The Opposite of Dark: A Casey Holland Mystery by Debra Purdy Kong

Published by Touchwood Editions

What is a daughter to do when 3 years after she has buried her father she is presented with another body identified as her father? The first thing to come to mind of course, is that he is already dead and can't be dead again. Or can he? If it wasn't such a horrifying thought, it would be almost comical. There are so many things one doesn't think of in a case such as this. In particular, the funeral home where her father was buried the first time is adamant that he is still in plot 352, so how do they handle this second burial? Who passed for her father to all who viewed the body in the casket, including his daughter Casey, to allow them to believe they were looking at one Marcus Adam Holland Which is the corpse of the real Marcus? If that weren't enough, how could her father possibly have a home in West Vancouver, if he was dead, and why, if he was in hiding, would he choose to be so near and yet not contact his daughter or his fiancé Rhonda? They were just finally getting on with their lives from his first death and now he's died again, or so it would seem. What a great plot, and I don't mean burial plot. Debra Purdy Kong has outdone herself.

The lives of the human race consist of so many secrets, I sometimes feel we could be living in two dimensions and not even know it. Casey works security for the Transit Service in Vancouver, BC, and is no stranger to awareness of her surroundings and netting several suspects for various crimes. She decides if she is ever to sort this dilemma out, she will have to go to Europe, where her Dad "died" the first time, and try to learn what he was doing there. She knows she is being followed most of the time, and that someone is looking for something, but she doesn't know who or what. She only knows she must try to find out the truth. What she does learn is that there are many people looking for that something. What was her father involved in? Was he importing and/or exporting illegal or dangerous goods? She is shocked when she finds out just before leaving home that her estranged mother is somehow involved in whatever her father was doing.

This is truly a fast-moving action-packed thriller with many twist and turns, many suspects, and many secrets and lies. Trust is something that is very slippery, hard to determine and equally hard to hold on to. Trust and misguided trust play a major role in this book. Not only is Casey's life in jeopardy, but her friends are as well, even the police trying to protect her. I would have read this book at one sitting were I able to, I was so involved in the story. I am happy to learn that we will be seeing more of Casey in future books and can hardly wait! Great story with strong plot!

Not an Ill Wind by Nancy Gettelman

I learned a lot in an easy-going way, much easier, in fact, than the people who populated this story. I refer to the very interesting trip to Tibet, the amount of information about the country, the history, and Buddhism, while the travelers taking the trip suffered greatly on their actual journey.

Therein lies the mystery, always on the edge of the story causing a feeling of discomfort without an event to explain it. Who are the two Chinese men who the travelers catch glimpses of along the way? Why are there no reservations made for their journey? Why did their host and travel guide turn the group over to his Sherpa wife who obviously does not have a clue to handling a tour, nor does she speak any English. These are the questions that kept me going right through the book, the discomfort growing quickly and the mystery slowly building.

This was a most interesting read, entertaining and teaching, with a satisfying final solution when the reader discovers that most of the travelers are not who we imagined; some were not who they said they were, others were taking the trip for different reasons. Even our main character is keeping mum about what she hopes to gain other than the insights of the trip itself. What she hopes will come of this trip are answers to a relationship, how true her feelings are in this older woman/younger man relationship, and whether she should stop it or pursue it. But the reader must read to the very end to learn what that resolution will be, quite apart from the resolution of the mystery.
Nancy Gettelman has a very distinct style of writing, like a conversation with a friend relating incidents that have happened to her within the story. Her books are diverse. For a good read, informative, mysterious, and satisfying, I highly recommend this delightful and adventurous author.

Able Danger by Kensington Roth

BOOK TOUR REVIEW by Betty Gelean

Covert groups, spies on spies, countries with strange bedfellows, this first book in the Able Danger series will keep the reader country-hopping worldwide. It opens with what appears to be a nice normal American suburban household which is suddenly disrupted in a very peculiar way. The family has become an unwitting test subject.

Kensington Roth has taken a political debacle and run with it. His protagonist is a black-ops spy, Harrison Court-006. Building around actual political decisions, Roth's book is a very compelling work of fiction that ties into reality very well. The style of writing is unique and very descriptive, the reader can picture whatever Court sees and encounters.  The author's sense of place and time is exquisite, the characterizations believable and consistent.

The action builds all the way through the book. Court's discovery that there is some kind of super-weapon, "Gravvox" being tested, and that one of their own, an ex-CIA agent has gone rogue, propels him with the extreme urgency of a runaway train to hunt down the ex-agent, stop him and learn the who, what, and when.  A plausible scenario, with a great and terrible surprise ending. Fortunately Roth is on his toes and the next book "Danger for 2" will be out soon, because I can't wait to find out what direction the sequel will take.  
4 1/2 stars

April 17, 2010: Just out, story-board type movie trailer for Able Danger on YouTube

The Rhino with Glue-on Shoes ed. Lucy H. Spelman, DVM and Ted Y. Mashima, DVM

The Rhino With Glue-on Shoes and other surprising true stories of zoo vets and their patients.

Edited by Lucy H. Spelman, DVM and Ted Y. Mashima, DVM with a foreword by Jack Hanna, I really enjoyed this book of short stories by wildlife veterinarians. Easy to read, pick up to read when you don't have much time, or read it all at one go. These are all actual rescues or attempted rescues of wildlife, the stories range from an elephant to a dung beetle and many a strange animal in between.  It's a wonderful testament to the care and devotion these men and women give to the animals they have dedicated their lives to. An added bonus is the insertion between some of the stories, Lucy Spelman, ed. inserts short chapters of her own. There is also a short bio at the end of each vet's story.

I was surprised to learn how often hospital surgeons volunteer their time to help the veterinary surgeons; I have always had an interest in wild animals and this book has renewed that interest 100%.  There is so much to learn, so many unknowns, so many survivors returned to the wilds to help rebuild populations. Who would expect a bartender to have an anorexic moray eel in his establishment, or a rhinoceros kept in conditions that would ruin his feet?  These caregivers must think on their feet, be innovative, communicate around the world, invent new treatments, and second-guess themselves around the clock.

I learned how to take blood from an octopus, how to transport whale sharks, how to repair the spine of a kangaroo, and how to anesthetize a frog or a goldfish among many more interesting things. But this book is no dry textbook, this is compassionate, heartwarming, often funny and a great read. There are 28 individual, completely separate true stories. Includes some photos.  I highly recommend it.

Invisible Armies by Jon Evans

Originally posted on My Space, Aug. 1, 2007
Reviewed for Harper Collins My Space

This is the first Jon Evans novel I have read. What an adventure in reading! This book is positively vibrating with intensity and action. If you want a book that you will not want to put down, this is the book for you. The action is constant with occasional breaks where you can catch your breath before again boarding that rollercoaster ride through the pages. I found that with all the switchbacks and turnabouts I was holding my breath. This book spun me around and topsy-turvy with every change in direction. At first I found the narrative bits a bit unsettling, somewhat like watching a TV program with voice-over narration for the blind, but I soon overcame that feeling with the dialogue and action.

The story begins with a somewhat typical girl, Danielle, doing a favour for a friend. She is soon literally fighting for her life and for humanity. Nobody is who they seem, nobody wants to trust anyone else. This book will amaze you in how far the world has actually come in technology, but don’t concern yourself with whether you will understand technobabble; it will usually be explained. I guess you could say technology is one of the heroes. Jon Evans has built a brilliant story which includes the best and worst in people, greed, awareness, and the survival instinct in all of us. It takes us to different countries and in dark places and communities which seem worlds away. I highly recommend this book, it is outstanding in its genre. If it weren’t for the few calm spots in the book, I would have had to read it cover-to-cover in one sitting. In fact, I finished it at 3:00 in the morning. You will not be unaffected. 5 stars

Where Am I Wearing? A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and the People that Make Our Clothes by Kelsey Timmerman

Originally posted Thursday, November 27, 2008
Reviewed through Shelf Awareness, for publisher/author

How many people think about their clothes, right down to their underwear and wonder who made them where? This is the start of Kelsey's journey of discovery. I expected to hear about sweatshops, horrific conditions, and protests What Kelsey Timmerman did was personal, interesting, realistic in his approach. He learns from his first unsuccessful foray in the Honduras (his T-shirt) and plans his worldwide trip in a more original manner. He made contact starting at the bottom and working his way up in order to see the actual factory in which each article he is wearing was made. His underwear was made in Bangladesh, jeans in Cambodia, Flip-flops in China, and shorts in USA. His first contact is in Bangladesh. He learns as he goes along that rather than try to pose as a buyer, it's better to tell the truth, he simply wants to see where his clothes were made. He is able to get into almost every factory, they can identify each article of clothing made by them, no matter how old. But what he really wants to do is meet the people, not as factory workers but as human beings.

In each location he makes friends with people who are working in the factories, learning how little they earn and how many hours they work, often working overtime free, what their hopes are. He finds that they all have hope rather than the despair they knew before. The fact that there are factories to work at has actually given them this hope. He learns that almost all have had to move from home in the country to work, and rarely see family. But they have a certain happiness outside of work. They accept the hard work because it is going to gradually increase their economy. Kelsey is still aware of the terrible living and working conditions, and yet this has always been a problem, even in the US, when they had garment factory conditions with poor pay and ill treatment, but the economy did eventually grow.

In Bangladesh, he takes a group of children (and an old man everyone thought he should take) to "Fantasy World", an amusement park, to ride on a roller-coaster (and other rides). These children are not factory workers, and the old man was a farmer who had always wanted to ride on the roller coaster. In return Kelsey learns to play a game called Kabbadi. In Cambodia he takes a group of workers bowling. He is doing exactly what he wanted to do, meet the people who worked in these factories. China is the hardest country to get to see the factory that made his flip-flops. He learns that the amazing dam on the Yangtzee River has displaced 4.5 million people because their homes and orange groves are now under water. His final destination, in the US, he takes in on his honeymoon. Here he not only meets the workers, but the actual person who worked on his shorts.

The book is very interesting and personable. Kelsey makes a lot of good points. It's a lot to chew on, but begs the question of whether the garment factories are good or bad for the economy of the people, and leaves one thinking what is good for the people and what appeases our souls. The people have hope, they are earning money they couldn't earn anywhere else. They are in fear of losing their jobs if the factories are closed down. There is a lot packed into this book but it is not preaching anything. It states facts, it humanizes the people, and gives us a lot to think about. I highly recommend this book. 5 stars