of his first-born child was not a good time for brand new parent, Brad Meltzer, to get stuck at a red light. As he waited for traffic to resume, he considered the universal question—who and what will my child grow up to be?

“It’s a moment where there are no limits or detours or any of the restrictions that reality eventually brings,” writes New York Times best-selling author, Brad Meltzer, in his new work of non-fiction, Heroes for my Son. “And it was in that moment of unbridled love and pure naïveté that this book was born.”

Meltzer started working on his book that very night and listed two fundamental requirements for his son to become a “good man.” They were: love God, and be nice to the fat kid in school.

One of the author’s favorite stories is about the perseverance of the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur. In anticipation of their plane crashing, every day they brought with them materials to patch it up. Over and over the duo would crash and rebuild, crash and rebuild until, finally, their little plane conquered gravity and flew, unassisted, above the earth. They refused to give up until they realized success.

Meltzer hand-picked a collection of 52 heroes—men and women—who best exemplify the qualities of “character and honesty, leadership and humility, tenacity and dignity.” He included black and white photographs and brief vignettes of lesser-known moments in the lives of extraordinary individuals that illustrate their exceptional accomplishments.

So who are Brad Meltzer’s heroes? You are, no doubt, familiar with many of them: Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa, Abraham Lincoln, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Others are more obscure: Frank Shankwitz, Jiep Gies, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Dan West. All of them are fascinating.

There is no universal agreement as to the qualities requisite for designation as a hero. Dr. Scott LaBarge, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University, believes that all of us need heroes “first and foremost because our heroes help define the limits of our aspirations. We largely define our ideals by the heroes we choose, and our ideals—things like courage, honor, and justice—largely define us.”

The state of Texas can learn a valuable lesson from Brad Meltzer’s collection of heroes. The Board of Education in this state has ousted Thomas Jefferson, Ted Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, and Copernicus, among others, from its social studies text books. Who will replace these time-honored, respected champions of history?

Heroes for My Son is a treasure. Meltzer writes in his introduction, “There are thousands of heroes. And I think that’s what I like best. This isn’t about how to be remembered—it’s a book about how to live our lives, and what we are capable of on our very best days.”

Brad Meltzer, the school children of Texas need your heroes.