The Blood of Patriots by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Johnstone clan has done it again! This is a REAL page turner that had be going through it about as fast as I’ve ever gone through a book. Whatever formula is used to illustrate each literal character works. I was never all that enthralled with the main character, but that didn’t matter as the story soars ahead. This book does what a book should do:Drag you in and keep you until the end thoroughly enjoying a good book.

I really like the contrasts of the central location of the book and New York city. Probably the best written parts of the book. The comparisons are dead on. The setting in the mountains is also very well done. The characters almost seem as if separate people wrote them to make them so different. I’ve found that in other Johnstone books that the dialogue written sounds so authentic.

I keep expecting the Johnstone clan to produce Harlequin formula books. Or especially like the Executioner/Bolan books. I’ll add the Matt Helm series, as well. Instead, after reading about a dozen, I’m not finding that. The Mountain Man series has a bunch of repetition in the first novels after the first, but still well drawn characters and a decent story. It’s just weird to me that a few of the newest books have blown me away. You’d think a team of ghost writers would be churning out gunk. This is not gunk.

About the political stance; I noticed a few reviews stating that the “conservatives” are the good guys and the “liberals” are the bad guys. Never is anyone labeled as such throughout the book. What probably catches a reader is that practically all contemporary novels have the same political stance and viewpoint. This one does not follow that and I’m not surprised it’s jarring people. It would be nice if the PC “laws” would be stripped away and the censorship of other viewpoints be lifted. It’s good to open one’s mind to other ideas.

With that thought, I’ll draw a line from this book to the Vince Flynn series. The handling of religious viewpoints of the characters is very well done as Flynn does, as someone who has studied religions. Specifically, the Muslim religion is well represented with traditions and procedures. A couple of issues I had was that no other religion is hardly mentioned. Other characters with other religious beliefs might’ve helped to balance the story. Another issue is the main character going too far with blanket statements about the Muslim religion. I get that’s the character and his whole viewpoint is through the prism of the badge, but his beliefs being defined would’ve been made the character stronger. That’s a bit petty on my part considering the pace of the story.

Something else real nice with this book is the lack of excessive narrative as is also found in a good 99% of books coming out today. This along with an earlier Johnstone Clan ‘Home Invasion’ are two of my favorites of the year and beyond.

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I attended a Silver Springs park update on Wednesday and learned more about the merging of the iconic Florida attraction, Silver Springs, into the state park system. The grand reopening will be October 1st and the park’s whole name will be Silver River State Park. The cost to get into the two merged sites: $8. Wild Waters will still be a separate area from the overall park. Drainage is changing significantly and that might be most noticeable in the massive changes in the parking lot. By the way, parking returns to the early days of Silver Springs by being free.

Swampy’s Florida cartoon artwork by Rob Smith, Jr.

This is cartoon artwork for the upcoming ‘Swampy’s Florida: Dunnellon’ coming out next month. Watch for more coming in the next few weeks!

Thought I would share this camel on, what many weekly workers call, “Hump Day”.
Drew this last week for educational materials for my friends at “The Knowledge Exchange”, an educational store in Palm Bay, Florida, near Melbourne.

The art is drawn on vellum bristol and inked using a series of felt tip and brush pens.
Below is video at YouTube of me inking the artwork.:

Drew caricatures tonight for a corporate event at the Peabody hotel south of Orlando in Orange County. The event’s attendees were all involved with containing digital information or servicing those who do.

Here’s a bit of art from an upcoming Swampy’s Florida book. More as it comes along. Should be done by the end of the month.

Had a great, fun lunch today with long time friend Craig Zablo and his wife, Doralya, at Steve’s Famous Diner in Daytona Beach. We talked about Florida travel, education, Jack Davis, Jim Ivey, Sun Bank, etc., etc..

The food and company were excellent!
Thank you, Craig and Doralya!

The photo, above, is of Craig and I. Doralya had to beg off, something about witness protection or something like that. 😀

It was after this lunch and a caricature gig after that I realized how blasted out tired I was. I blew out the bulk of my energy prior to lunch taking a 1.2 mile hike in the heat in a park and literally running around the Downtown cities of Eustis and DeLand taking photos for Swampy’s Florida. Knew I was feeling a bit off during lunch and that was why! Ferget I’m adding the years on and that kind of activity is going to take a toll.

The photos taken should be showing up on the Swampy’s Florida website over the next months. I’ll be making a separate post about the caricature events in the next day or so.

My friend, Ann Archer, turns 90 and a big party is planned today. Here’s the birthday card I painted for this very patriotic woman. She has served in various political posts for decades in Dade and Marion Counties here in Florida. She still is active today despite mobility issues. She’s a great lady with a great sense of humor, something that seems to maintain a long life. Another friend, Lucile Fair, is 105 1/2 and loves to laugh and see the fun in life. We probably all need to smile more in life and Ann and Lucile are examples of that.

Yesterday I posted the prepped artwork for watercolor. Here’s the watercolored version.

I’m going to try and post more here. It’ll be tough when on the road. Otherwise, I hope to increase artwork posts to, at least, three to four a week.

Here’s a caricature I’m working on. I worked from a few photographs of each person. It’s penciled and prepped for watercolor, which I’ll add tomorrow. I should be posting the finished artwork tomorrow.

Had our monthly Socrates Cafe meeting tonight and, for the first time in about a year, I broke out the sketchpad during it. Part of the reason is that I’ve been lax posting art here and knew this would give me something to place here artwork-wise.
Our discussion started with the question as to how much we carry our family history throughout life. Brought up was the ability to pick and choose our traits. Next came a discussion about a story heard on the radio about a child being left out of a game with other children and what should a person’s reaction to that be. Discussion went from cooties to hammering morality.  Last discussion involved whether we should all just have a revolution and get it all over with. This led one of the group, Robin, to declare that she is willing to take the world over, be queen, sell books and become a church onto herself for the well being of all.