Elle Marr. The Family Bones. Thomas and Mercer, 2023.

The Bible recognizes “the futile ways inherited from your forefathers” (I Peter 1:18). The Family Bones examines these ways in graphic psychological language.

Olivia Eriksen is our primary narrator. She has almost completed her Ph.D. in Psychology. All she has to do is complete her dissertation. She comes from a somewhat infamous family. She has a few uncles and cousins in prison. Her great uncle was a notorious serial killer. She has observed what she considers detachment and ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) in a number of her relatives including her own father, who has little to do with her.

Her studies have attempted to determine whether such behavior is innate or learned—or, as we say, nature or nurture. She is waiting for a family retreat to complete her studies. She hopes to interview different family members, especially her grandfather Edgar Eriksen, to perhaps get a sense of her family’s pathology, if there is one.

About half as many chapters are told by Birdie Tan, a popular podcaster. She follows cold cases, especially those involving victims who are Asian-American, as she is. She has learned about Li Ming Na, who disappeared about ten years ago. There was little done to follow up on her disappearance. Birdie attributes it to anti-Asian prejudice, but she comes to discover that Ming Na herself did a lot to cover her tracks.

Now Olivia is a student at University of California at Davis and Birdie lives farther south in San Diego. Both, though, end up at the Eriksen retreat center out in an Oregon mountain forest about three hours from Eugene. I call it the Eriksen retreat center because the old summer camp was recently bought out and renovated by Zane Ericksen, who has become a successful medical doctor and businessman. It will be the first time in ten years that the family has gotten together in such a way.

Many of the best mysteries involve the “closed room” mystery. One thinks, for example, of And Then There Were None set on an island or The Mousetrap set in a snowed-in house. In this case there are a series of storms that cause an avalanche that keeps everyone at the retreat center and keeps the police from coming in for a couple of days.

Alfred, who is probably Olivia’s favorite cousin, is the first to die. It might have been an accident, except that Alfred was supposed to meet Olivia for a tour of the retreat center’s wine cellar. He never shows up, and Olivia becomes a suspect. To say a whole lot more would be going into spoiler territory, but Alfred is only the first victim.

Besides the closed room mystery, there is another literary type which The Family Bones echoes. What happens to people who are cut off from the socializing influences of their culture? Think Heart of Darkness or The Lord of the Flies. At one point Olivia discovers the head of a decapitated elk covered with flies on the edge of the one of the fields. It is not a human head or a pig’s head, but we begin to understand that there will probably be no Poirot type to bring order. This is human nature at its most primal.

Interspersed among the chapters by Olivia and Birdie are some short documentary chapters. There are occasional excerpts from newspaper articles involving various crimes and other events associated in some way with the Eriksens. There are also some pages from a diary of a woman who falls in love with an Eriksen.

Birdie gets some useful information from two people about Li Ming Na. One person never identifies him- or herself, but the information seems reliable. Birdie actually meets with the other person a few times, and the information he provides sends her on her trip from Southern California to Central Oregon. For most of the book, the two threads seem unrelated, but we know they will come together at some point.

The Family Bones is no cozy. Spencer Quinn used his mystery narrative technique to make some similar tales oriented for a younger audience. Elle Marr could never adapt this for the kiddies. Its psychology is brutal. Is Olivia the psychologist brutal, too? It is not for everyone, but those who appreciate Stieg Larsson or Patricia Highsmith should savor The Family Bones.

Mark R. Worden. He Is. West Bow, 2022.

He Is is a unique book. I do highly recommend it. I suspect, though, the author had a problem marketing it. Publishers always want something “new and different.” But if it is too different, they think it will not sell. It is the writer’s Catch-22.

The publisher markets He Is in the devotional category. That is fair, but someone looking for a typical devotional might be disappointed. A typical devotional book, whether religious like Streams in the Desert or secular like the Chicken Soup books, have brief inspiring articles, often a single page, so a person can take a few minutes and read one a day. We have reviewed one or two such books over the years on these pages.

He Is is like that because the articles take maybe five or ten minutes to read. But the book really asks more of the reader. There are a number of verses to look up to support the thesis. There are also some questions meant for us to meditate on. To top it all off, the author confesses in his introduction that this is a book of theology. And it is.

But it does not fit the usual format for theology books. First of all, it avoids theological language. Even when it uses a relatively well-known term from the Bible or religion, it defines the term. While the definitions come from various sources, more often than not, He Is uses the original Noah Webster dictionary from 1828. Webster was very conscious of his explanations, especially for abstract terms. This feature is extremely helpful and useful.

Not only that, but for whatever reason, most theology books try to be systematic. That is the term they use. They try to fit the study of God into one system or another. Worden does not do that. In this reviewer’s eye, that is wise and tolerant. In my life, I have witnessed so many people miss out or even make mistakes because something about God did not fit into their particular system. God cannot be put into a box, as much as we humans might like to.

Worden admits:

…if I could completely comprehend this creator God, it would make me equal with him. That is a scary thought because I know myself—limited, deceitful, selfish, thoughtless—well, you get the idea. I don’t want my God to be like that. If he were, he would not be worthy of my worship. (7)

So what we have are fifty articles. Maybe one should read one article a week and do the Bible study and meditation it suggests for that week. One would finish it in a year. Each article runs three to five pages and presents a characteristic of God’s personality. The theological term is attribute, but we realize these are not just impassive physical features but personality traits.

While its devotional use is one possibility, it seems this would make a good text or supplemental reading to a high school or 100-level college theology class. Look beyond a system for the truth.

So, yes, God is Beyond Us. But He is also Knowable. He is All-Present, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and Eternal. He is also Holy, Patient, Kind. He also is Judge, Lawgiver, and a Consuming Fire. This is not systematic. Indeed, even just thinking about these few traits, we begin to see that God cannot be put into a box.

Lest I sound like systematic theologies are useless, they are not. Theology can help explain God to people, But do not expect completeness in theology. Even the Bible admits that it is not complete. Worden’s epigraph for the book is Deuteronomy 29:29:

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

The gospels end with this observation about Jesus:

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

After reading He Is, even in the non-meditative manner which I read the book to write this review, I come away with the conclusion that God is awesome. Sometimes, we just have to admire Him instead of always trying to figure Him out.

Having said that, I am a believer that God is not afraid of hard questions. Worden discusses hard things. He tells stories of things that happen that we know are wrong or unfair. God may be above some of these things, but He is not indifferent.

Every short chapter title begins with the term He is. And they work. Readers can find a quotation or a near quotation from the Bible for every one of these attributes. For example, one chapter is titled “He Is Our Shield.” Yes, that chapter discusses ways God protects us, but he also quotes directly from the Bible:

The Lord is my strength and my shield (Psalm 28:7)

He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him (Ii Samuel 22:31)

For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield (Psalm 5:12)

Although Worden does not quote it, he tells the reader to look up Genesis 15:1 in which the Lord speaks directly and says:

I am your shield; and your reward shall be very great.

In the approximately 250 pages of He Is, the Bible is quoted directly over 800 times. Many other times it is alluded to or paraphrased without citation. Worden tells some great stories. (The chapter “He Is a Shield” tells of his encounter with a moose!) But when He talks of God, he is not making this stuff up. Read He Is and be challenged. Read He Is and be blessed.

J. M. Griffin. Left Fur Dead. Kensington, 2019.

Well, we are big fans of the Chet and Bernie mysteries. One key reason is that the tales are told from Chet the dog’s perspective. Left Fur Dead includes a pet rabbit that helps solve a crime. Will this be similar?

The short answer is no. The rabbit’s owner, Juliette Bridge, narrates the story. Her pet rabbit, Bun, has telepathic powers, so Juliette (“Jules”) gets messages from the rabbit in her head. Now the rabbit does have senses that people do not have. Like Chet, Bun notes scents. Being a prey animal rather than a predator, Bun is also fairly sensitive when it comes to registering people’s emotions, especially anger or calm. Interesting, but no one would confuse it with the lapin language of Watership Down.

We were willing to suspend our disbelief to read the story, and having done that, we accepted the premise. In the first chapter Ms. Bridge, accompanied by Bun, discovers a body on her property, a wooded farm in a small New Hampshire town. It is winter, and the body is half frozen. She cannot identify him, but it turns out she knows him.

Jules operates a rabbit rescue farm. During our story she is caring for fifteen bunnies including Bun. Some were turned over to her because an owner moved or died, but most were there because they were victims of abuse, including Bun. She occasionally takes some of her rabbits for entertainment or educational purposes to schools. libraries, and birthday parties. Occasionally, at those parties and other events Arty the Mime puts on a show. She never met him without his mime makeup, so she really did not know what he looked like, but it turns out that the victim she discovers is Arty.

It is complicated because the last few times they met, Arty would lecture her that keeping pet animals is wrong. Never mind that she is rescuing them, that they are domesticated, and that they are not even native to the Americas, Arty becomes quite vehement. Jules feels like he has changed from the old Arty she knew, but because they were witnessed arguing, she becomes a suspect in his murder.

Meanwhile, it appears that someone has been trying to break into the rescue barn. Jules has witnessed an intruder, maybe two, and this person seems to want to do some damage as well as release the rabbits into the wild. Once, a number of cages were opened, but rabbits being rabbits, only one ran out, the rest remained, if not in their cages at least near their homes.

Jules, of course, wants to deflect suspicion from herself, so she tries to do a little sleuthing on her own. In what is now a stock conflict in mysteries, the local sheriff warns her not to get involved. Still, she gleans some information that could help solve the mystery of Arty’s demise.

We also meet a number of other people who are related to Juliette’s farm in some way. There is Jessica, finishing up her veterinarian degree and hoping to start a practice in town. Jules offers her an available portion of the barn for her clinic. After Jules’ close call with an intruder, Jessica offers to stay at Jules’ home with her until the mystery of the intruders is solved.

There are also some college students who work at the barn and the shop connected to it and some high school students who volunteer with the rabbits to work off their public service requirements for school. Jules also discovers that a homeless veteran has been camping in her back woods. He seems harmless, if a little troubled, but the sheriff learns that his military record was exemplary. We also meet the ill-tempered previous owner of Bun.

Bun does not have quite the personality that Chet has, but we do see rabbit qualities come through her telepathic messages. Bun is at heart a true rabbit, not an anthropomorphic character like Bugs Bunny. We won’t get any wild puns or plots or disguises from Bun, but she does provide an interesting angle on the story. She may not bark, but she does bite.

Birdsearch. Arcturus, 2021.

Bridsearch is a collection of word search puzzles all dealing with the subject of birds. While I am indifferent to word search puzzles (I prefer crosswords and sudoku), this caught my attention because of the birding aspect. It was cleverly done, with many distractors. For example, one of the words in one puzzle was cowbird. One of the strings said cowbire. Was it a typo? No, cowbird was hidden in the puzzle as well.

This covers birds all around the world. While I know North American birds and have had some knowledge of birds of England and Brazil, I was unfamiliar with many Asian, African, Australian, and Pacific Island birds. These birds appear in the puzzles as well.

I learned more about birds around the world by doing these puzzles and researching their names. For example, people familiar with birds know that rails are hard to see. They prefer tall grass, usually in wetlands. Many are nocturnal. Some are flightless. I learned that one species has a reputation of being so hard to find that its common name is the Invisible Rail. Interesting stuff here, even if word searches are not your favorite game.

Lewis Thorpe and William of Poitiers. The Bayeux Tapestry and the Norman Invasion. Folio Society, 1973.

Readers familiar with the Folio Society understand that it publishes some original works but mostly classics in elegant editions. The Bayeux Tapestry and the Norman Invasion is an original with a classic included.

Lewis Thorpe gives us some historical background to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 followed by his translation of what is probably the earliest written account of the invasion by William of Poitiers from the Gesta Guillelmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum (The History of William, Duke of the Normans and King of the English). The original was probably written in 1073 or 1074.

This is followed by a brief description of the Bayeux Tapestry, which gives us a clue to what to look for in this famous and unique work of art. Nearly half the book is pictures, namely pictures showing the complete 230-foot (70 meter) embroidered work. The pictures are carefully and clearly done with English translations of the Latin as captions.

This is a special edition. We get a basic history of the events leading up to the invasion and a description of the military maneuvers. There was no printing press in 1066, so we do not have details that such an invasion might have produced in our time. This covers the circumstances pretty well for what we do know. And, indeed, we would know less if it had not been for the famous embroidery that illustrates the story.

Of course, the Folio Society always has first class paper and binding. Unlike many of their products, however, this did not come with a slipcase.

The Tapestry was probably produced before 1078. While clearly siding with the Normans (as does William of Poitiers), it presents a fairly straightforward narrative. Thorpe notes in his introduction that later writers tended to embellish details concerning the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings. For example, later writers would say that King Harold first was shot in the eye by an arrow. After fighting bravely for a long time, he was eventually killed and his body cut into pieces. Neither William of Poitiers nor the Tapestry indicate anything like that happening.

For a straightforward account of the Battle of Hastings and access to images from the entire Bayeux Tapestry, this is the place to go. In its August 1966 900th anniversary of the Battle issue, National Geographic does also have beautifully assembled photographs of the entire Tapestry, but here is the most reliable primary source and more background to this famous work of art and epoch-changing conquest.

Douglas Van Dorn. Giants. Waters of Creation, 2013.

Giants, subtitled Sons of the Gods, presents a discussion of one of the more curious Bible mysteries, namely, who are the Nephilim? The word Nephilim is used a few times in the Hebrew Scriptures and is usually translated “giants.” Using ancient commentaries and Jewish apocryphal writings, Van Dorn makes a case that these were giant people (7-12 feet or so [2.1-3.2 meters]) who were somehow offspring of humans and fallen angels. This is one interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4, which is one of the more opaque passages in the Bible.

Although tradition tells us that the Nephilim were one of the reasons God caused the great flood, the term is also used to describe a few larger than normal figures much later who fought the Israelites, men like King Og and Goliath. Regardless of what the reader may think about the origins of the Nephilim, most of the book follows the Biblical history of Israel and Judah. Here, the important thing was to keep the Jewish nation pure to remain chosen and to maintain a proper line of descent for the Messiah. Some of this is both interesting and inspiring. God has a purpose through history.

Van Dorn notes that this is not specifically racial or ethnic. Rahab the Canaanite and Ruth the Moabite are part of King David’s and Jesus’ ancestry. He suggests that the Nephilim were not entirely genetic sons of Adam. Like the devil himself, they had a hatred for human beings and for God.

The book also brings in historical and mythological accounts of giants from all over the world. He notes that large skeletons and stories of giants are often associated with structures like ziggurats, pyramids, and mounds. It also notes them associated with some ancient circular structures. In many places in the world including Europe, the Near East, and the Americas, the current or more recent inhabitants have traditions that they settled after giants left the region, whether through conquest, disease, or migration.

The author, for example, notes that in Genesis 3:15 God tells the serpent, “I will put enmity between your seed and the woman’s seed.” That suggests that the devil could procreate—which seems to contradict Jesus who said the angelic spirits do not procreate. However, that passage of Jesus says “angels in Heaven,” (see Mark 12:25) so perhaps on earth it was different at one time.

Regardless, of what the reader thinks of that idea, most of the book tells of the survival of Israel in spite of spiritual, political, and military opposition up to the time that the Savior of the world could be born—one who was truly human and the seed of woman.

The book is well researched, and uses many primary sources. For example, it mentions the belief of the early Christian writer Irenaeus. Irenaeus is a favorite of mine, and I could see that Van Dorn did not misquote or misrepresent that ancient apologist. He also notes numerous archaeological finds of very large human skeletons and of unusually tall houses and other structures.

I confess a little skepticism about some of the author’s interpretations. I suspect he may be giving the adversary more credit than he deserves, but the Biblical presentation can encourage the reader. I am also reminded of Deuteronomy 29:29:

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever…

Some things of God are none of our business, but God is not offended if we ask (Luke 11:9, cf. James 4:2).

Rinker Buck. Life on the Mississippi. Avid Reader, 2022.

I born in Pittsburgh and lived there till I was eleven. I can still recall singing the song in school:

The river is up and the channel is deep
The wind is steady and strong.
Oh, won’t we have a jolly good time
As we go sailing along?
Down the river, oh, down the river, oh, down the river we go-oh-oh
Down the river, oh, down the river, down the O-hi-o.

I also recall reading a YA book back then called Down the Big River about a family taking a flatboat down the Ohio River in early pioneering times.

And then, when I was about ten, our family went on a little boat tour on the three rivers around Pittsburgh. I do not remember much of the specific details pointed out on the tour, but the captain of the boat said that in the off season he would sail down all the way to New Orleans. What an adventure! I thought to myself.

I have never had the opportunity to take such a trip, but I was excited when I heard about Life on the Mississippi, not the Twain classic, but a new book by a man who took about a year off (all told) to build a flatboat replica and sail it from the Pittsburgh area down the Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. The voyage itself took about four months. This is his story and his reflections.

The title is a little misleading. There are twenty-two chapters in the book. He does not reach the Mississippi River until chapter 17. It might be more accurately be called Life on the Ohio and Mississippi, but using a familiar title makes the title easier to recall.

The first few chapters tell how Mr. Buck, the author, employed a replica shipbuilder from the Cumberland River in Tennessee to build a replica flatboat. He then had it trailed to Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh. Then he assembled a crew, which changed from week to week, and he floated and sailed down the rivers to New Orleans.

Buck reminds us that while covered wagons and the Oregon Trail are more a part of the American memory today, the West really opened up around the time of the American Revolution because of the intrepid people who sailed down the Ohio and its tributaries to the Mississippi. They settled all along the way and sold their goods including lumber, furs, crops, and coal down the river. New Orleans would become the primary port for American exports, a claim it can still make today.

A few years ago we reviewed The Frontiersmen, about an early Kentucky settler and his adventures and ordeals. Daniel Boone figured in that book. Boone himself eventually moved west beyond Kentucky and settled in Missouri. That book covered the period, more or less, from before the French and Indian War to the War of 1812 and beyond. While Life on the Mississippi is set in less a year in contemporary America, much of the book is a reflection of how we got to where we are.

To be honest, Buck takes a hostile, almost bitter, perspective on American history—industrial pollution, Indian removal, slavery. While The Frontiersmen does not gloss over these things, it is a little more respectful. Still, we cannot help admire Buck’s odyssey—with the assistance of radar, radio, GPS, electronic tablets, and the internal combustion engine. Imagine how much more challenging it must have been without those amenities, not to mention things like buoys and other aids to navigation, dams, and locks which also have done a lot to tame the rivers. We really do appreciate those pioneers. Buck maintains, probably correctly, those “river rats” did much more to open the West than the later wagon trains and railroads did.

Buck narrates Life on the Mississippi in the first person. He himself seems to have changed in the course of his story. About halfway through, I was thinking to myself that as much as I envy him taking this river trip, many things annoy him. I am not sure I would want to spend a few weeks on a small boat with him.

That would change. Buck changed crews frequently. People would join him and leave him for a few weeks at a time. Most people could not take the time off that he could. He tells us that he was caring for his elderly mother in Maine until she passed away. He had no other close family attachments or responsibilities, so he was free to pursue this dream. One particular person on his original crew annoyed Buck to the point of serious anger. The person who built the boat ignored most of Buck’s suggestions. Those things set a tone that for nearly the first half of the book. There is a lot of complaining—not just about the shipmate and shipbuilder but about many other things they had to deal with.

Once that person leaves the crew, the whole narrative and voyage take on a different perspective. Now it becomes an adventure. Now most of the people he meets on the river are kind, helpful, and encouraging. He comes to appreciate the massive transportation network the Mississippi and its tributaries created. Tug strings of upwards of twenty-five barges can carry so much more than so many tractor-trailers or even rail cars. The barges were perhaps his biggest navigation challenge, but he learned quickly that he could learn from them and sometimes even follow them the way a motorcyclist can slipstream a truck on the highway.

There is a lot of humor. While few writers are as clever or incisive as Twain, it is clear that Buck enjoys some irony. He loses track of the number of times he is warned about his trip. The currents, the huge tug strings, the wing dams, rip rap, submerged vessels and trees, criminal types along the shore could all put an end to the trip, or so he is told. He and his crew were warned a number of times that whirlpools on the river were strong enough to not only drown them, but strip them of all their clothing. That caused one of his crew mates to joke that he had duct taped his underwear to his body to avoid such a fate.

He also notes that a few people warned them that they were making a mistake not having any kind of gun or pistol on board.

Upriver, the off-duty cops and redneck river rats who had come aboard implored us to get weapons because the blacks in Vicksburg and Baton Rouge were going to pour over the banks to rob the boat. Downriver, black kids were convinced the rednecks were going to get us. The race-blind solution for all was the same: America, Get Guns. (356)

Even with all the amenities mentioned above, this was not an easy venture. Some things, such as an electric bicycle, turned out be invaluable. They had a few close calls navigating, and Buck twice broke some ribs. Having broken ribs once myself, there is not much anyone can do about it other than bear the pain till it goes away. Ribs really cannot be set or put in a cast.

Although there were a handful of days when Buck was alone on the boat, most of the time he had others for a crew. We are reminded that we all have different talents, abilities, and even personalities, and that because of that we do need each other. I was reminded time and again of another song about the boats on the river, “Proud Mary”:

People on the river are happy to give.

There might be some bitter history, but most Americans are really great people.

Davis Bunn. The Christmas Hummingbird. Kensington, 2022.

Before getting into the story of The Christmas Hummingbird, I have to say that the author did not do much research on hummingbirds. This story involves wildfires threatening a California community. Among other creatures, the hummingbirds are driven out of the woods. Eleven year old Liam rescues a suffering hummingbird and with the help of some friends, helps it recover. Inspired by Liam, the community decides to put up a hummingbird feeder in virtually every yard in town to attract the birds away from the fire zone and provide nourishment for them. So far, so good.

Alas, the author tells us that the birds are Rufous-Crested Hummingbirds. Those birds are found mostly in the Andes but they do range north to the very south of Mexico—not even to Baja California, let alone the American state. Now there are a number of species of hummers that nest in California, but by Christmastime they are long gone. The one exception is the Anna’s Hummingbird, which I have seen in the winter in southern California in and near San Diego.

The novel takes place in Miramar, which in real life is a section of San Diego, best known for its military air station (formerly Navy, now Marine Corps). However, we are told that our fictional Miramar is north of Ojai, which is north of Los Angeles. There could be winter Anna’s Hummingbirds hanging around there, but the farther north you go, the less likely.

Now that I have that out of the way, if we willingly suspend our disbelief about the hummingbirds, this is actually a well told story. Besides Liam, the two main characters are his single mother Ryan and the lonely divorcé Ethan. Ethan sometimes works as a set design artist for the film industry, but his day job is with the local bank. He has been deputized to help people in the higher elevations evacuate before they are trapped in the fires. He himself lost everything in an earlier fire. He also has a melancholy feeling about Christmastime because his wife left him right before the holiday six years before.

Ryan is a police officer. Liam’s father fled as soon as he learned she was expecting. That plus the fact that police tend to be skeptical of people in general, makes her very tender towards her socially awkward son but distant towards everyone else. I recall reading that police and journalists are the most difficult people to persuade about anything because in both professions they hear a lot of people lie to them. Ryan does not appear to believe in people or in love.

Not only are there these fires to contend with, but it appears that the fires may be set deliberately. Most of the homes affected by the fires are large homes owned by wealthy landowners, many of whom only live in them part of the year. It appears that someone may be burglarizing the houses after they are abandoned. The fires then cover any trace of foul play. The thieves seem to be well organized as a number of fireproof safes have simply disappeared from the homes.

Things are also complicated because many of the homes in the fire-prone areas are owned by people who wish to remain anonymous. A number of them are represented by an attorney in Belgium. The police and the bank both try to communicate the situation, but the lawyer simply tells them that he will contact his clients. Who they are and how to contact them is none of their business.

There is some exciting firefighting and crime solving in this tale, but the real story is the warming up of both Ryan and Ethan. I am not sure the word love is ever used in the story except to describe Ryan’s maternal love for her son. Still, that is what the story is about. Hurt people hurt people, as they say. But if the guard can come down a little bit, there is potential for healing the hurt. That means love. And that gives the story a surprising and tender depth—in spite of the inaccuracies concerning hummingbirds.

Alex Speier. Homegrown. Morrow, 2021.

It was not a hastily assembled championship team but instead one that had been painstakingly and sometimes painfully forged. (333)

Forging is hot and heavy work. So is the long professional baseball season.

Homegrown is subtitled How the Red Sox Built a Champion from the Ground Up. It begins around 2010 and culminates in the 2018 World Series championship. While Red Sox fans would be especially interested in its contents, because it tells much about the front office of the Red Sox during this time, anyone interested in sports management would probably get a few ideas from this book.

While the concept of a homegrown team might be a little outdated in this era of free agency and thirty major league teams, the author makes a case that the core of the 2018 team had been put together for a number of years mostly from young talent first recruited by the Red Sox. It focuses on the career tracks of three young players who became standouts for the team in 2018: Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Jr., and Xander Bogaerts. Others who signed on a year or two later—Rafael Devers, Andrew Benintendi, Matt Barnes, Cristian Vazquez, Travis Shaw—also made an impact.

We learn about the scouts who travel all over North America, including the Caribbean, assessing young talent. We read about the short-season rookie leagues and various A, AA, and AAA teams. We also note the important Baseball Academy run by the Red Sox in the Dominican Republic. The author describes how changes to the draft system and rules for signing young players have changed over the years and may have made a difference. It is possible that under the present system no team could have signed as many future stars as the Red Sox did in 2010 before the rules changed again.

Frankly, Homegrown also tracks the shorter careers of some promising athletes who did not succeed at the major league level as well as some “minor league prospects” who were traded before reaching the majors. A recurring theme is that pitchers are the hardest to predict. For hitting, baserunning, and fielding, unless there is an injury or Steve Blass disease, there is a sense that a certain percentage of top prospects will have major league careers. Pitching is much harder to predict. While it is true that taller pitchers with longer fingers have a physical advantage, there are enough exceptions to make most scouts and general managers realize that signing a young pitcher is risky. Of course, so is not signing one.

Even though Speier’s thesis about scouting and bringing up players through a team’s own farm system works, he also points out numerous exceptions. In 2013 NESN commentator and Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley was excited when Boston traded three top prospects and one current player for Cy Young winner Jake Peavy. It worked for the Sox that year as they won the World Series. However, nearly the only traded prospect mentioned in the book who ended up with any significant major league career was Jose Iglesias, who had brief call-ups with Boston in 2011 and 2012 but was still considered a rookie when he was traded.

Some of the biggest exceptions accounted for the Red Sox record-breaking 2018 season (108 regular season wins, 119 in all). They obtained slugger J. D. Martinez and most of their strong pitchers through trades. The player who ended up as the World Series Most Valuable Player, Steve Pearce, came to Boston in a trade in the middle of the season. The young player he was traded for, Santiago Espinal, is now an All-Star with the Blue Jays. Was the trade worth it? The 2018 World Series would not have been the same without him, even though he was nearing the end of his baseball career.

Readers who follow baseball will know at least some of the names of the players, but the book also discusses in detail the people in the Red Sox office along with officers of other teams. It is men like President of Baseball Operation Dave Dombrowski and his predecessor General Manager Ben Cherington who made many of the decisions. There are also the owners like John Henry and Larry Lucchino investing in money and a stable of scouts seeking talent. Sports is entertainment like the movies. We might know the names of the actors and a few directors and producers, but most of the names in the scrolling credits after a film are unfamiliar to the masses. Similarly, Speier reminds us of the important work the non-athletes do on a sports franchise.

The 2021 edition of Homegrown has an interesting afterword. It describes what happened to the Boston team after 2018. Just as after 2013, though perhaps for different reasons, the 2018 team was broken up beginning shortly after the season ended. The problem very simply was that those homegrown players were all coming to the end of their initial contracts, so they were looking for a lot more money. One could argue whether the Red Sox could have kept a few (especially Mookie and Xander) if they had just been willing to either offer more money or a longer contract. When I checked the Red Sox website the other day, I noted only three players who had played for them in 2018 still on the roster. Already the sports pundits are not expecting much from the Red Sox this year, but they said the same thing before the 2013 season, so you never know.

One book that can compare to Homegrown is Moneyball. Now the author of Moneyball was already famous for financial writings such as Liar’s Poker. Moneyball does have more emphasis on the bottom line while Homegrown has more emphasis on the player development and putting rosters together. At times it may seem like rolling the dice, but if the methodical practice of player development and balance between young players and mature-acting veterans works, you can have a champion.

I was curious if the author was related to the major league baseball Speiers: Chris, his son Justin, and his nephew Gabe. Judging from the author’s acknowledgments which include a significant number of relatives, it appears there is no relation.

The cover attracts attention, too. It is one of the iconic photographs of Andrew Benintendi’s ballet style catch in left field during the second game of the 2018 World Series. The scoreboard in the background with the final standings reminds us, too, of the dominant year the Red Sox had.

John Sandford. Ocean Prey. Putnam, 2021.

Back in the eighties when I worked in a Christian bookstore, John Sandford was a popular author. He mostly wrote books with his wife, Paula. Their Transformation of the Inner Man is still considered a classic on inner healing. We also sold books by John Sanford. This John Sandford is not either one. Indeed, most recent editions of the books of the first two Johns are listed as John L. Sandford and John A. Sanford to distinguish them. I am not sure why John Camp chose John Sandford as a pseudonym, but he did.

Now that I have that out of the way, let me share a bit about Ocean Prey. I had heard of Sandford, and I have a friend who likes his work, but this is the first piece I have read by this John Sandford. It is not so much a mystery or crime-solving novel as it is a story of two competing plots. The conflict of the clever plots turns into a million-dollar, life-or-death chess match.

On one side there are the drug importers working off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Even back in the seventies when I was in the Coast Guard, smugglers would sometimes toss their smuggled product overboard in offshore waters. Later, when they would go to get it, they would either pull it up if they set a phony lobster buoy over it, or the more sophisticated ones would send a radio signal that would set off a CO₂ cartridge and cause the product to float to the surface.

Apparently smugglers still do something similar. Of course, now with GPS there is no need for a buoy or a marker. If they are handling large amounts of heroin or cocaine in drums or pipes, they hire divers. So on one side we have a group of well-organized criminals with a fairly sophisticated communication plan trying to raise contraband heroin off the Atlantic shoreline of Florida.

When their behavior in a boat arouses suspicion, they are followed into port by a Coast Guard boat. Before they can be boarded, they shoot and kill the three crewmen of the Coast Guard boat. They get away with the drugs, set fire to their boat, and disappear. Little evidence exists other than what one shaken eyewitness saw.

After nearly five months, the FBI is no closer to finding the criminals. Because federal officers, the Coasties, are killed, the FBI are in charge of the case. Our main character, Federal Marshal Lucas Davenport enters with another marshal to see what they can find out. Although there is no “smoking gun” like the Steele Dossier, the FBI come across as showboats in this novel. The marshals do not worry about politics the way the FBI does.

Both sides know or at least expect that there are a lot more pipes of drugs out there. Both sides are waiting for the other side to stand down from their alert. They call them pipes because they are stored in sections of plastic pipe.

There are a few names floating “out there.” Davenport and his associate Bob Matees do some digging, and they get a little too close. Davenport calls on an old friend—apparently the protagonist of other Sandford novels—Virgil Flowers. Flowers is teamed up with a black female marshal and together they act asi if they are street smart stoners. Flowers is a qualified diver, and eventually he is hired to get the rest of the offshore drug cache.

He is quite successful the first time. Everyone seems happy. Flowers gets paid. The FBI and Marshals have a sense of what it going on, and the drugs are on their way to make dealers and importers lots of money.

Still, Lucas and the other law enforcement types want to do more than arrest some lackeys. They want the big guys. We begin to have an idea of who they may be, but they are good at putting several layers between them and the street level and sea level workers. Lucas comes up with a plan.

Both sides’ plans get thwarted to some degree. How it all works out is quite clever. The criminals are pretty ruthless, so there are a number of killings. A few victims are workers who they think squealed. But some are young women whose only offense was dating the wrong guys.

There are a lot of fascinating details about diving. How does one qualify? What about nitrogen narcosis? How deep can someone dive without getting the bends? How do people combat that? At the same time, there is some very sophisticated technology used by both sides. While not exactly Clancy, technodudes and dudesses might enjoy this plot anyhow.

Looking for a clever plot? Looking for justice? Take a look at Ocean Prey.

A couple of notes…

This paperback edition has an excellent afterword by the author. He gives some acknowledgments, but most of it is devoted to the problem with writing accurately, even in fiction. He gives an example of how he had someone read a manuscript of his to check for accuracy. A Minneapolis detective was carrying a Beretta pistol. The expert told him those agents only carry Glocks. So he changed the pistol type. The problem was that in another paragraph he had written that the man released the safety on the pistol. Glocks do not have safeties. Sandford knew that, but forgot to read around the whole passage about the pistol. Writers try, he admits, but they do not always get everything right, even when writing fiction and even when they know what is what. Since everyone uses language, a lot of people assume writing is as easy as talking. Writing well is hard and tricky work.

I note that as of this printing there are thirty-two books in this series by Sandford all with Prey as the last word in the title. All I could think of was that he could not have called this novel Ocean’s Prey, or readers would think it was about the cranberry business. I also thought that if he ever had a novel set in Quebec, he could call it Santander Beau Prey. Of course, it is unlikely that a U.S. Marshal would spend too much time in Canada.