Many Happy Returns: A Bicentennial Salute to Schools by Retired Teachers Association of Florida

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Want to know what teaching was like between around 1900 to 1976? Read this collection of recollections of teachers from all over Florida. This book was produced by the Florida Retired Teachers Association and does a fantastic job of collecting so many stories from so many teachers.

Interesting the many references to the less disciplined students of the mid-1970s compared to those taught decades earlier. Really brings home just how awful the classroom has gotten today.

This book should be required reading for upcoming teachers who want to understand the profession. Where it came from and where it is now.

Obviously, the Association was constricted by whoever turned in stories and so there are a few areas missing. Almost nothing mentioned of teaching in the Keys. There’s a section that is almost entirely made up of teachers from Broward County. Considering there are stories from more obscure areas like Pace, Alva, Green Cover Springs, etc., this is a more thorough covering of the state than most are able to accomplish.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. Especially to anyone involved with education.

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Blood Oath by William W. Johnstone

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is very grotesque book in that the descriptions of what the “bad guy” does is extremely graphic. Especially when realizing this book was written in 1982. I have to wonder why this wasn’t edited more to cut out what is clearly x-rated material. It’s not just one description. The crimes are repeated and the graphic description gets more and more horrid. This book is not for the squeamish. It is definitely not for children.

I need to judge this book’s story and how the above mixes with the plot. With that in mind I find the book to be good. As can be the case of Johnstone novels, the main characters are well drawn or drawn as needed to make the story more interesting or exciting.

This is a book early in Johnstone’s production that has me wondering, based on how it was written, if Johnstone was using ghost writers that early. ‘Blood Oath’ does not read at all like other books of that time with the Johnstone name on it. Similar crimes done in the books at this time, that I’ve read, have none of the extreme detail illustrated in ‘Blood Oath’. I believe he did use a ghost writer.

Something else different about this Johsntone book is that the ending is very well paced and satisfying. The ending is often wrapped very quickly in the Johnstone books I’ve read.

Botom line: I recommend it with the warning that this book is very graphic and not for children.

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Pursuit of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Smoke Jensen series has been uneven as I’ve gone through the series in order. his one is one of he best. It helps a lot if the Smoke Jensen character is already known of, it seems to me. The crowd hot on Jensen’s trail makes far more sense with prior knowledge of the series.

Though, the bad guys are pretty standard bad guys, there are a set of other characters that are great additions. A set of surveyors and other government employees pop up as Jensen makes his way cross country trying to avoid the lynch mob.

As usual, the characters are well written and the story is paced very well. The story is basically a chase story, but well done. No big surprises, which would have been a nice addition.

Bottom line: I recommend this book.

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The Secret Soldier by Alex Berenson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I’m against the tide of the majority of reviews praising this volume of John Wells fictitious life. Maybe it’s timing that affected my experience reading the book. I also wonder if it’s that I accidently bypassed the volume before this, The Midnight House, that has gotten poor reviews. Whatever the case, I found this book far over written. It’s great when an author has a lot of background for a novel, but that author doesn’t have to put it all in one volume. To me, the book dragged horribly with the excess. This is a complaint I have with the majority of contemporary writers I’ve read. I just hadn’t experienced so much coming from Berenson. A good dose of studying Agatha Christie might help. But, I have a feeling the publisher needs to build a $9.99 book and wants the overdone writing.

I happen to be reading a Frank Slaughter novel at the same time which has plenty of excess. But it’s so beautifully written and so cogent to the storyline, that it works so very well. Being a better writer would’ve greatly helped Berenson’s extra loads in this. Slaughter is so good that I’m very slowly taking in each line and paragraph. At this rate, I could take a year reading Slaughter’s book and find it time well invested. I found myself wanting to read through The ‘Secret Soldier’ faster just to get it out of the way. It was pretty obvious how the book was going to end and, sad to write, there were no twists to make the reading journey interesting or fun.
There is a very good story intertwined in so much else. I wish the book was better assembled to make it enjoyable. There are also some other specifics in the story that bother me, like use of a cell phone, navigating a boat in a certain area, an oddly handled partner for Wells. Seems if a writer is going to over write, maybe fix some other sloppy writing first.

One other thing. There is an odd similarity to the basis of this book that is similar to an episode of ‘The Rockford Files’ where even a couple character names are the same. As an editorial cartoonist, I certainly know how duplication exists when creating a story. It just happens. Just found the similarity interesting and thought I’d mention it.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book.

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The Loner by J.A. Johnstone

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Marking off another novel by the Johnstone clan. This one was lacking. there’s a good story. Though the writing is OK, there is a feeling this book was taken a part a few times and reassembled. There are a few areas where the action drags on and others where it’s written after the fact. Many of the chapter endings are contrived.

This is also one of the first of the nearly 20 Johnstone books I’ve read where the characters didn’t grab me. This one does sport the J.A. Johnstone name. Maybe that’s the difference.

This one works a bit too hard to establish a new series character. Frankly, this character isn’t all that far from so many others in the Johnstone corral. Wonder what’s determining the need by the Johnstone Clan for new character books? Besides feeding work to ghost writers and feeding the hunger for western novels.

Bottom line: I recommend this book.

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One Rough Man by Brad Taylor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this book to be excellent. Especially for the genre. I’ve been reading enough of these super human military types to find a similar thread of just about everything.

What makes this book better than the rest is that not only does all not go as planned, but it goes way off. The ending of the book would be mighty difficult to completely predict. The gear change is also more subtle than staged as a surprise twist. You can read along expecting one direction and find the book has taken another.

Even the hero is foulable and makes many a mistake. As do other characters. It’s a change of pace to read of a hero trying to figure out how to get out of an error.

I would have given five stars, but the writing of the story could have been better. It’s more a technical criticism. There are a number of areas in the book that are uneven. I think I see where editors did some slicing and dicing and the author tried to clean it up.

Bottom line: I recommend this book.

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The Life and Legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune by Nancy Ann Zrinyi Long

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a relatively short biography of Mary McLeod Bethune and very good. I debated giving it a 5 star rating. But, at the end are a set of individual memories of Bethune by various family and friends, which adds a so much to better define the biography.

The book is very thorough and well covers her life, along with the building of Bethune-Cookman College. It is also well written.

I’m trying to think of something to write bad about the book and it’s a bit tough. Maybe more about her personal life, but it appears her life was one of an endless engine for the college.

Bottom line: i recommend the book.

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The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I an see why a.A. Milne didn’t see another mystery published. This one is a mighty stretch of reality that is poorly written and seems to have been written as the writer was thin king it all out.

The story opens well and i settled in with what I suspected a mystery in an English setting. Instead, I find myself, after the evil is done, slogging through, what seems, endless patter about what-might-have-happened, what-could-have-have-happened, who-did-it, who-didn’t, etc. All of this barely moving the story along at all for decades of pages.

Worse, the characters are never defined except for the beginning. Making this all worse involves two main characters who pretend to be Holmes and Watson. Seems Milne knew he had troubles defining characters, so he uses others to do it for him.

The solution is intellectually dishonest. Today would be impossible, but pretty hard to believe that such a mistake could have been made even in the 1920s.

Bottom line: I do not recommend this book.

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The Brothers O’Brien by William W. Johnstone

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one Hell of a good book. Not much for using “Page turner”, but page turning I was. Don’t know who in the Johnstone Clan wrote this, but this is the best I’ve read of the twelve or so read so far. The ghost writer really got the idea of early Johnstone books of defining characters and fleshing out story. Seems this might be a writer that had not written any of the other books I’ve read so far. Very good work.

One of the best things of this book is that the plot that develops in the second half of the book is very different from the other Johnstone books. There are some characters that are very different and even a bit of a sorcery angle spilled in. There is a cat in this book that is really well placed. Was never sure just how this book would end, except that this is still another series and that the brothers would survive. That’s something else in this book, as was the case with earlier Johnstone novels, mot everyone survives. There are some who meet their fate in ways very unexpected. Really like the levels as they get built throughout the book.

After a series of mediocre to bad Johnstone books, this charges me on to the dozens of others I’ve collected over the past year.

Bottom line: I recommend this book!

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Tampa: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow by Michael Bane and Mary Ellen Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is more of a sales book of Tampa than anything else. There is certainly plenty of history here and that part is very well written. Then the book steers into the future and suddenly statistics and construction plans fill the pages. Seems the first and second parts were written by two different people, which would explain the two authors.

There are plenty of photos strewn throughout. All black and white except for a few center pages of color.

The history presented is mostly complete, though sections are missing. Little is mentioned of the mob activity or anything at all about the black community.

The book is best as a time capsule of life in Tampa in 1980. So very much is written about upcoming projects at the time, community committees planning the future, construction firms and banks.

Bottom line: I recommend it to anyone wanting to know of Hillsborough County’s history.

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Survival…Zero! by Mickey Spillane

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Spillane could sure spill a fast-moving, well written, intriguing mystery. This one is just terrific. Today’s mysteries are so poorly constructed I know who did it and how within the first quarter of the book. There seemed to be solutions to the puzzles in this story, but with so much going on, it was not easy to figure out. Ya kinda can guess who might be behind this and that. It’s the whys and reasoning that had me baffled until the end. That makes this an excellent mystery in my book!

A few weeks ago I was deciding which book in the stacks to read next and saw I had two series action books written at the same time – around 1969 – and wondered how much they might be alike and how much of the culture – counter, being the media frenzy – was covered.

The first, a Nick Carter roust-a-bout hardly referred to the time period at all from it’s West Coast perspective. Spillane’s East Coast perspective was very different. The mess of the ’60s is a part of the story and is well spun into the novel. Spillane’s Mike Hammer has plenty to say about society intentionally jumping off a cliff. Historical viewpoints that only add to reasons to read this book.

I’d guess many of today’s narrow minded people might find this book to be ham fisted and being of a time past. Too bad for their lost of reading and considering other perspectives. There are too many people today who seem to forget our society had good reason for the bulk of it’s existence to look down on lazy slobs who hate life and don’t want to reason so much they must inoculate themselves than be a part of it.

What’s really interesting about people who think Spillane’s story is of the past are the movie studios spitting out non-stop explosive, gun blazing blockbuster movies and the big selling, gun blazing, gory video games that some of those same people must be putting money into. Those media monsters are far more ham fisted than this novel is.

Bottom line: I recommend this novel.

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