GetVickiWatson

Another Fast, Furious and Fabulous Gray Man!

Reviewed: 06-03-20

From start to finish the Gray Man doesn't disappoint! I love an ad kicker with a heart!

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Historical Adventure Meets Maniac On The Loose!

Reviewed: 04-12-18

My first Dan Brown offering. but it won't be my last! True facts, places and rituals combined with fast paced mystery, murder and political intrigue! Think you are what's coming? I think not!

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WOW! Hunter or Hunted-The Gray Man Delivers

Reviewed: 03-22-18

The series itself is wonderfully exciting and fast paced. Courtland Gentry is not only a brilliant strategist, not just the very top dog in the assassin game, but he is wholly invested in the fight against good and bad. In true “in your face” Gray Man style our protagonist never forgets the mission or the meaning. In Back Blast, Court becomes the hunted. There’s been a “kill on sight” order on him for the last 5 years and he’s tired of not knowing why, tired of being exiled from the US, tired of being hunted by the very people he has served so devotedly, and beyond tired of not getting any answers. Having found a way back to the US, the Gray Man is determined at any cost to get his answers.

From there you’ll have to decide if Back Blast is the best or the worst spook thriller you’ve read. It’ll break down to whether you prefer your action right by the book or with varying degrees of the unbelievable.

The Gray Man is arguably the best covert agent that the CIA has ever had. Then one day everything changed. Once a vital part of a tight group of trained assassins in the service of his country, and then in a kill them or be killed by them situation. All Court wants is to know why, why has he been labeled a rogue operator gone bad?

Gentry avoided death by killing all of his old buddies earlier in the series. But now it’s time to clear his name. He returns to the US to find out the truth and within hours of arriving he is involved in a huge shootout at a drug dealer's house which alerts the CIA and an unexpected group of other assassins that he is in their back yard, and they know why.

For an action thriller that’s fast-moving, adrenaline pumping, and has the hero doing impossible things then you will love Mark Greany’s Back Blast. He is the master of white knuckle, too hot to believe action.

However, if you prefer to stay on the side of believability and you don’t go in for a lot of talk about government corruption, then this story will definitely not be to your taste. As for me, I like my fiction to take me somewhere exciting, thrilling and where the good guy wins and this fills the bill to a T. ENJOY!

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Fierce and In Your Face Court Gentry

Reviewed: 03-14-18

Of course Court isn't growing sappy and sentimental, but his sense of right and wrong-good and bad lead him into more than his fair share of trouble in this fast paced attack on evil. With mystery, intrigue, money and a love/hate triangle (or three) Agent In Place will keep you on the edge of your seat, turning those pages faster and faster to it's gritty, but satisfying end.

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Billion dollar online drugs and the boy next door

Reviewed: 03-09-18

While I’m not Libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, nor do I prescribe to the belief that it’s alright to engage in illegal activities just because I disagree with their illegality. But that said I have to admire the single minded focus of Ross Ulbricht in researching, building and managing the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything - drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons-all free of the government's watchful eye or apparently any conscience at all.
As a strict conservative I can fault a lot of Ross’s ideology and practices but let’s give the devil his due…the story is fantastic, albeit a little overwhelming. Nick Bilton does such a stunning job of delivering facts, figures and tidbits of information that you actually have to stop reading for a second and wrap your brain around all that you are taking in. I mean really, how does one even begin to know where to get this kind of information? No matter though Nick explains the entire research process at the end of the book and I found that to be incredibly enlightening as well.

The oddest thing though, even though there is no contribution directly from Ross Ulbricht for this book, you feel like you know and even understand the genius behind Silk Road for having read it. Ross’s trials and tribulations, even his belief system, were woven together with such clarification that even though I could read the handwriting on the wall, I almost hoped for a different conclusion.

The attention to detail given in this illustrious account is incredible all the way from explaining complex and powerful computer systems, coding, all manner of technological jargon, to the multi-organizational investigations going on. Many divisions of the federal government launched an epic 2-year manhunt for the site's elusive proprietor, known only as the Dread Pirate Roberts, with no leads, no witnesses, no verifiable proof.
The Silk Road quickly ballooned into nearly a billion dollar enterprise, and Ross embraced his role as kingpin completely. He recruited, trained and led a loyal crew of allies from top tier to some very low places, each addicted to and seeking out not only the danger and thrill of running an illegal marketplace but jockeying for position in the organization as well. This read is page turning at its finest, willing you to press on and keeping you lost in this expansive, audacious story with all its twists, peaks and valleys.

It's a fascinating story that very subtly challenges your beliefs, morals and integrity as it deftly paints a picture of a small idea that all too quickly accelerates to the grandest echelon of success and casts lives asunder as a result of its successes.

At the end of the day I’m left not totally sold that Ross felt guilty for his association to the sales of drugs, guns and anything else illegal that the Silk Road dipped into, or was he just sorry he got caught. I’m inclined to believe that he hated that those he loved had seen this side of him, but repeatedly and, almost as a life song, Ross continually framed his life and activities as homage to free will, thumbing his nose at any and all authority or conscience.

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Where do you turn when there's no one you trust?

Reviewed: 02-06-18

Elizabeth Ford Cage, adopted at a young age by a loving couple who knew there was something special about her. Something they didn't pretend to understand. So then, in puberty, when she realized that she just "knew" things and asked the natural questions, her quiet and loving Dad encouraged her to just ignore it and perhaps it would go away. But when you have a "gift" it is part of you and Elizabeth finds out just how big a part of her it is when her back is to the proverbial wall!

Elizabeth has spent her life trying to keep the thing that lives in her head asleep. She works at a mundane job until she meets and marries Ted, a policeman (or so she thinks) and their lives together are warm, loving and uneventful. She knows that she can see the aura, or the "colors" of everyone she sees, and through their colors she can tell pretty much everything about them. She has shared this gift/curse with NO ONE though as she does not want any undue attention either from the general public nor from the other side. Alas, Dr. Sorenson or is it the Universe that has other plans?

When Elizabeth's husband Ted, is killed abruptly and she finds herself held captive at Sorenson Clinic her entire life and her abilities are on display. If not for the all too timely intervention of another "resident" at Sorenson Clinic Elizabeth would certainly have never returned to her home. Michael Jones is a fast and very capapble friend in her time of need, fascilitating her escape from and possibly her return to Sorenson Clinic. In between though she begins to find out what her life will look like without Ted and almost settles back into being "unknown"......

This book is a good read, and it does have many interesting twists and turns as promised in the advertising.

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Good Doctor, Bad Doctor?

Reviewed: 02-06-18

Spoiler Alert! Good and evil live within each of us. The debts must be paid.

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Charming and sad, telling and introspective story

Reviewed: 02-01-18

Janie Crawford entered adulthood too early on the wings of her grandmother's death. Janie was the apple of Nanny's eye and she wanted for Janie never to experience the pain, the disillusionment, the fear that had thus far hovered over Nanny's life. First her daughter, Leafy (Janie's mother), was the product of being raped by her former master and when Leafy was born and it was plain to the master's wife who the father was, she meant to have Nanny beaten to death and her daughter Leafy sold, so Nanny had taken to flight. Now Leafy's life had barely had any chance of success when she herself was raped by a school teacher and beautiful Janie was born. The stigma, the life, the pure tragedy of it all was too much for Leafy and she fled. Nanny meant for Janie to be the one to break the curse, to find happiness and success. In all of Nanny's well meaning love for the grand daughter she'd raised so devotedly, tempered by her memories of slavery and substantiated fears of the white man, besides her knowledge that she would not be around to see Janie grow into womanhood naturally she bestowed a grandmother's dying wish that Janie would marry before her own imminent death. She and the much older man, Logan made the deal and Janie moved in with Logan with nothing more than hope that one day she would find herself happy to be with him if not in love. But Logan was not a romantic man, nor a man given to conversation except to complain, insult and brow beat her into submission and servitude. Janie's dissolution came as much from her youthful sensitivities and lack of life experiences as from Logan's inabilities and complete lack of understanding. Janie had dreamed of a world filled with sweet smells, pretty words and love born of desire.
One day though with Logan gone on business a sweet smelling, smooth talker named Joe Stark with dreams of having a "big voice" happened down the road where Janie offered him a cool drink. The first of many cool drinks and about 2 weeks worth of clandestine meetings in the woods where Joe "Jody" and Janie dreamed big and made a plan. With barely a glance back Janie left with a man she'd only known for 2 weeks, married him pretty much on the spot and upon their immediate settling in Eatonville, FL. Here she became the Mayor's wife almost as soon as she became Mrs. Joe Stark. Joe was a consummate politician from the word go and he knew when he spied Janie that she possessed the look he was after for a Mayor's wife. Now Jody expected Janie to be happy, nay, to feel privileged to sit on high, look pretty, not interact with the common folk at all except to take their money at the store Joe owned. In just a matter of a few months of arrival in Eatonville Joe became the Mayor, the store owner, the post master and the biggest landlord and land owner in those parts. Now during their some odd 20+ years of being Eatonville's royalty Janie and Jody's marriage had fallen into such disrepair that at one point Janie, so tired of Jody's constant public humiliation and private disregard for her that she opened her mouth and right there in the middle of the store and all the male customers she ripped his manhood off him with one swipe and spit her total disgust of him out in a loud, unhampered dissertation; so violently stripped was Jody that he beat her mercilessly before taking to his bed out wait humiliation, and the rumor-mill. They spent the next few years in quiet co-habitation until Jody's kidneys failed him. He lay in their home, in his sick room for months with Janie barred from entering claiming that she was the culprit behind his sickness. On the day of his death Janie had entered the room and proclaimed all the loss, all the pain, all the ways he had mistreated her, all the times he pushed her down and all the times and ways she had tried to show him the error of his ways and his priorities. It was during this dissertation that Jody took his last breath. Janie felt relief but had the class to dress it up to look like grief. After the better part of a year, and after many suggestions that she should be looking for a man to take care of her and many offers for just such from all the single men in town Janie happened one hot afternoon to sell a cold drink to Tea Cake.
Tea Cake and Janie were fast friends and faster lovers despite his being 12 years her junior. After just weeks she sold off the store, but kept the house and she and Tea Cake married and left town. In and with him she had found the love, sweet words and the hope she had yearned for as a young girl. They went on to the Everglades where their love grew and flourished. In the glades they worked together, they played together, they lavished their love on each other and they made no secret of their all encompassing love and commitment to one another. They encountered all the usual suspects in new and growing love like jealousy of each other, jealousy of them and the way they treated one another, like disappointment, fear and petty grievance, but through all those growing pains they only grew stronger and more committed and happy with each other. Nothing ever really threatened them until the hurricane came. During their flight Tea Cake, in a valiant effort to save Janie from a rabid dog, got bitten. But neither Tea Cake nor Janie knew the dog was rabid, or to even think about such things so Tea Cake grew sicker and sicker over 3 weeks time. So much so that Janie feared for his life as he became delirious and unable to even hold down water. She sent for the doctor who delivered the tragic news that Tea Cake's bite was most likely to be fatal and he gave Janie pills to keep Tea Cake comfortable, and instructed her to be very wary of him as he would become dangerous. Janie tended to him lovingly and tried not to believe the prognosis, but Tea Cake's disease was taking his mind and Janie saw the evil rising in him. It all culminated the next day when circumstances led to the death of Tea Cake.
After the funeral Janie returned to her home in Eatonville where she finally finds peace.

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1 person found this helpful

Fantasy, Whimsy and Great Beasts entertain us

Reviewed: 01-26-18

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman - December 2017
The author remembers meeting the Norse tales in comic books and I can see how these stories might have well been penned there. I can imagine the graphics being beautiful and imposing! I got this book because I did not have any "experience" with Norse Myths and it received such rave reviews and sustained top selling status for a pretty long time; so I thought to myself, "self, you should not miss this one!" I'm certainly glad I did get it because it is at once breathtaking, sad, and hilarious! Characters like Loki, Oden and Thor are really much like US; we are heroic, somewhat odd and sometimes overbearing and often warm and passionate.

These viking-esk stories with their bizarre, fantastical machinations are wholly enjoyable and once you catch the Gaiman rift you're sure to be entertained, amused and totally taken with giants, maidens, Gods and goblins! Enjoy!!

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A Bunch of Psychic Eccentrics

Reviewed: 01-04-18

It’s 1995 and septuagenarian Teddy Telemachus,  the grand patriarch of the Amazing Telemachus family is in love and living in Chicago with his psychic children and their perfect imperfections.  Irene, the human Lie Detector who has trouble with jobs and men and all those little lies. Then, psychokinetic Frankie who’s in trouble with the mob and hasn’t moved anything more than a pin ball in his whole life. Don’t forget precognitive Buddy who won't explain why he's replacing Teddy's wooden doors with steel or digging an enormous hole in the yard and basically turning the whole home into an apocalyptic stronghold.

But once, while Teddy's wife, Maureen, was alive, they were the Amazing Telemachus Family — until a disastrous television performance ended their career and the events that followed that were a strain that even Teddy’s magic could not fix. When the best job Irene ever had ends she and her son Matty return home. Fueled by stories of the year of glory and fame Matty  dreams of putting his newfound astral projection abilities to profitable use.  Spanning three generations and shuffling the perils of washed-up secret  agents, aging mobsters and long-distance relationships Spoonbenders does its best work in the family relationship department.  

The perspectives of Irene, Frankie and Buddy at different ages are deep and moving,  and Irene’s relationship with her father is wholly immersed in a multi-faceted mix of love and frustration.  They are captivating together while often on opposing views and motives.

I also loved how deftly the book fashioned the fabric of the Telemachus family’s lives across three decades, weaving the blessing and the burden of their abilities to the time when they must use their gifts to save themselves.  

After a rocky start acclimating to the constant use of profanity and the sleazy way Matty’s first experience with astral projection manifested itself I am ultimately happy with the story.  I enjoyed the Telemachus family and found them ultimately to be funny, sweet and magical. I am glad I read it.

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