Howard Pyle. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. 1883; Amazon Digital Editions, 2012. E-book.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle is one of those books that I have always wanted to read since I was a boy, but just never got around to doing it. It is fun.

In vague ways, Robin Hood is still a part of the English-speaking culture. Although I had never read Pyle’s version of the stories, I had read or seen others from time to time. The chapter on Allan a Dale, for example, does follow the basic plot line of the Allan a Dale ballad that I have read.

There are multiple archery contests, and even a few wrestling and quarterstaff matches. Robin Hood is a true gentleman. Even the people he robs he usually hosts them for dinner in Sherwood Forest. He especially is incensed against corrupt government officials like the Sheriff of Nottingham. Queen Eleanor and King Richard come off very well. He also goes after hypocritical churchmen as many were living lives quite out of line for someone who has taken a vow of poverty.

There is a lot of disguise here and derring-do. We can see how tales like these would grow, perhaps be reduplicated, and then appear in other forms. Of course in our era that would mean television and film. I can still recite the theme song from the Robin Hood television show. It was, like the show, very simple.

Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen
Robin Hood, Robin Hood with his band of men,
Feared by the bad, loved by the good
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood.

Pyle’s version of the Robin Hood stories contains a number of ballads and songs from the time period or made to imitate them. “May Ellen’s Wedding” may be part of a tradition that extends to Keats’ “Belle Dame Sans Merci” and Yeats’ “The Stolen Child.” Action, yes, but beauty and longing also.

The e-book is a freebie available from either Amazon or Project Gutenberg. The one liability is that the edition lacks the author’s illustrations. Howard Pyle was one of the most famous illustrators of the Nineteenth Century and mentor to N. C. Wyeth and many others. Still, it is a lot of fun. You can see many of the illustrations here: https://topillustrations.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/howard-pyle/

There is a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to these tales. The author writes in a deliberately pseudo-archaic style. But we can chuckle at the style just as we chuckle at some of Robin Hood’s exploits.

Some also are quite serious. This is especially true of Robin Hood’s encounter with Guy of Gisbourne, the thirteenth-century version of a hit man. He is in many ways, along with Goliath and King Herod, the original super villain.

If we are to think about it, Robin Hood really is a kind of medieval version of Batman or Spiderman: disguised, loyal followers, helps the weak, but those in authority are suspicious of him. Before Action Comics, before Tarzan, before the Three Musketeers, there was Robin Hood.

Robin Caroll. Stratagem. Uhrichsville OH: Barbour, 2018. E-book.

Have you had a chance to try your skill in an escape room? In the last few years, these have become popular venues for groups of people looking for a few hours’ fun that is a little different from miniature golf.

Well, Grayson Thibodeaux, former consulting psychologist for the New Orleans Police Department, is now co-owner of a management consulting firm that uses escape room games, among other things, to develop better corporate management techniques. He and his partner script corporate retreats. This time, though, their company is consulting with a firm that Grayson’s ex-wife works for.

We can predict what may happen. During the retreat, there are various psychological exercises, escape rooms being one of them. Then, the second afternoon of the retreat, Grayson’s ex-wife is murdered.

Grayson has an alibi, sort of. Because his ex-wife is participating in the retreat, he excused himself from being present and was two hours away for the weekend golfing with some friends. However, there are about four hours unaccounted for, so maybe he did arrange her murder. After all, he helped write the script.

Nearly everyone in the New Orleans Police Department knows Grayson because of his previous consulting work, including his friend Brandon Gibbons. Brandon and his partner, Danielle, are assigned to his case. Brandon cannot believe Grayson could have done it; Danielle thinks everything points to Grayson.

The story is told mostly from Grayson and Brandon’s point of view, but there are complications. A lot of the evidence disappears from the retreat site before the police have secured it. For example, the next week his former mother-in-law mysteriously gets the suitcase her daughter had brought to the retreat. Several details also seem to point to Grayson.

His wife had a severe allergy to cherries. Someone apparently spiked a can of her energy drink with some cherry juice. She always carried an epipen—in fact, she had packed two of them with her for the retreat. Yet, somehow, when she reacts, and, of course, recognizes what is happening, she cannot find either of the epipens. Before the ambulance can get there, she is dead.

Danielle is apparently not the only person who thinks he is guilty. His home is vandalized by someone accusing him of murder. His ex-mother-in-law, however, takes his side and believes he could not have done it.

There are a number of plot twists and New Orleans rainstorms that keep the reader guessing. This is an appealing mystery with the escape room twist. It is an original scenario, and even a somewhat original way to kill someone off. The title may be a little overstated, but it is safe to say that the killer develops a stratagem.

Perhaps there is less of a stratagem to solve the crime, but there are plural mysteries. At first it seems like Stratagem will be the ultimate closed room mystery (a escape room, after all), but we begin to see that the rooms are not nearly as closed as they first appear. Both the tension and number of suspects grow. The escape room is a clever concept that works well.

Alexander McCall Smith. The Colors of All the Cattle. Narr. Lisette LeCat. Prince Frederick MD: Recorded Books, 2018. CD-ROM. No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

We continue with reviews of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series. As usual, this contribution is pleasant, loving with a hint of danger and nemesis. As usual, there are multiple plots, not all of them having to do with crime detection, but the stories have become (dare I say it?) precious to us.

First, the crime. Precious Ramotswe, founder of the detective agency, meets an old acquaintance—a friend of her late father, a doctor who has dedicated his life to caring for the people in rural Botswana. In his eighties and more or less retired, has a condition that causes some tremors. While walking in the rural village where he lives, he is run over by a blue car that keeps on going. There are no witnesses and he is badly injured on the head and limbs. The police have done what they can, but there are no leads. The good doctor enlists Mma Ramotswe to help.

Mma Ramotswe is a loose ends about a course of action until her sometime assistant and longtime apprentice at Speedy Motors, Charlie, suggest that he might be able to help. He has an old friend named Eddie who lives in the doctor’s village, works in the local auto repair shop, and owes Charlie some kind of favor.

Charlie visits the village and talks with Eddie, who is nicknamed Giraffe because he is so tall. Eddie does not recognize the car but says he will ask around.

Meanwhile, the strong-willed Mma Potokwane, head of the orphanage, convinces Mma Ramotswe to run for the open position on the Gabarone City Council. She reluctantly accepts, mostly because the only other candidate is none other than the self-aggrandizing nemesis of Grace Makutsi, Violet Sephoto.

We note that in the later No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels, Violet Sephoto no longer directly appears in the story but lurks in the background like Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes’ London—or, one might add, like T.S. Eliot’s parody of Moriarty, “Macavity the Mystery Cat.”

Ms. Sephoto makes all kinds of broad promises, mostly the promise of various government freebies to people. Mma Ramotswe just says that she will adhere to the truth and be honest to the best of her ability.

At issue is a proposal to build a new tourist resort called the Big Fun Hotel. The problem is the developer wants to build this hotel next to the main cemetery in the city. Many locals dislike the idea out of respect for their late ancestors, but the developer has money and influence.

Grace Makutsi, Precious Ramotswe’s partner in the agency, volunteers to investigate the financing of the hotel project. She sets up a meeting with the head of the project to see what she can discover on the pretense of representing her husband’s furniture store.

Her husband, Phuti Ramaphuti, is not crazy about this. He tells his wife that, in spite of having the appearance of a patriarchy, Botswana is really run by strong-willed fat women like Mmas Potokwane and Ramotswe. This causes a rift between the married couple. Up to this point, Mma Matkutsi had been inordinately proud of her husband.

When she meets with the man in charge of the hotel project, it is clear that he had done his homework. He knows that Mma Makutsi works in Mma Ramotswe’s detective agency and a lot more. Typical of Mma Maktutsi, she does not really know what to do but manages to cover up her shoddy work.

Meanwhile Charlie is threatened. If he does not quit his investigation, he can expect injury or worse.

And Charlie’s personal life has gotten complicated, too. His current girlfriend Queenie Queenie (yes, that is her name) has been coy about her background. We learn that her family is wealthy, but she tries to keep that information on the down low for two reasons. (1) She is obviously concerned that men would be more interested in her money than in who she is. (2) Her brother, nicknamed Hercules, is a bodybuilder and has scared away most young men who have expressed an interest in her. Charlie’s encounter with Hercules does not go so well, either.

The Colors of All the Cattle is complicated fun. For example, the reader may ask how anyone could vote for Violet Sephoto over Precious Ramotswe? Still, as an American, I can look at last week’s news and see some extravagant promises made by candidates for office here. We can understand it.

As you may have noted above, we listened to a recording of this book. Lisette LeCat does an truly professional job of getting an African accent and yet speaking clearly enough so we can understand every word and a get even a greater flavor of the culture.

As always, Alexander McCall Smith’s concluding observations are delightful. His books are character driven, and they work because he loves people. This love comes through almost every sentence.

Van Wyck Brooks. The Ordeal of Mark Twain. 1922; Project Gutenberg, 27 Feb. 2013. E-book.

Van Wyck Brooks was a well-known critic a hundred years ago. If The Ordeal of Mark Twain is any indication, he was an early adopter of applying Freudian psychology to literature. This book is basically a psychological analysis of Mark Twain—loosely based on his writings with great dependence on biographers and correspondents.

The reason we read this book, though, is that it came out in 1922, and Boats Against the Current tells us that this book influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald while he was writing The Great Gatsby. From what Brooks wrote about Twain, he would probably take a similar approach to Fitzgerald—at least to a point.

The Ordeal of Mark Twain could have been a thesis paper or literary critique of perhaps fifty pages. To extend it to book length means that there is a lot of repetition.

In so many words Brooks tells us that Mark Twain was an atheist and personally cynical about American politics and institutions, but he was also a people-pleaser. He promised his mother that he would remain faithful to his Calvinist upbringing, so he would be a member of the Presbyterian Church for most of his life. According to Brooks, he deferred to his wife upper-class Olivia in his dress, behavior, and even in his word choices when writing.

Brooks believes that Twain’s literary potential was never achieved because he wrote for commercial purposes. His critiques were nearly always oblique—humorous observations of immature boys, or settings in distant places or times like the England of Henry VIII and King Arthur or the France of Joan of Arc. Brooks believes that nearly all Twain’s writing is done with his mother in mind (think of Aunt Polly). Occasionally some of his later writing might have a woman who resembled Olivia.

This, says Brooks, was Twain’s ordeal. He was a “modern” thinker. He trusted science over religion. Most of his investments—many of which turned sour—were based on new technology which he thought would revolutionize various businesses. Indeed, Brooks would tell us that Twain’s admiration of men like Andrew Carnegie proved that he was trying to secure his place in society. He sometimes suggested sympathy for the workingman in private musings, but he comes across as “establishment.”

This reviewer wonders, though, didn’t Twain help Grant write his memoirs shortly before the General and President died because he actually admired him? Not simply because he had become establishment? (Actually, both men’s origins on the Mississippi River were similar, just on different riverbanks.)

The final sentences of The Ordeal of Mark Twain say that, to use modern terms, Twain was a sellout. His works, the author claims, lack the literary quality they could have become because he was afraid to reveal how he really felt or believed. The book ends with the following exhortation:

Read, writers of America, the driven, disenchanted, anxious faces of your sensitive countrymen; remember the splendid parts your confreres have played in the human drama of other times and other peoples, and ask yourselves whether the hour has not come to put away childish things and walk the stage as poets do.

This is where, it seems, Fitzgerald comes in. From all accounts, Fitzgerald was as doting over Zelda as Twain was over Olivia, perhaps even more so. We noted how a friend of his wrote Zelda was “the role model for all the female characters in his novels…” However, it also is clear that Fitzgerald did not write to please her. Tanner shows us that Daisy is a Judas—Brooks would assert that Olivia would not have tolerated that. Indeed, Zelda may not have been too thrilled.

In Fitzgerald’s life there also may have been an influential moral figure like Twain’s mother. In his case it was Father Sigourney Fay, to whom his first novel This Side of Paradise is dedicated, and who appears in the story as Monsignor Darcy.

On the other hand, Fitzgerald could truly identify with part of Twain’s ordeal: Both men had to prove their worth to win the hand of a woman who was from high society, whether Olivia Langdon or Zelda Sayre.

Brooks was especially critical of Twain’s fatalism. Time and again he quotes Twain saying, in effect, that there is no such thing as free will, that we are all merely products of our environment. Brooks attributes this to a kind of Calvinism that says everything is preordained. The fact that Twain appeared skeptical about God but remained Presbyterian illustrates to Brooks his overall social passivity and an intellectual assent to fatalism.

In that sense, too, Fitzgerald heeded Brooks’ call. Although he would express regrets and unease of conscience from time to time, Fitzgerald left his religion behind, except perhaps as symbols the way Joyce did in his stories. Yes, Fitzgerald was aware of Christianity as some kind of ideal as we can see in the New Testament burlesque in The Great Gatsby, but he did not believe, and he lived as if he truly didn’t. In that sense he broke from Twain, who may not have believed but lived as though he did.

Like Twain, Fitzgerald was conscious of his audience and had a need to make money to keep an upper-class wife in the lifestyle to which she was accustomed. But Fitzgerald would claim that he was honest and more direct. He also dealt more directly with adult themes, “putting away” the things of his youth. (See I Corinthians 13:11 KJV) If there is a recurring theme in his writing besides “the very rich…are different from you and me,” it is the loss of innocence that comes as we grow up. Perhaps we do “put away childish things,” but are we any better for it?

Brooks also criticizes Twain’s humor. Like many comedians, Twain always feared that his writing and public speaking jokes would fall flat, that no one would laugh. The Freudian Brooks claims that the humor was kind of mask, to keep people from seeing what he really believed.

Yet when we read Twain’s two best-known books, we can see that Twain criticizes both American society and its Christian religion through his two most famous characters, youthful as they may be. Tom Sawyer’s famous whitewashing episode slyly jests at people who get rich off the work of others. Tom rails against Sunday School, and Tom appearing at his own funeral is a burlesque of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Similarly, Huck Finn says that he would rather go to hell than let escaped slave Jim be captured. That certainly challenges racial attitudes that many Americans have had. It also is noting that people will use Biblical language to justify all kinds of injustices. And yet Brooks believes that Twain held back?

Yes, there is enough humor in both stories that we can laugh. Yes, both Tom and Huck are boys. So are the main characters in most of his other popular works: The Prince and the Pauper, Puddinhead Wilson, Joan of Arc, even the nonfiction Life on the Mississippi.

Still, to this twenty-first century writer, the satire and critique come through. One might even argue that the fact that Twain pulled off such things shows us that Brooks missed it. Either America was not as straitlaced as Brooks would have us believe, or Twain was more skilled than, say, later social critics like Dreiser or Sinclair Lewis—writers who are far less subtle and, therefore, mostly less successful than Twain in both artistry and popularity.

Fred Waitzkin. Deep Water Blues. New York: Open Road, 2019. Print.

We come on the sloop John B
My Grandfather and me
Around Nassau town we did roam

Even though the Bahamas are only a four hour trip in a small boat from the coast of Florida, this reader does not know much about them. I recall pictures in Life magazine when I was a child of a high-rolling congressman gambling in Bimini. And there is that well-known folk song The Sloop John B: “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.”

Deep Water Blues is in the vein of both of those images—along with the ad copy that tells us about that paradisaical archipelago: “It’s better in the Bahamas.” The small, laid-back island of Rum Cay experiences something like a range war in the Wild West.

The author in this slightly fictionalized account “based on a true story” tells how he and his father enjoyed fishing the waters of Rum Cay. Even long after his father has died and the author is retirement age, Mr. Waitzkin would sail there periodically in his fishing rig Ebb Tide looking for prize marlin.

His observations focus on Bobby Little, owner of the island’s marina, with sketches of other inhabitants of the island. Bobby is a charismatic entertainer, telling stories and offering delicious local fare at the small eatery associated with the marina. It is idyllic, and there is a sense that most people want it to remain that way forever.

But change comes to Rum Cay in an intense and frightening way. A small boat carrying fifty or sixty refugees fleeing Haiti capsizes in a storm off the coast. Some of the people make it ashore. Bobby and his friends rescue others even as they put their own lives in danger. Some do not make it and are left to the sharks after they drown.

The shark is a recurring image throughout Deep Water Blues. They are never very far away. We see them at night in the lights by the marina. They become a symbol for the human predator lurking in Bobby’s life.

Shakespeare refers to some people like “a beast that wants discourse of reason.” Dennis is such a person. Big and strong, he is motivated by instinct only. He does not have a girlfriend, he just takes advantage of whatever woman he wants. He and they both know there is nothing they can do about it.

Bobby has a relatively carefree life cooking, tending the marina, fishing, and making sculptures out of coral. He falls for a young visitor named Hannah, and they marry. Hannah is an aspiring poet who finds the daily routine of Rum Cay delightful beyond words. The couple travel off the island for about four months, and when they return, they hardly recognize the place.

The marina is gone. Dennis is building a large resort to put Bobby out of business. Dennis has all the paperwork to show that his building projects and even ownership of much of Bobby’s land is legal. One by one Bobby’s pets and animals start dying. A lab report says they have been poisoned.

Dennis has paid off the local police, and few people on the island even talk to Bobby any more. They are afraid. Waitzkin and some fishing buddies cannot believe the changes on the island when they return after being away for three years. Dennis has “allowed” Bobby one shack to live in. Nearly everything else has been torn down.

Things begin to escalate. Bobby retaliates with his bulldozer, but soon has to escape through the bush to a sheltered spot along the island’s shore.

Between the tales of this turf war, there are stories of storms and fishing parties. The island could be the setting for an idyll. One can imagine Rousseau settling here among his “noble savages.” We can hear Shakespeare’s minstrel singing:

Here shall we see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

We understand why Waitzkin loves Rum Cay, and in spite of the violence, Deep Water Blues might kindle a desire in the reader to visit.

There is, as we have seen, a snake in the Eden. Our fallen nature brings conflict with man as well as with God. As the Raiders once sang, “You think you’re gong to find yourself a little piece of paradise?” This is elemental. Heart of Darkness. Good vs. Evil. Justice vs. Corruption.

Waitzkin writes well. His prose is understated, almost poetic. We not only see Rum Cay, we smell it, hear it, taste it, and feel its shadows and its joys. Here is a brief introduction to a furtive resident of Rum Cay:

Also, tied to the dock with frayed lines, a sailboat, once a graceful sailing sloop, rots in the harbor. Her gear is rusted out, rudder glued in place by a heavy rug of seaweed and barnacles, sails and rigging long since ruined, no lights inside, apparently abandoned; and yet, she’s parked alongside this glistening fleet of custom-built yachts like a freakish mutation. Suddenly, a man pokes his head out of the companionway. He breathes the heavy night air, smells the delicious meal drifting from the club, and looks around a little, and then goes back down below. (6)

Besides the reclusive Mike who lives on that wreck, we meet other people from Rum Cay including Biggie and Rasta, Bobby’s friends, and Flo, who used to sing lovely blues but has been silenced by Dennis. Her experience is a little like Browning’s “My Last Duchess”: “Then all smiles stopped together.”

We cannot forget Waitzkin’s sailing companions John and Doron, and the elemental sketches by John which accompany the text. Much of the text is understated, but the tale is not. Keep an eye on Flo.

Deep Water Blues is a gem. It is violent. It probably would be rated at least PG-13 if it were a film. Still, it is a tale of humanity, the image of God and the fallen Adam together. The lovely language makes the reader think, “I would like to visit that tropical isle.” But at the same time, he or she would say, “I’ve got to keep an eye on the weather and watch my back.”

James Scott Bell. Final Witness. Woodland Hills CA: Compendium P, 2014. E-book.

“You can always tell the Communist. He’s the one with no soul in his eyes.”

Those were the words of our commanding officer as a dozen or so of us “Coasties” were being briefed before boarding a cargo ship from an Eastern Bloc country back in the seventies.

Usually cargo inspections involved two or three men; however, since this ship was from a Communist country and the Communists had vowed to bury us, the boarding party was larger. We had to make sure there were no weapons or anything nuclear aboard the ship.

Yes, there was something about the eyes of the political officer, which every Communist-flag merchant vessel had to insure there were no defections and to promote the Party line. His eyes appeared to have nothing behind them. It was as if everyone knew he had made his Faustian trade for the promises of the Party.

The Party boss on the ship was probably some apparatchik who unlike most Russians (the ship and crew were not Russian, but he was) had a chance to see some of the world.

Now imagine a similar Russian with no soul who was a trained KGB assassin. Imagine that the Soviet Union has fallen, so this assassin has to look to organized crime for continued employment. He is a killer with no soul, no conscience. He is evil personified. And he is the main antagonist in Final Witness.

Final Witness bills itself as a legal thriller. It is. But the story moves along not so much by lawyers trying to outwit each other—though they do that—but by a very elemental evil personified in The Man.

Most people, even those that hire him, do not know his real name, just his street handle. He suddenly appears and just as suddenly disappears. Even if The Man is not hired to directly kill someone, he is hired to threaten, to make an offer no one can refuse. Whenever a person who is arrested hires him, the witnesses seem to suddenly disappear or change their minds. One witness to a simple hit and run in New York City disappeared and just his head was discovered at Coney Island about ten days later.

Rachel Ybarra, a law student at the University of Southern California (USC), is interning at the U.S. District Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. The book jokingly says USC stands for “University of Spoiled Children,” and this was written five years before Operation Varsity Blues made the news! She is assigned to research a murder for hire case in which a leader of the Russian Mafia known as Mr. X has been arrested for calling for the hit. Mr. X runs a limousine service, and his lawyer claims he is just an honest businessman who is being singled out because he is Russian.

The case becomes shaky as two witnesses back out. Rachel is asked to help persuade a reluctant ex-girlfriend of Mr. X to testify. The woman is in Connecticut, and before Rachel returns to California, the flamboyant lawyer for Mr. X already knows the identity of the protected witness. Someone on the inside is feeding information to the lawyer for the defendant.

Rachel soon learns how that is done when The Man accosts her. He is disguised, so she cannot recognize or describe him. He makes his business clear. Give me information about the trial of Mr. X, and you and your grandmother will live.

The Man is diabolical, literally. He shows up at random times just to let Rachel know he is keeping tabs on her. He calls her at odd hours. He is a stalker for hire.

By the third chapter of Final Witness, the tension has grown and it does not let up. The story is a combination of a page turner and a spiritual battle.

The author is a former lawyer, and his acknowledgments include a few other barristers. Having had little experience in court—whenever I go in for jury duty, they never take me because of the above experience I had with law enforcement in the Coast Guard—I was struck how this book appears to show that nowadays witnesses are attacked by lawyers on both sides if they hold religious beliefs. I thought there was an Amendment to the Constitution that made that immaterial in most cases, but apparently not. Perhaps we will be hearing of people taking the First the way witnesses now take the Fifth.

As in many such tense tales, Rachel does not know whom to trust. Two FBI agents were assigned to protect one witness in the case of Mr. X. The witness somehow kills himself like Pentangeli in Godfather II, and the agents somehow miss it. Can they be trusted? Of course, there is office politics and bullying both in the D.A.’s office and in the courtroom. Can anyone in those places be trusted?

That is just how The Man likes it. If his victim thinks he or she is completely alone, it makes his job easier and his threats more real. Rachel learns or rediscovers, though, that she is not alone. Without giving too much away, I am reminded of the words to Luther’s famous hymn:

Would we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing
Were not the right man at our side,
The man of God’s own choosing.

Final Witness is riveting. It will get your attention.

Jonathan D. Sarfati. The Genesis Account. Second ed. Powder Springs GA: Creation Book Publishers, 2015. Print.

Over the years I have read a few books relating to or about the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. This may be the book to top them all, at least for the first eleven chapters. The Genesis Account is very thorough. It covers the first eleven chapters and even the first four verses of Chapter 12 in great detail.

Nearly any significant word in the Hebrew is translated for us, often with the Septuagint (LXX) Greek. Sometimes related words are used to help illustrate the meaning. I am not exaggerating when I say that hundreds of commentaries and interpretations are referred to. Especially prominent are Rabbinical commentaries, Reformers, and scientists.

Yes, Sarfati clearly presents his own interpretations, but he lets others speak as well. Even if the reader does not agree with his understanding of a certain point, he understands the author’s position and normally sees the positions that others take.

Since Genesis is mostly history and not prophecy, the book does take a stand. With prophetic books like Ezekiel or Revelation, we may understand different ideas concerning them and appreciate them, but we also realize that we will not completely understand the prophecies until they have been fulfilled. Not so with Genesis. It is detailed history and genealogy.

Yes, different individuals may interpret historical events differently—see, for example, our review of Confederates in the Attic—but it is hard to deny that the Civil War occurred. So Sarfati devotes much of The Genesis Account to present evidence that these events did indeed occur.

Until Lyell, who consciously mocked the “diluvialists,” nearly everyone around the world regardless of religious belief or lack thereof believed in a relatively young earth and a worldwide flood. Sarfati presents much evidence for both. Evolutionists have too many unanswered questions. Sarfati is not afraid to ask them.

Here is one simple example. Sarfati documents about forty various historical sources that give a young age of the earth from China, India, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, Native Americans, as well as Jews and Christians. I recall years ago that the Babylonians had an age of the earth of about 100,000 years B.C. instead of the 4,000-6,000 B.C. dates of most ancient sources. Sarfati explains that was due to a misreading of the Babylonian numbers which are base sixty. (Our 360 degree circle originated there). When read according to base sixty, the Babylonian dating also corresponds to roughly 4,000 years B.C. for the earth’s beginning.

There is so much information in the book that it is hard to put down—a quality not typical of most commentaries. I recall reading an editor’s introduction to one of Isaac Newton’s books on Bible prophecy (yes, that Isaac Newton was a Bible scholar) which said that Newton was an Arrian who did not believe in the Trinity, though he identified with the Puritans. Sarfati documents that was not the case. Newton did question whether a few parts of the Bible were canonical (notably I John 5:7 KJV, which nearly all serious scholars today say was added later) but this book quotes some writings of Newton which show his orthodoxy on the doctrine of the Trinity.

Yes, from ancient Babylon to some of the most recent discoveries in physics and genetics, Sarfati demonstrates how it all reflects what the first quarter of the Book of Genesis tells us. He mentions D. Russell Humphreys a few times, for example. I confess that no one can say Sarfati is 100% accurate. His interpretation of Nephilim (Genesis 6:4) is weird—but so are nearly everyone else’s. So what else is new? That 2014 film about Noah showed a much weirder idea…

There is a lot to absorb, possibly even to re-read, but there is a lot to remind the reader that God is truly awesome.

Christy Barritt. Hazardous Duty. River Heights, 2012. E-book. Squeaky Clean Mysteries.

—————. Ready to Fumble. River Heights, 2017. E-book. Worst Detective Ever Series.

Christy Barritt’s mysteries are told in a lighthearted tone in the first person, but the stories are fairly serious at the core.

Hazardous Duty tells of Gabby St. Claire, crime scene cleaner. Yes, that is a thing. She is hired to clean up after messy crime scenes. In this case, she is cleaning up the house of a Virginia gubernatorial candidate whose wife has been murdered. She finds a pistol that somehow the police missed (it was hidden under a floorboard), and while she is still cleaning up, someone sets fire to the house.

Gabby is single, and there is a helpful male neighbor who has just moved in from California. He is a lawyer but has decided to start over after a broken engagement. Only it turns out that his almost future father-in-law is the man running against the newly-widowed candidate for state office.

There is also a police detective who is alternately annoying and helpful. Of course, he probably feels the same way about Gabby. There is enough interest to keep reading to find out whodunit. This is first in the Squeaky Clean Mysteries series. Besides an introduction to an occupation I had not known existed, this is as much a romance as mystery.

The romance element seems a little contrived, but Gabby is observant, and as we know from Sherlock Holmes, that can make for becoming a decent detective.

Ready to Fumble is a lighthearted, first-person mystery that had a little more traction for this reader. Joey Darling has played the title role in a popular detective show about a tough female detective named Raven. The show was canceled partly because of the bad publicity her ex-husband was sharing with tabloids about their breakup. All her property was in his name, so she is broke except for some residuals from reruns.

She is a native of Virginia and returns East to look for her father who has suddenly gone missing. She gets a job in the North Carolina Outer Banks (off-season) as a hairdresser because she thinks her father might be there. Before she got her acting break, she had a hairdresser’s license. She also obtained a Private Investigator license in California just to get a better idea of her television role—a true method actor.

Even in the off-season Outer Banks some people recognize her, and she is asked to find a missing boyfriend. She explains that she is not really a detective. Her “client” knows that but gives her an advance that she cannot refuse. When she tracks down the boyfriend to a cheap motel, she finds his murdered body.

She realizes that the room is staged just like one of the episodes of her show. Other weird things happen. She finds that the local police and federal marshals have been following the boyfriend and some of his connections. She works with the police detective Jackson and her surfer neighbor Zane.

I detect some plot similarities between the two books (a helpful, good-looking single neighbor?), but this one is more tense and fast-paced. The mystery gets wider and weirder. Joey does help the police solve the mystery—and just in the proverbial nick of time.

These events distract her from her real reason for being in North Carolina, namely to find out what happened to her father. She gets a few clues, but I guess if we want to find out what happened to him, we will have to read the next installments.

If it promises to be more mystery and less boyfriend-romance, the Worst Detective Ever series is probably worth another look. But if you like the romance, the Squeaky Clean Mysteries may suit you as well.

Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger. Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans. New York: Sentinel, 2017. Print.

Those of us alive in the fifties or early sixties might recall a popular ballad called “The Battle of New Orleans.’

In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississipp’
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans

The ballad was humorous and exaggerated, but it did distill the essence of the Battle of New Orleans in December of 1814 and January of 1815. This little volume, Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans, tells a more factual story of the battle, and that it was truly miraculous in nature.

We do get some background concerning Andrew Jackson. During the American Revolution, he watched as an older brother was scalped by British soldiers. He would say that he waited twenty-five years to avenge his brother’s death.

Jackson actually was a militia general, not a colonel, in 1814. He had successfully fought Creek Indians who were attacking some settlements in Tennessee and Alabama. He made a reliable and respectful peace with their leader, Red Eagle, a.k.a. William Weatherford.

Receiving instructions from Washington to go to New Orleans to counter a possible English attack, Jackson managed to round up a team that included militias from several states and territories, free blacks, Indians, sailors from many nations, and pirates. They were still greatly outnumbered. Their ammunition was in short supply.

This would be the last battle of the War of 1812, a war that had not started out especially well for the Americans. Washington was burned. The fact that that did not turn out worse was something of a miracle itself. As the British were beginning to burn the capital city down, a strong rainstorm, likely accompanied by rare tornado, limited their actions. And, as we all know from our national anthem, Baltimore held.

What was new to this reader was the significance of New Orleans. Yes, it was the key port at the mouth of the Mississippi River and that whoever controlled that could hold down the rest of the center of the continent. That was demonstrated by Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan during the Civil War. I wonder if Scott got this from studying the War of 1812. But there was more.

Though originally settled by France, Spain was given the Louisiana Territory after the Seven-Years’ War (America’s French and Indian War). Though culturally French, it remained Spanish until Napoleon conquered Spain. As a result, since England was still fighting Napoleon in 1814, England did not recognize either the French rule of Louisiana or the Louisiana Purchase in which France sold the territory to the United States.

The admiral leading the attack on New Orleans, if the attack were successful, was to be named Governor of Louisiana. The British-proposed terms of the peace treaty with the United States being hashed out in Ghent, Belgium, included language indicating that Britain would retain whatever territory it was holding at the time the treaty was ratified.

Although the three Americans negotiating the treaty—Albert Gallatin, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay—had different interests and were often at odds with one another, they recognized there was substance behind the inclusion of such a statement in the proposed treaty. They warned Washington that something was likely afoot.

Indeed, a fleet of about fifty vessels was being assembled in Jamaica to attack the Gulf Coast. Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans details the fighting. Against great odds, Americans held control of Mobile Bay, so the British decided to attack New Orleans directly from the “toe” of Louisiana’s boot.

There is a lot about the culture of New Orleans. Most people in New Orleans spoke French. Fortunately for Jackson, his old friend and former congressman Edward Livingston had married into the Creole society and was an esteemed New Orleans resident.

We learn that the British approached pirate Jean Lafitte about helping them with the promise of a large sum of money and release from any outstanding warrants. Lafitte, a Frenchman at heart, did not trust them and reported to the leaders in New Orleans that he had met with them and what their plans were.

There was more intrigue, but read the book for yourself to find out.

Kilmeade and Yaeger note that among the soldiers fighting for Jackson were future congressman David (“Davy”) Crockett and future governor of Texas Sam Houston.

We also get a sense of Jackson’s skill as a military leader. He was greatly outnumbered (though the figures have gotten hazy in history) in most of his Indian battles and in his encounters with the British, but he was persistent and brave. The men who served under him admired his resourcefulness. He was practical and took reasonable advice wherever it came from. The recommendation that he build up a line around a disused canal adjacent to the River using cotton bales may have come from a slave. That made no difference to him.

The Battle of New Orleans insured that the Mississippi River would remain American. It also brought Andrew Jackson national fame and admiration. That fame plus his respect for the common man would eventually propel him to the White House.

From Kilmeade and Yaeger’s persepctive, there was one other power behind the miracle of New Orleans: the Convent of the Ursuline Nuns. Not only did the convent become a hospital for the wounded of both sides, but its sisters prayed fervently that their city would be protected. Even today every year on January 8 there is a solemn mass at the convent thanking God for His deliverance on that day in 1815.

Louise A. Fugate. A Shadow of Good Things to Come. Bloomington IN: West Bow, 2014. Print.

The title of the book comes from Hebrews 10:1 which tells us that the Hebrew Law is “the shadow of good things to come.” The good things in particular are the blessings and promises of the Messiah and Messianic Age.

The book A Shadow of Good Things to Come is an overview of the narratives of the Bible from Creation until King David. It emphasizes the Covenant and Messianic promises woven through these stories. For someone familiar with the Bible, this is kind of a review with a focus.

Much of the time this is like a Bible story book for adults. Probably the strongest chapters are the ones on the Tabernacle and on the Priesthood. This does supplement the New Testament Book of Hebrews and brings the prophetic aspect of the structure and service in the Tabernacle.

This is far from the first book to do this sort of thing. Books by C. W. Slemming and Alfred Edersheim have attempted something similar, but this is certainly uplifting, encouraging, and refreshing for the reader to review.

Although the copyright page says that West Bow is a division of Thomas Nelson, a venerable publishing house, this reader is under the impression that this may be their self-publishing imprint. There were a number of notable spelling errors. The verb bear was consistently spelled bare, which could be confusing. Fortunately, it was spelled correctly whenever it appeared in a Bible quotation.

To get some insight into the prophetic significance of some of the stories in the Hebrew Scriptures, this book could be quite helpful and eye-opening.

Disclosure of Material: We received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through the BookCrash book review program, which requires an honest, though not necessarily positive, review.