B. F. Westcott. A General View of the History of the English Bible. 1872. Second ed. Amazon.com, 2014.

Since I teach the history of the English Bible in my British Literature classes, I came across this title in a book I recently reviewed that devoted a chapter to Dr. Westcott. This is the most thorough book on the history of the Bible in English through the King James Version. It includes references to editions that no longer exist and does an exhaustive comparison between different versions, especially the more influential ones.

Other books have had the same purpose. For most general readers, F. F. Bruce’s History of the Bible in English is sufficient. Westcott has more details including mentions of a possible English version, clearly neither Latinate nor Wycliffite, that Chaucer may have used and a printed version of the Cheke New Testament. Cheke was Edward VI’s tutor.

As far as we know, Cheke only did the Gospel of Matthew and it was not published until the nineteenth century, three hundred years after he lived. But if there were a Cheke New Testament still in existence, as at least one contemporary source claims, it would be a collector’s item.

There are also many detailed comparisons emphasizing both differences between certain translations and similarities showing likely influences. Westcott also belonged to a committee which was tasked with updating the King James Version, so he does devote a chapter to the work on that.

Because Westcott was such a thorough researcher, A General View of the History of the English Bible is not dated. Anyone who really wants to get delve into the origins and stories behind the translations of the Bible into English from Wycliffe through King James, this book does the job.

Alas, the electronic copy issued by Amazon was clearly done by an optical scan, and no attempt was made to correct problems. Some words are unreadable: They resemble the cuss words from a comic strip. Because superscripts are seldom recorded properly, there is usually a mishmash between the footnotes and the text. The e-book needs some serious editing. My recommendation: Get the above edition and expect to be annoyed, or do an inter-library loan for a printed copy.

H. G. Wells. The Time Machine. 1898. Gutenberg.org, 2018.

Like many others in the days of their youth, I had read a few of the well-known novels of H. G. Wells, namely The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. The last two stuck with me, and I could not help thinking of Dr. Moreau when I read Crichton’s Next.

Somehow, I missed The Time Machine. Though I had never read it, I knew something about it because of things I had heard or read about it. I know I had some friends who read it or who had seen the 1960 film, which I also missed.

So, yes, I knew there was a time machine and the main character traveled into the future where humanity had evolved into two races or species—the Eloi and the Morlocks. Somewhere I even had a vague recollection of the name of Weena, the Time Traveller’s Eloi girlfriend.

Like other narrations of the time period such as by Conrad’s Marlow or Doyle’s Watson, this is a frame story told to us by a person who tells us what the Time Traveller told him. We never know the Time Traveller’s name. I seem to recall a television show—possibly The Wild, Wild West or Sliders—where he was given the name Tempus, Latin for “time.”

The story appears indebted to two or three other famous travel or survival stories: Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, and Typee. Gulliver finds a kind of ideal society ruled by horses, the Houyhnhnms, and depraved and decadent humans called Yahoos who promote evil. Similarly, the Morlocks of the underworld are the depraved anthropoids in The Time Machine who love the darkness rather than the light. (See John 3:19.)

Like the Time Traveller, Robinson Crusoe also finds himself stranded on a new, strange world. Crusoe discovers that his island is occasionally used as a retreat by cannibals, not unlike the way the Morlocks raid the Eloi on dark nights. Both Crusoe and the Time Traveller think of ways to exterminate their frightening, flesh-eating enemies but then have second thoughts. In Crusoe’s case, his conscience moves him. For the Time Traveller, it was simply impractical.

The Eloi live in a kind of simple, paradisaical idleness, like the Tahitians of Melville’s Typee. They spend the days eating, playing, and making love. The Time Traveller never sees any of them working. He was not even sure where their clothes come from.

They inhabit large, run-down buildings that had been built in an earlier era. They are smaller and weaker than humans like him. He had discovered a future land where people were living “on a strictly communistic basis” (6). But it was more like the vision not of Marx but of Marcuse, of sensual idleness. There are, for example, no older Eloi. Like the Golden Age of classical mythology, fruit trees were abundant, and that is what they lived on. But as in certain popular dystopias today, what happens to old people?

The Time Traveller notes that because the Eloi did not work, because “there is less necessity…the specialization of the sexes with the reference to their children’s needs disappears. We see some beginnings of this even in our time, and in the future age it was complete.” (32) Gender fluidity? Wells could see something coming with greater leisure time even in his day.

The Time Traveller notes that with a kind of idealized communism “there were no signs of struggle.” So the Eloi are remarkably passive.

Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness…This has ever been the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to eroticism, then come languor and decay. (35)

Even the socialist Wells acknowledges that Utopias cannot last.

There is quite a bit of adventure and conflict here. Also, like much science fiction since, there is speculation about the direction biological evolution will take the human race. The Time Traveller’s theory—and he admits it is speculation—resembles Lysenko’s. Biological evolution goes hand in hand with the socialist dialectic. In this case, class distinctions eventually evolve mankind into two species.

The Time Traveller has a wild adventure in the future land of the Eloi and Morlocks. He also has experiences even further into the future that may have been inspired by Byron’s “Darkness.” The Time Machine ultimately takes a fairly realistic view of human nature in spite of its popular Utopian thought. Perhaps we need to consider what it is suggesting today.

As Milton put it:

…ignoble ease, and powerful sloth,
Not peace. (Paradise Lost 2.227-228)

And again:

But what more oft in nations grown corrupt
And by their vices brought into servitude,
Then to love bondage more than liberty,
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty. (Samson Agonistes 268-271)

Stanley E. Porter and Ron C. Fay, ed. The Gospel of John in Modern Interpretation. Kregel, 2018.

The Gospel of John in Modern Interpretation is a direct and clear theological volume presenting an overview of theological perspectives on the Gospel of John (with some mention of his epistles and Revelation). These are not primarily interpretations or commentaries of the Gospel of John, but detached speculative analyses of the Fourth Gospel (FG) more concerned about the authorship or origins of the book.

The introduction by the editors helps readers understand the issues. Around two hundred years ago there was the historical critical movement, an attempt to question the authenticity of many books of the Bible or their inclusion in the Bible. This was followed by a history of religion movement, placing the parts of the Bible into whatever time they were written—but frequently getting into disputes about what time period the books were written.

This was followed by the source critical theories of various types. Currently there is a movement to look at the books as primarily literary works. There are eight articles altogether, two written by Porter, one by Fay, and the rest by other scholars.

First comes B. F. Westcott, best known as the compiler of the standard Greek New Testament text (the Westcott-Hort New Testament). Westcott, we are told, focused on the text of John and the historical context in which was written and canonized. From my own brief experience with Westcott, he was a thorough researcher.

Next we read about Adolf Schlatter, a prolific German historical-critical scholar. While concerned about the historical context, he saw the FG written to emphasize the divinity of Christ—an orthodox position. He also noted the Jewish and Palestinian context of the FG and downplaying Hellenistic influences others saw.

C. H. Dodd was also a prolific writer. He was concerned about the FG in relation to a hypothetical oral tradition. This reviewer has noted elsewhere a disconnect between theologians and other scholars of oral tradition. Many nineteenth and twentieth century theologians speculated about oral tradition but never applied Bible texts to works we know were orally transmitted. If we apply the work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, there is very little, if anything, in the New Testament that indicate any formulae typical of oral tradition. Unfortunately, this article does not bring up any of that secular research.

One of the most influential theologians of the past century has been Rudolf Bultmann. He saw the FG as being derived from Gnosticism, indeed, he hypothesized that Gnosticism predated Jesus among the Jews. The article suggests that there is a lack of evidence for this, but the theory does have appeal for someone who has studied Scripture and become skeptical. “Did God actually say that?” See Genesis 3:1.

Probably the most widely known theologian among the general English-speaking populace is John A. T. Robinson. Though best known for his Unitarian leanings in his book Honest to God, he also wrote about the FG. Ironically, he challenged theologians like Bultmann who took the view that the FG was inserted in the canon, if not actually written, long after the first century. Using early Christian historical writings and noting that even Revelation mentions the Temple as if it were still standing, Robinson believed that John’s corpus must have been written before A.D. 70.

Robinsons’ The Priority of John stresses John’s writings are the most important in the New Testament. And John emphasizes Jesus’ divinity most explicitly. Maybe Robinson’s Unitarian leanings were conditional, or, as the author of the article, the editor Dr. Porter, suggests, Robinson hopped on various popular bandwagons.

One of the “bandwagons” Porter on Robinson dismisses out of hand is Boman’s thesis on differences between Greek and Hebrew thinking. I thought Boman presented a convincing case, but the author of this article call the thesis a “fundamental (mis-) conception” (145). Considering that I am familiar with a couple of Bible teachers who take Boman very seriously, I guess I should look into a critique of Boman to see how his thesis stands up as it was beyond the scope of the article in this book.

The article on Raymond Brown tells us Brown hypothesized that the Gospel of John differs from the so-called Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) because it was written by a later “Johanine Community.” This is largely hypothetical, but one can make a case by emphasizing the differences between John and the other Gospels.

Leon Morris comes up next. This requires a brief apologetic on the part of the writer of this chapter because Morris was a literalist. He accepted the writings of John in the New Testament in their original as true and inspired. This means that Morris provides some balance to the more speculative material promoted by some of the other writers described in this book.

The final article is devoted to R. Alan Culpepper. He takes a literary approach to the FG. He treats it as a biography of Jesus and goes from there. He emphasizes that each of John’s writings had a specific message. The purpose of John’s Gospel is easily summarized in John 20:31:

…but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The author of this article is one of the editors, Ron. C. Fay. Dr. Fay emphasizes this point:

Culpepper works will not allow anyone to forget that the Gospel of John is literature aimed at forcing a response of faith from the reader.(235)

That is a good way to sum things up. As I am writing my draft of this review on Good Friday during Coronavirus shelter in place, I would ask the reader simply this: “What do you do with Jesus?”

Justin W. Earley. The Common Rule. Inter-Varsity, 2019.

A minister whom I know and respect enthusiastically recommended The Common Rule. This young man is under thirty. As I read this, I felt the book should not be titled The Common Rule, but Common Sense. Doesn’t anyone who is serious about his or her faith do these things? I guess I am an older generation. We already learned the lessons presented here. Maybe they were not transmitted clearly to the next generation.

Earley chooses the term rule deliberately. The rule, such as the Rule of St. Benedict, was the set of regulations and schedules that monks in a monastery would live by. Earley’s daily rule is simple enough: Pray three times a day, at least one meal a day with others, one hour with the phone off, read Scripture each day before turning your phone on.

The weekly rule is also basic: One hour of conversation with a friend, limit media to four hours, fast from something for 24 hours, take a Sabbath rest.

My reaction was pretty much this: Doesn’t everyone do this? Or at least something similar?

The answer is apparently not. I apologize if I sound self-righteous, but I guess even though I started using the Internet because I was writing computer programs, I still view the cell phone as basically a telephone. And why would anyone want to carry a telephone with them all the time? “Bible before breakfast” was a common expression. And doesn’t anyone who does not have in-house paid cook share meals together?

I recognize that such things are habits which need to be deliberately pursued. I observe that some of my high school students appear to be addicted to their cell phones. After a 45 minute class, they breathlessly grab their cell phones to see…who knows what? One hour off a day would, I suppose, be a real exercise in self-control. I read that one middle school that required students to surrender their cell phones before each class discovered that placing the phones in a transparent bag made the students more relaxed because at least they could see their phones.

The weekly habits, I confess, I may not be so diligent with, but I get it. I do succeed to do no school work at least one day on most weekends. That is deliberate. Some weeks an hour conversation with a friend is a challenge—excluding a spouse, that is. Friendship is important. And, yes, we do need a break in our busy lives. These are things to live by.

This is certainly a good review of what is important in our quotidian activities. And Earley tells a good story. This is not done in a lecture or sermon style. There are graphs and pictures. He shares how he had to discover these things in his own life. I can sympathize. He works for an international law firm, and he had to keep in touch with the London office which is five or six hours ahead of where he lives in Virginia. But no one really cared if he did not log on to his phone at 8 a.m. rather than 6 a.m. In other words, relax, people. Like so many other things, phones and jobs are like our emotions: They are good servants but poor masters.

That, then, becomes the ultimate question, who or what ultimately is your master? I guess most of us have to learn that the hard way. Earley is providing a service to help others. God knows we all need help in some ways.

Spencer Quinn. The Spencer Quinn Reader’s Companion. Atria, 2016.
———. “A Cat Was Involved.” Atria, 2012.
———. “The Iggy Chronicles.” Vol. 1, Atria, 2013.
———. “Tail of Vengeance.” Atria, 2014.

We had another review titled “3 Chet and Bernie Mysteries” which reviewed three novels narrated by Chet the Dog about his private investigator partner, Bernie Little. This review is different because these four publications are not novels. One is a freebie. The other three are short stories only available in e-book format for about a dollar.

This reviewer recommends The Spencer Quinn Reader’s Companion for those who might be interested in reading a Chet and Bernie story. It has excerpts from the first six Chet and Bernie novels. The idea, of course, is to get the reader to start a story so that he or she wants to get a hold of the book to find out what happens. If nothing else, the reader gets a sense of Chet’s voice. It is free. The reader can check it out. I suspect that many will want to keep reading.

The other three titles are short stories. I would not have known about them if they had not been mentioned in The Spencer Quinn Reader’s Companion. That freebie also mentions a Chet and Bernie Christmas novel, apparently only available in e-book format.

If anyone has read any Chet and Bernie mystery, he or she can probably guess what “A Cat Was Involved” is about. Chet uses that clause in virtually every book when he describes how he flunked out of K-9 school. It is the Chet and Bernie origin story.

In it, Bernie helps a policeman buddy solve a car theft. The policeman has custody of Chet. As in many of the stories, Chet discovers a clue fairly early in the story but has no way communicating his discovery to humans. We get the details of Chet’s last day in K-9 school and how Bernie is impressed with Chet’s help. For those following the detective duo, this answers a few questions.

“The Iggy Chronicles, Volume 1” focuses on Chet’s next door neighbor and best pal Iggy. Mr. Parsons, Iggy’s owner, asks Bernie to help him find Iggy, who is missing. They had spent much of the previous day in the hospital with Mrs. Parsons who is a patient there. The story humorously focuses on Iggy’s escapades as he gets loose in the hospital.

When Chet, Bernie, and Mr. Parsons visit the hospital the next day, we find out that a number of patients in the hospital have had valuables stolen from them. One woman wakes up from sedation to find her engagement ring gone from her finger. Bernie uses true detective skills to both locate Iggy and solve the robberies. Of all the Chet and Bernie tales, this one is the most like something Sherlock Holmes might have figured out.

“A Tail of Vengeance” at first sounds like a complicated divorce investigation. Readers know that Bernie does not do domestic investigations because he himself is divorced. But (1) he needs the money, as always, (2) Lt. Stine of the Valley Police recommended him, and (3) it’s not exactly a domestic case. Sherry Caputo thinks her boyfriend, not her husband, has been two-timing her.

It turns out that her boyfriend is a rich business owner Bernie knows about. Bernie likes Porsches, and drives an old beat-up one. Sherry’s boyfriend collects Porsches and owns about thirty of them, all much more pristine than Bernie’s. Bernie parks near a motel to discover what he needs to—a typical domestic case. And then it gets complicated. Sherry’s boyfriend’s wife comes into the picture. Without giving too much away, “A Tail of Vengeance” has a hilarious climax. Here, revenge is sweet indeed.

Ray Bentley with Genevieve Gillespie. The Holy Land Key. Waterbrook, 2014.

The Holy Land Key tries to bring balance to certain end times prophecies. Bible believers—both Christian and Jewish—see the re-establishment of the State of Israel after nearly nineteen centuries as a sign of Bible prophecy being fulfilled. (See for example Isaiah 11:11-12 or Luke 21:24.) Because of the association of the PLO to the U.S.S.R., Hamas with Muslim Brotherhood, and Hezbollah with the Ayatollahs of Iran, Bible believers in the have often seen the plight of the Palestinians with indifference.

Some who are more sympathetic take issue with a pro-Israel position as a hindrance to evangelism of Muslims and Palestinians. Bentley does not do that. He introduces us to personal friends of his on both sides. He introduces us to both Israeli Jews and Palestinians whom he respects. He may be overly sanguine, but he is optimistic that in spite of the politics on many sides, it is possible for Jews and Arabs to appreciate one another.

The basic thesis of the author, an American who has traveled in Israel extensively, says that “Prophecy is a Biblical teaching to be lived out.” (3) There is a tendency to look at Bible prophecy with a detached attitude. A popular teaching, in fact, claims that Bible believers are going to be detached from the earth before the difficult end times begin. Bentley suggests that people should be re-attached, take part in life, and recognize what God is doing in the world.

In part, he uses an analogy, not specifically prophecy, of the two brothers in Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). The prodigal spent a long time living in a “far country,” living with pigs. So the Jews spent centuries living all over the world among Gentiles, but they returned to their homeland as the prodigal returned to his.

But the older brother in the parable is angry. In effect, he says, “What about me?” In other words, he is not unlike the Palestinians. The Arabs claim descent from Ishmael; the Jews from Isaac. Ishmael was Isaac’s older brother. Yes, he was the son of the servant girl, so Isaac received the covenant of promise from Abraham. But Ishmael also received some great promises from God (see Genesis 17:20). And even Moses called his mother Abraham’s wife (Genesis 16:3).

Apeirogon, reviewed last month, showed the possibility of a Jew and Palestinian having mutual respect. While that is a secular approach rooted in tragedy, The Holy Land Key sees a similar possibility based on prophecy.

This book ranges widely, for example, that both Christopher Columbus and Isaac Newton in their writings believed that the Jews would return to Palestine before the end times. Others have interpreted Bible prophecy the same way. Bentley says Israel is “a witness of promises He [God] intends to keep” (27). And again, “God is keeping his eternal covenant with the Jewish people, and He is doing it in full view of the whole world” (41).

The book, though, also asserts that “God has not forgotten the Gentiles who descended from Abraham” (60). We meet both a Jewish mayor of a West Bank settlement and an Arab teacher from Bethlehem.

This book was published in 2014, not too long before the “blood moon” coincidence—four Jewish feasts in two years would be marked by a lunar eclipse. Bentley points out that that sign was coming, but he makes no particular prediction from it.

Probably the weakest or most controversial part of the book is a chapter devoted to the Zodiac. He follows Bullinger’s The Witness of the Stars and hypothesizes that the constellations were designed by God to be prophetic, but mankind twisted them into fortune-telling. That is possible, but one is hard pressed to find much evidence at this point in history.

After that astronomical diversion, Bentley then speaks of the seven feasts of Israel, noting as many others have that the first four feasts prophesied Messiah’s First Advent and the last three His Second Coming. Bentley does a nice job delineating the prophetic significance of the first four holidays (Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Shavuot/Pentecost). He is also humble enough to admit that the last three are a promise of restoration, but he is not going to try to predict the specifics. “‘Prophecy is best understood after it has come to pass'” (114).

Less stridently than Jill Shannon, Bentley notes that Gentile believers who do not celebrate the feasts are not offensive, but they are missing out:

The feasts are not a law for Christians. We are not obligated to observe. But oh what we are missing! (170)

The author also notes the prophetic parallels between the life of Joseph and the life of Jesus. I once had heard someone talk about this—it is not new—but I had never seen it in writing. Bentley does a fascinating job with this as well as other Bible stories such as that of Ruth and Naomi. He also notes a number of details concerning the Jewish day of mourning, Tisha B’av.

He tries to emphasize that the people of the Holy Land are…people. That is true of the Jew and Gentile there. “Israel is not a history lesson or the key a prophetic clock. It is people!” (204)

This book also has a pretty helpful set of notes with references to a number of books and articles for further reading. Except for the astronomical sidetrack, it is a positive, uplifting, and inclusive book on the prophetic significance of Israel.

N.B. I had read this short book about two years ago and recently re-read it. I reviewed it both times, but the reviews emphasized different things. For the first review see https://langblog.englishplus.com/?p=3725.

Spencer Quinn. The Sound and the Furry. Atria, 2013.
———. Paw and Order. Atria, 2014.

The Sound and the Furry is another enjoyable Chet and Bernie mystery. A big part of the enjoyment comes from the stories being told from the dog’s point of view: Many sounds, many smells, always distracted by food, and confusion over human conversation.

This time private investigator Bernie Little meets a “perp” he knows as he watches a prison highway crew at work. Frenchie Boutette hires Bernie to locate his missing brother Ralph—the only law-abiding one in the family, and that includes his mother. Ralph is an inventor with nearly thirty patents to his credit, and he has suddenly disappeared.

The search takes Bernie to the Bayou country of Louisiana. Ralph has been living on a houseboat. Frenchie’s wife Vannah actually paid Bernie for the assistance with money that smelled of shrimp.

When Bernie arrives in St. Roch, Louisiana, he learns that one of Ralph and Frenchie’s other two brothers has been arrested for stealing a truckload of shrimp. No one knows what happened to the cargo although a local restaurant is offering an all you can eat shrimp fry. Duke Boutette was the last person seen near the shrimp, and he was too drunk or stoned to remember anything.

Even before Bernie leaves his home in Arizona, he was offered fifty thousand dollars to work for an unethical security firm and threatened by a stocky Quiero, a member of Central American drug gang. Everyone describes Ralph the same way—a loner, a brain, wouldn’t hurt a fly, a math genius. What is going on anyway?

There is quite a lot. Bernie stays faithful to his girlfriend Suzie in spite of Vannah’s attempts to seduce him. He find’s Ralph’s glasses on a bayou islet. He learns that Ralph’s dog Napoleon is missing, too. When he visits a local veterinarian to ask about Napoleon, she is busy cleaning a few oil-soaked seabirds.

Chet not only tells us the story in is delightful way—never, he tells us try to chew steel wool—he also makes a few discoveries himself. Unfortunately, he is not always able to communicate what he has discovered. Twice in Louisiana he recognizes the scent of the man from the California security firm, but Bernie cannot smell him or recognize him.

Oh, yeah, the Boutettes having been feuding with the Robideaux family since the Civil War. And, as the title suggests the line from Macbeth, “…it is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury” and the Southern Gothic novel The Sound and the Fury, which is a tale told in part by a mentally challenged boy. In Faulkner’s day, they called them idiots.

There is a running gag in The Sound and the Furry about how stupid the three Boutette brothers excluding Ralph are: “What’s dumber than a moron?” No, Chet our narrator is no idiot, but some of the characters in this story are.

Paw and Order directly follows on the tail of The Sound and the Furry. Instead of returning home to Arizona, Bernie decides to go to Washington, D.C., to surprise his girlfriend Suzie, a journalist there.

Suzie has gotten involved in an investigation that may concern some foreign powers meddling in an American presidential campaign. Now, this book came out in 2014. I cannot help thinking that Christopher Steele or someone from the Clinton campaign read this book and said, “What a great idea!”

Bernie gets suspicious that things are not quite right when Suzie’s landlady, a woman named Lizette Charbonneau from Montreal, tells him the best place to stay in the city is the Chateau Frontenac. The Frontenac is a lovely place, but it is in Quebec City, not Montreal.

Though Bernie has an interesting scuffle with some bikers in the first chapter, the adventure really begins when Suzie’s main source of information is murdered. Bernie gets involved right away because he is arrested for the murder. Now, Bernie has been arrested before by crooked officials, but this time there is enough evidence to cause his arrest.

After Bernie is released, the British father of the murdered man hires Bernie to find out what he can. Neither we nor Bernie learn why he is suddenly released and even given a p. i. license for the District of Columbia until the very end. There are a lot of secrets in the nation’s capital.

Chet the dog narrates this story, too. Again, Chet notices things the humans don’t. There is a man who frequently shows up for no apparent reason, but Chet seems to be the only one who notices him. He also sees a strange bird flying around Suzie’s house. He tries to let the humans know about it, but it always flies away before they see what he is barking at.

As ever, Chet entertains the reader with his canine perspective, and it seems almost everyone is either lying or covering something up. Does truth even exist in D.C.?

John Bishop. Act of Murder. Mantid, 2019.

Act of Murder is an unusual mystery. Dr. J. R. Brady (a.k.a. Jim Bob) is an orthopedic surgeon, not even a pathologist like Quincy (though he does consult with one over a couple of patients who die in the story). He is not even directly involved in the mystery. He observes. In a sense, he is more like Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ chronicler. As Watson largely observes, so does Dr. Brady.

Brady finds himself observing immediately. He is in his back yard minding his own business when he hears the squeal of tires, a thump, and an automotive motor racing away. He runs out to the street in front of his house and sees a neighbor’s nine-year-old son lying in the road. Someone calls 911. Brady does try to revive the boy, but it is clear that he is dead.

The boy’s parents blame Brady for not saving their only son’s life, but there was really little he could do. The fact that the boy had a rare congenital brittle bone disease no doubt contributed to his nearly instant demise.

Much of the story is about Brady’s day-to-day orthopedic work at a hospital in Houston, Texas. We also get Facebook-like details about his meals—it seems doctors eat out a lot—and, as the young people say, too much information (TMI) about his love life. (It’s OK; it is all about how attractive his wife is.) Still, Jim Bob spins a decent yarn, and gradually a mystery unfolds.

Obviously, the police and the boy’s parents want to find the hit and run driver and bring the person to justice. As both a doctor and a witness, Brady is brought into the investigation. If there is a Holmes in the story, it is the young Police Detective Susan Beeson. Her father is the retired police chief and an acquaintance of Dr. Brady.

We get a sense of what upper class Houston is like, with some side trips to Galveston and Port Arthur.

We see what Brady sees, and perhaps like Brady and Beeson, we begin to make the connections. And there are many to be made.

Around the same time as the hit and run, the semi-retired CEO of Brady’s orthopedic practice announces he has prostate cancer and will be undergoing treatment. Just when it appears he is recovering, he suddenly dies in his hospital bed. Act of God, or Act of Murder?

Brady’s pathologist friend makes some discoveries as does Brady’s son, a college student who does white-hat computer hacking on the side. It all comes together in the most interesting way.

The author’s approach is distinctive, though the climax may have a bit of a stock ending. Dr. Brady “goes with the flow” and tells a story with a mystery that only a doctor could explain well.

Robert McCaw. Fire and Vengeance. Oceanview, 2020.

We enjoyed the first Koa Kāne mystery we read. This one, actually the third in the series, is just as intense. And like the other, a story like this could only happen in the fiftieth state.

Very simply, the volcano overlooking the city of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, lets off some steam sometimes. It has not erupted since 1801, but it is still live. Suddenly, a volcano vent opens up right underneath an elementary school while school is in session. Fourteen students and a teacher are killed. Many more students are hospitalized.

The overheated school is badly damaged. Now, the Big Island of Hawaii is formed by five volcanoes, three of which are still active, so a volcanic vent should be obvious to anyone getting a building permit on the island.

Indeed, as crews tear apart the remains of the school, they discover a basement wall six feet thick and a steel fire door in its middle. It looks like whoever built the school knew about the vent. That is negligence, and it could be negligent homicide.

Enter Koa Kāne, chief detective of the Hawaii County police. He is told to investigate, but both the mayor and the governor want a quick resolution. This school tragedy becomes national news. In some ways it is like a school shooting, only more deliberate.

Meanwhile Koa’s younger brother Ikaika has been in prison in Arizona where the state of Hawaii has been sending some of its prisoners. That program is being phased out, and almost as soon as he gets back to a prison in Hawaii, Ikaika passes out. He is hospitalized, and the doctors make a discovery that may partly explain his criminal behavior.

No sooner does the investigation begin than one of the contractors who built the school and the architect who designed it are murdered. There appears to be a serious cover-up going on, but the mayor and governor are still looking for a quick resolution.

As the plot thickens, Koa discovers political corruption at some of the highest levels in the county and state and a connection to a bizarre murder in the 1970s that has never been solved. This is another plot-driven mystery that gets bigger and bigger. And to solve what prove to be multiple crimes requires a lot of ingenuity and plotting on the part of the Hawaii police. Yes, Fire and Vengeance is ingenious and igneous fun.

There is an interesting side note about the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Koa’s girlfriend is a park ranger there. While she does not figure as much in this story as she did in Off the Grid, we hear from her what the park is like now. It has been closed since 2018 thanks to the eruption of Kilauea, but the park service employees are working harder because of the challenges caused by the eruption.

While it is not on the same level, this reviewer gets it. This past week my school is closed like many in the country because of the Covid-19 scare. Teachers will still be going to school every day and will have to come up with ways of teaching online. It may be a break for the kids, but I am not sure that it will be much of a break for us teachers. It has already proven more time-consuming than normal school days.

There is one mystery connected with this novel, though, that is not solved to my satisfaction. The book tells us that author lived in Hawaii for twenty years but now lives in New York City. Why would anyone leave Hawaii for New York City?