Book Reviews by Elizabeth A. White

When you face down the devil, there’s always a price to pay. – Joe Sinclair

OK, I’m going to do something a little different today, a comic book review. Once upon a time I did a fair amount of comic reading, though I must admit at this point once upon a time was many years ago. I’ve purchased the odd comic or graphic novel here or there over the years since my serious reading days, but for the most part it’s not something I keep up with anymore.

Then Anthony “PulpTone” Schiavino mentioned he had something he thought I may be interested in, a comic he’d created called Sergeant Zero. I’ve gotten to know Anthony a little bit on Twitter (@pulptone), have read some of his short stories (I highly recommend “The Treacherous Road”), and figured I’d give it a look-see. Damn, am I glad I did!

Sergeant Zero: Reigning Fire introduces the story of Sergeant Zero/Joe Sinclair, a soldier who has a near superhuman memory for everything…except his past. Initially seeming to be a straightforward scenario of G.I.s fighting Nazis in WWII Germany, things take a turn for the weird when Sinclair and the rest of Zero Company encounter an abandoned village littered with corpses ravaged by radiation. Things go from bad to worse, and before you know it Zero Company is decimated by mutated werewolf-like creatures, Sinclair is captured, a mysterious tentacled creature makes a brief appearance, and the reader is left with one hell of a cliffhanger. (more…)

“You have my word, that I will do my very best to see if I can shine a light on what happened, or why they haven’t found out what happened.” – Kate Wyndham

When wild horse advocates Lindy Abraham and Julia Evans tire of the runaround they keep getting from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the organization that is supposed to be there to assist with the women’s efforts at conservation, the two decide to launch their own investigation to discover why the BLM seems to be dragging its heels.

What they discover is shocking. Instead of working as an advocate for the horses, the BLM appears to have gotten into bed with mining companies, forcing the wild horses off land the companies want to use for mining purposes. Instead of running free, the horses have been penned into an enclosure where they are apparently being neglected, or worse, and left to die.

Horrified, the women film what they find, intending to turn the film over to the press and expose the BLM’s unethical, and perhaps criminal, behavior. Before they are able to release the tape, however, the women disappear.

Enter investigative journalist Kate Wyndham, herself an avid horsewoman. Sent to discover what happened to the two women, her efforts are stonewalled by local authorities, with the F.B.I. not offering much more by way of assistance. Determined not to be brushed aside, Kate turns to Jim Ludlow, a Shoshone Indian and local rancher with a reputation as a horse “whisperer.” Together they launch an investigation, and every step closer to the truth also brings them one step closer to death. (more…)

“It’s a war that should have started a lot earlier than it did. All we’re doing is damage control and catch up.” – Matt Hamilton

There’s a war brewing in America, one simmering just below the surface but ready to explode. Captain Daniel Ash, his family, and the other 56 residents of Baker Flats military base find themselves at ground zero of that war one horrible night when hell descends upon their little corner of the world.

Awakened by a cry from his daughter, Ash goes to her room expecting to find her upset from a nightmare. Instead, he finds the girl burning with a dangerously high fever. As he struggles to get her into a cold tub he calls out to his wife for assistance, but gets no response.

Leaving his daughter in the slowly filling tub he returns to his bedroom and finds his wife still in bed. Dead. Panic now flooding in, Ash races to his son’s room and finds him apparently unaffected by whatever killed his wife and has made his daughter dangerously ill.

As he huddles in the bathroom with his two children Ash makes a frantic call to 911 pleading for help, but when it finally arrives it is not what Ash had expected, and his life will never be the same again. (more…)

“Whether we love – or fail to love – there is always a cost.” – Nikolai

I’m not exactly a religious person, and almost never read books that could be labeled “Christian Fiction,” but there was something about the description of Dancing with Gravity, the debut novel from Anene Tressler, that made me think this one was somehow a little different than the typical genre offering.

Dancing with Gravity tells the story of Father Samuel Whiting, a Catholic priest who finds himself approaching middle age only to discover he’s not entirely sure how he got to where he is in life, nor is he sure he wants to be there anymore.

Already constantly questioning his ability to adequately handle his role as head of Pastoral Care at a teaching hospital in St. Louis, Father Whiting returns from an extended trip to Italy for a conference only to find another large, and unusual, responsibility foisted upon him… to minister to the spiritual needs of a group of circus performers who have set up shop at the nearby Missionary Sisters of the Little Flower’s motherhouse.

As Father Whiting gets to know the colorful members of the troup he strikes up a friendship with Nikolai, one of the trapeze artists. As their unlikely friendship deepens, Father Whiting comes to realize he’s been sleepwalking through life, not fully experiencing all it has to offer. (more…)

“The old you was a young slugger. Now you’re a veteran counterpuncher. You win by decisions instead of knockouts.” – Claudette Permice

When we last saw Eddie Perlmutter he had been dubbed the “Boca Knight” by the Boca Raton press for his successful handling of some messy matters involving both the Russian mafia and a group of neo-nazis. Former decorated Boston police officer or not, it was a pretty nifty showing for a 60 year old retiree with arthritic knuckles and two bum knees.

Boca Mournings, the second book in the Eddie Perlmutter series following Boca Knights, finds Eddie having capitalized on his minor celebrity by getting licensed and officially going into business as a private investigator. And while his phone has been ringing off the hook, the majority of the callers want Eddie to investigate spouses suspected of having affairs. Not exactly what the 34 year Boston PD vet had in mind.

Things soon heat up, however, and before Eddie knows it he’s juggling cases ranging from the merely curious (Who’s sabotaging the elevator at the Delray Vista condos?), to a personal mission (Why can’t his friend Sylvia remember anything before her twentieth birthday?), to the life-altering (What happened to the gay couple who disappeared from their tight-knit community?). Along the way he manages to shut down a cyber-criminal – and pick him up as an unofficial sidekick – and parlay the results of one investigation into a project to tackle the lack of adequate health care for a nearby low income community. Oh yeah, his prostate is also acting up. (more…)

He seemed to need to feel his body collide with the physical world to know he existed. – Wrecker

The child came into the world in a San Francisco city park, born to an unmarried hippie mother who didn’t even bother naming him for a year. When the boy shows a talent, even at such a young age, for being disruptive and getting into things he shouldn’t his mother, Lisa Fay, finally decides on a name for him: Wrecker. With a start like that, it’s no wonder life ends up being an uphill battle for the boy.

Unprepared for dealing with a child, especially after Wrecker’s father exists stage left, Lisa gets caught up in drugs, eventually leading to her involvement in a crime that lands her in prison looking at a 30 year stretch. So, at the ripe old age of three Wrecker enters the California foster care system, bouncing around a bit until his uncle, Len, is located in the Mattole River Valley of Humboldt County in upstate California and agrees to take the boy in.

Already caring for a wife debilitated by the effects of an infection that attacked her brain, Len quickly realizes he is in no position to keep up with Wrecker. Enter the residents of Bow Farm, a small community of four individuals who live just up the road from Len. Used to chipping in to help Len care for his wife, they agree to temporarily take in Wrecker until Len can arrange to take him back to child welfare in San Francisco. Temporarily turns into seventeen years, as we follow Wrecker from age three to twenty and watch how the ragtag Bow Farm community helps shape him into a strong young man, and how he brings them all together in a way they couldn’t possibly have foreseen when they first agreed to watch the wild child known as Wrecker. (more…)