The Good Son

The Good Son by Michael Gruber
Published by Blackstone Audiobooks on May 11th 2010
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Synopsis

Somewhere in Pakistan, Sonia Laghari and eight fellow members of a symposium on peace are being held captive by armed terrorists. Laghari, a deeply religious woman as well as a Jungian psychologist, has become the de facto leader of the kidnapped group. While her son, Theo, an ex-Delta soldier, uses his military connections to find and free the victims, Sonia Laghari tries to keep them all alive by working her way into the kidnappers' psyches and interpreting their dreams. With her knowledge of their language, her familiarity with their religion, and her Jungian training, she confounds her captors with her insights and beliefs. When the kidnappers decide to kill their captives one by one in retaliation for perceived crimes against their country, Theo races against the clock to try and save their lives. Combining masterful storytelling with a deeply thoughtful and provocative attention to the truth in all its permutations, The Good Son is a stellar achievement that expands the thriller genre into something wholly new and unexpected. This is a taut, multilayered, riveting novel of suspense.

The Good Son came as a recommendation on a national security podcast I listen to. I was able to find an audio version of the book from Audible. I don’t understand much about the Middle East. I think that I understand enough to know that the United States is responsible for a lot of the animosity that comes from that area of the world. We have

The premise of the story is rather outlandish, despite that it provides a point of view for both west and east. There is so much propaganda about the middle-east that is hard for a person like myself to know what is truth or fiction. We forget that Pakistan and Afghanistan is the cradle of civilization. Their civilization is very different from ours – we tend to look down upon it, as we do not consider these countries to be modern.

Indus Valley Civilization

Civilization Name: Indus Valley Civilization

Period: 2600 BC -1900 BC

Originated Location: Around the basins of the Indus River

Current Location: Northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India

Major Highlights: One of the most widespread civilization, covering 1.25 km

Indus Valley Civilization

One of the oldest civilizations in this list, the Indus valley civilization lies at the very cradle of subsequent civilization that arose in the region of the Indus valley. This civilization flourished in areas extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilizations of the Old World, and of the three the most widespread, covering an area of 1.25 million km. Entire populations of people were settled around the basins of the Indus River, one of the major rivers in Asia, and another river named Ghaggar-Hakra which once used to course through northeast India and eastern Pakistan.

Also known as the Harappan civilization and the Mohenjo-Daro civilization – named after the excavation sites where the remains of the civilization were found, the peak phase of this civilization is said to have lasted from 2600 BC to around 1900 BC. A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley Civilization making them the first urban centers in the region. The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and time. And based on the artifacts found in excavations, it is evident the culture was rather rich in arts and crafts. [1. 10 Oldest Ancient Civilizations ever]

As the book says, “There was no Afghanistan the way there was a France or a Canada, there were onl individuals and families and clans, and the Americans trying to make it different was like assembling a fighter plane out of wet toilet paper.”

About Michael Gruber

Michael Gruber is an author living in Seattle, Washington. He attended Columbia University and received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Miami. He worked as a cook, a marine biologist, a speech writer, a policy advisor for the Jimmy Carter White House, and a bureaucrat for the EPA before becoming a novelist.

He is generally acknowledged to be the ghostwriter of the popular Robert K. Tanenbaum series of Butch Karp novels starting with No Lesser Plea and ending with Resolved. After the partnership with Tanenbaum ended, Gruber began publishing his own novels under William Morrow and HarperCollins.

Gruber's "Jimmy Paz" trilogy, while critically acclaimed, did not sell at the same levels as the Butch Karp series in the United States. The Book of Air and Shadows became a national bestseller shortly after its release in March of 2007, however.

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The Chalk Man

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
Published by Crown Publishing Group (NY) on January 9th 2018
Pages: 288
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Synopsis

The must-read thriller of 2018, this riveting and relentlessly compelling psychological suspense debut will keep readers guessing right up to the shocking ending

In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy little English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code; little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he's put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead. That's when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

Expertly alternating between flashbacks and the present day, The Chalk Man is the very best kind of suspense novel, one where every character is wonderfully fleshed out and compelling, where every mystery has a satisfying payoff, and where the twists will shock even the savviest reader.

For a début novel The Chalk Man was very good. The book was a mixture of Kate Atkinson and Mo Hayder, two very skilful storytellers to my mind. I like books that move from past to present, the author did a good job of moving gracefully between the periods.

You get the sense that not everything is as it seems. Not really sure whats what, Eddie, who is recounting the story tends to neglect telling you all, leaving a bit for later. So do not get comfortable while reading cause you never know what is right around the corner.

About C.J. Tudor

C. J. Tudor lives in Nottingham, England, with her partner and three-year-old daughter. Over the years she has worked as a copywriter, television presenter, voice-over artist, and dog walker. She is now thrilled to be able to write full-time, and doesn’t miss chasing wet dogs through muddy fields all that much. The Chalk Man is her first novel.

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Two Kinds of Truth

Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly
Published by Little Brown and Company on October 31st 2017
Series: Harry Bosch #22, Harry Bosch Universe #29
Format: audiobook
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Synopsis

Harry Bosch searches for the truth in the new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly.Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town's 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill mills and prescription drug abuse.Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch's LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him, and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren't keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison.The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

It occurred to me as I was listening to Michael Connelly’s latest Harry Bosch book, Two Kinds of Truth how similar Bosch is to Anthony Horowitz character Christopher Foyle of Foyle’s War. In a world that seems in constant disarray it is comforting to find a protagonist that always opts for doing the “right thing”.

The Harry Bosch series has over the years provided a high level of performance that other writers have not been able to keep up. There hasn’t been one book that has disappointed but the have been some that where outstanding. This was an enjoyable read but not exceptional.

About Michael Connelly

ichael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 21, 1956. He moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old. Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.

After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.

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Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime

Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime by Ben Blum
Published by Doubleday Books on September 12th 2017
Pages: 432
Format: ebook
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Synopsis

Intricate, heartrending, and morally urgent, Ranger Games is a crime story like no other

Alex Blum was a good kid with one unshakeable goal in life: Become a U.S. Army Ranger. On the day of his leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery.

The question that haunted the entire Blum family was: Why? Why would he ruin his life in such a spectacularly foolish way?

At first, Alex insisted he thought the robbery was just another exercise in the famously daunting Ranger program. His attorney presented a case based on the theory that the Ranger indoctrination mirrored that of a cult.

In the midst of his own personal crisis, and in the hopes of helping both Alex and his splintering family cope, Ben Blum, Alex's first cousin, delved into these mysteries, growing closer to Alex in the process. As he probed further, Ben began to question not only Alex, but the influence of his superior, Luke Elliot Sommer, the man who planned the robbery. A charismatic combat veteran, Sommer's manipulative tendencies combined with a magnetic personality lured Ben into a relationship that put his loyalties to the test.

Who would have thought that a newly minted Army Ranger would drive the get away car in a bank robbery. Why would a newly minted Army Ranger do such a stupid thing? Ben Blum, cousin to the newly minted Army Ranger spends a goodly amount of time trying to answer that question.

To be an Army Ranger was all Alex ever wanted. Two weeks before his scheduled leave for Iraq, and days after he finishes the grueling Ranger training he climbs into his car and drives three other people to a Bank of America in Seattle. They rob the bank of about fifty-two thousand dollars. Why would Alex have done this having just achieved everything he wanted in life.

That is the question Ben Blum tries to answer. In a rather long convoluted story Ben recounts his search to understand why his cousin would have done this. What makes this book interesting is Ben a mathematician by training, is also having a crisis of his own. Knowing that mathematics alone will not answer his own questions, he delves into his cousins misfortune to find out what made him do something so totally out of character, hoping to better understand himself.

It is an inmate study how a person ends up doing a totally crazy thing. I think each reader will need to decide for themselves why this happened.

About Ben Blum

Ben Blum was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of California Berkeley, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, and an MFA in fiction from New York University, where he was awarded the New York Times Foundation Fellowship. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and stepdaughter.