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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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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Here’ s a bit of art that will be in the upcoming ‘Swampy’s Florida: Silver Springs’ I’m working on! Putting the book together now and hope for it to be avaialble in about three weeks.

The subject for today’s Sketch Dailies is : Selfie. So, here’s the way it used to be.

Today’s Sketch Dailies involves the pop punk rock cartoon character Jem. I considered where Jem would be today and see her in a bar in Hoboken singing, as she can, the great American songbook….but still in her punk garb. Kinda as the fate of the singer in Copacabana.

Below are a few images of Jem in her prime:

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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Signed a couple of Swampy’s Florida books for my friends at the Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce. This alligator pirate sketch is for the book we did for the annual Billy Bowlegs Festival. Last year we worked together to produce two Swampy books about the Chamber’s annual Billy Bowlegs Festival and for the last reunion in Fort Walton Beach of the Doolittle Raiders.

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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Tons of artwork has to get done today! From caricatures to hiking cartoons to illustration, etc! Was hoping to be at a presentation today by Rick Smith, son of author Patrick Smith who wrote the Florida legendary book, ‘A Land Remembered’, but that looks impossible two hours before his presentation. Pen to paper and I’ll post what I can.

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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