John Murphy

Crude language

Revisado: 12-18-23

Crude language used throughout.

Not my cup of tea for sure. And I love history.

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Snooze fest

Revisado: 05-22-23

This was a romance novel masquerading as a quasi-but not really serial killer mystery. It was quite boring in most places.

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Beware the Creepy Family!

Revisado: 08-28-22

Freida McFadden takes us down the somewhat familiar, nanny-hired-by-creepy family trope, when she stops halfway through the book, blows it up and kind of starts over ish). I LOVED it. I loved it so much it got me up and down Mt. Humphreys (highest point in Arizona). One of those books you just keep listening to until the final scene.

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What a story!

Revisado: 06-26-21

Guys in bar in New York City drunkenly swear someone should go over to Vietnam and carry some beers to their buddies who are fighting there. One of the guys takes it seriously. Off he goes to Vietnam in the middle of the war. Adventure ensues.

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A tad disappointing

Revisado: 06-13-21

It seems like this book is a retread of Francine Rivers’ book, “The Mark of the Lion,” but not as good.

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A good enough historical novel

Revisado: 06-02-21

3.5 stars

This was a good enough novel about two women in 1870’s Wyoming linked by tragedy. The character development is okay, I liked the development of Beulah and Nettie Mae Webber through the book, Olivia Hawker captures the slow change in their characters well.

The author can be quite eloquent at times, here a worm metaphorically weighs in on its purpose and evidence of God’s existence:

“The worm moved its terrible jaws and spoke, ‘God is said to be great,’ the worm told me, ‘so great you cannot see him, but God is small with hands like threads, and they reach for you everywhere you go. The hands touch everything, even you, even me. What falls never falls. What grows has grown a thousand times, and will live a thousand times more. Wherever hand touches hand the oneness comes to stay. Once God has made a thing whole, it cannot be broken again.’”

Of course the book does have its shortcomings, despite one scene in the book where Clyde (a budding farmer/rancher) cries over a coyote he shot, I can safely say that no farmer/rancher in history has cried over a dead coyote. Coyotes are the thieves of the prairie and no farmer would shed a tear at killing one.

Still it was an enjoyable read.

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Not Lamour’s Best Effort

Revisado: 05-10-21

The protagonist in this book is always complaining that gunmen keep notches in their gun for the number of men they kill. Meanwhile this guy keeps a running count in his brain housing group of how many people he’s killed in gunfights. Is there a difference?

Also, the narrator sounds like this: https://youtu.be/60pOazkl0QA

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Entertaining, but a lot of murder, mayhem, etc.

Revisado: 05-01-21

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves," so said Confucius (I believe) and this book is nothing but a journey of revenge. Indeed the author (or was it the protagonist?) tells you that at the start of the book. I wanted to like this book because I love nothing more than a novel about a high-level government conspiracy/cover up, I mean, isn't that what we all think goes on in the government anyway?

It starts out well enough, with a couple of terrible tragedies (read the book) which give the reader much sympathy for our intrepid hero, James Reece, who, psychologically destroyed by the tragedies, sets himself on a path to kill everyone responsible. So far, so good.

The rest of the book is basically James Reece killing off anyone and everyone connected to the tragedies in many acts of revenge, carefully described by the author, Jack Carr.

My complaint about the book is related to the Confucius quote. Acts of revenge hurt the revenger as well as the one upon whom they are seeking vengeance, but you wouldn't know it from this novel. Mr. Reece shoots, bombs, slices, dices, mangles, and cudgels every person he is convinced had a role in the tragedies, and still sleeps great at night. In this sense, he is a thin, unreal character. You cannot go from law-abiding citizen, to murderous avenger in an instant without that affecting your character—even if, like Mr. Reece, you happen to be a Navy Seal—but according to Mr. Carr, you can, and James Reece did.

So my basic complaint is that the book, while interesting and entertaining, lacks psychological realism in its main character

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A big, boring disappointment

Revisado: 04-27-21

I really, really wanted to love this book. I mean, who doesn't love a book about a boy pursuing his dog that has been kidnapped by a dirt bag? Unfortunately, the longer this book went on the worse it got. My complaints:

1. All I have to say is if this is the dystopian post-apocalyptic future, count me grateful that I'll be long gone because to judge by this book the future is b-o-r-i-n-g! I mean painfully so. This book dragged on and on with little plot development, I mean, for 60% of the book, Griz is the only human character, and this ain't Narnia.

2. This book could have used an editor because the author used versions of "he said," "she said," ten million times!?! Did no one tell him that he could write dialogue without saying "he said," ten times in one dialogue? Apparently not.

3. The protagonist in this novel is basically a moron, or someone who has the absolute worst luck in the history of literature. His dog gets stolen from underneath his nose, in the process of pursuing his dog, his sailboat gets burned to the waterline; his other dog runs away; a woman (for Pete's sake) trusses him up like a rodeo cow. I mean, can he do nothing right? No. He cannot.

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Not that great

Revisado: 04-14-21

This is an okay book, an interesting premise that started out great, but ended up just okay. It isn’t really about Emily, there are Letters to Emily, but the main characters are Emily’s parents, I found this a little odd. I also found it odd that Harry was writing life advice that was protected by passwords and stuff. I’ll say one thing for sure, if Harry had written letters to me protected by secret codes and passwords, I never would have got his great advice because I stink at that sort of stuff.

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