Zero Day by David Baldacci

Baldacci has a new hero, a new ethos and another, never boring cliff hanging, throat grabbing thriller.

John Puller takes over for John Carr without a Camel Club or a gang of cronies.  Although Puller is dedicated Army, he runs without a safety net throughout the book.   The Army is his life and his passion is it’s Criminal Investigative Division.  He is an elite Army cop and he is thrown into a situation involving mass mayhem.  Every time he turns around there is another murder.  

Puller ends up partnering with Sam Cole and the two of them bond through their mutual desire to find the perpetrators’ of mayhem in an impoverished coal mining community in West Virginia.

Once again Baldacci paints such a vivid picture.  He sets his stage with clarity and depth.   His characters are both larger than life and realistically human.  

I worked in an impoverished Appalachian coal community years ago.  Baldacci accurately captures the poverty and despair that often results from long term un or under employment. 

One can only hope that we see more of John Puller.  He was a complex, likeable character.

I highly recommend it.

Body of  work of David Baldacci </a>

Web Site: http://www.davidbaldacci.com/web/

The Gray Zone by Daphna Edwards Ziman

This was a sobering story about the corruption of the foster care system.

Ms. Ziman is a foster care improvement advocate.   This does not in anyway decrease the power of her story.   The protagonist is a chameleon like victim of a corrupt and morally bankrupt program of victimizing the most defenseless members of our society.   Foster children frequently bear the brunt of budget cuts and foster “parents” whose goal is to game the system to enrich their pockets as opposed to enriching the life of a child.

The story is bracing in it’s description of the futility of opposing deep pockets and the inequity of justice in a profit driven system.   There are a lot of messages in a story that remains a good mystery with provocative overtones. 

I recommend the book.  

Body of work of Alan Dean Foster

Web Site: http://daphnaedwardsziman.com/

Act of War by Dale Brown

One thing you have to give Dale Brown is the action theme. There is great action in this book. Brown takes snippets of military gossip and extrapolates them into full blown novels. His imagination creates plausible situations, sometimes implausible solutions in an easily digested format. One of the many things I like about his books is that his characters are often believable. He doesn’t make the assumption that a hero has to have bulging muscles, low intellect and brash behavior. He allows ordinary seeming characters to aspire to heroic and often brash behavior. This book deals with current fears of terrorist activities, corporate greed and military technology. The dismaying aspect is that some parts are entirely too believable.

Body of work of Dale Brown

Review of the book: http://www.militaryspot.com/act-of-war.htm

Site: http://www.megafortress.com/index02.htm

Panic or Greed Both Are Self Centered, Self-Fulfilling and Self Destructive

We live in the greatest nation in the world. I look at blogs in other countries where the blogger is in danger from his government for what he is writing. We have the freedom to express ourselves in so many ways.

At the moment we have a sizable portion of our nation trying diligently to destroy it. It is difficult to say whether panic or greed is fueling the current Wall Street nose dive. Greed obviously fed the conditions that led to our current financial crisis. Even the “rescue” couldn’t avoid the Washington game as usual pork.

It appears that a great many people can not see the benefit of our society and what it can be. Grabbing what they can, forcing down the market by selling to get theirs before it gets worse and fulfilling their own fears. It may be greed and it may be just sheer panic that the sky is falling and I better grab my chunk before it is gone. I don’t know the motivation; all I know is that the financial institutions that lead the panic and the poor suckers like me who watch their retirement swirling down the toilet are in the same sinking boat.

The damn boat is sinking because we refuse to have faith in our own country, our own people and our own destiny. I am not talking about believing in the lying, self serving weasels in Washington who let the greed ridden, golden parachuted CEO’s rape the financial institutions. I am not talking about having faith in our grand corporate edifices that reward failure at the top and lay off and penalize the bottom that does the actual work. I am talking about having faith that the average American still puts in an honest day for an honest dollar. I am talking about having faith in the small businesses of this nation that employ more people and do more good than those corrupt, grandiose, blue chip engines of corporate greed.

The big guys are only looking for how they can squeeze the last dime out of your widowed mother’s pension, they are not looking at the destruction they are doing to our nation and the world. As long as they get theirs, who cares about the rest of us?

We must care about ourselves. Have faith that we can survive this financial debacle. Stop running in panic and selling our stocks, driving down the market and fulfilling the over paid pundits predictions.

Just stop, take a breath, if you don’t sell it, you aren’t going to lose money on it. Historically our economy is strong. Historically the market will recover. We will be ok, our pensions will be there. Our retirement will occur. We just have to stop panicking. Withdrawing your money due to fear, selling your stocks due to fear just allows the vultures in the wings to pick up your investments for a dime on the dollar. The jackals will survive and flourish unless we curb our panic and face this financial crisis with common sense.

We, as a people, try our best to do good, to help others, to respond with aid to crisis here and abroad. We can not allow the greed and panic of a few to force us into a spiral of despair. Shelve that panic, you greedy fools stop your predatory practices, when you eat the seed corn you have no crops. When you destroy the economy and drag the world into a depression, you will have no safe place to spend your ill gotten gains. Buck up America, we aren’t wimps, we can survive this with common sense and a calm mind and faith in our great nation.

In Fury Born by David Weber

In Fury Born includes the complete novel, Path of the Fury. . I knew it when I bought it and bought it anyway. Once again a female protagonist is put into an untenable position and has to find her way out. Weber definitely favors strong, able, confident women. I think much of his work features excellent role models for women of all ages. Keep in mind this is the opinion of a guy who likes strong, confident, successful women. This book in essence provides the setting and causality of Path of the Fury. There is a smidgeon of Greek Mythology involved which combined with the presence of artificial intelligence adds a nice twist to the plot. I loved the book and strongly recommend it.

Body of work of David Weber

Review: http://www.scifidimensions.com/Nov07/infuryborn.htm

David Weber’s web site is under construction.