Yet Another Mess in Afghanistan for John Wells to Clean Up

The Shadow Patrol by Alex Berenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another Good reads First reads giveaway--my second by Alex Berenson. Read them back to back but won't do that again--the war in Afghanistan, its futility and its damage to all the people involved, especially the young Americans is just too overwhelming in such large doses. I guess, that, having said that, the comment speaks to the realism of the stories. I liked Midnight House better than this one because I immediately had suspicions of one of the characters almost upon meeting with him. By page 259 with one sentence I knew who Stan was. That left 205 pages to go before the end and Wells tying up all the lose ends. Having figured it out, I almost didn't bother finishing the book, but I did, since I wanted to know, what if anything, would happen to the " bad" guys. That ended the way I expected, too, although the methods were disparate.

If you like Delta Forces, CIA etc and the war on Islam or maybe Islam's War on others, depending on your viewpoint, you'll like John Wells' escapades as a world weary CIA operative who has converted to Islam and is able to pass as a native while investigating crimes among the military. No one does it better than Berenson though others do it as well.

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A Fine Scottish Police Sergeant

Death of a Policeman by M.C. Beaton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This Hamish MacBeth was a first reads giveaway on Goodreads. Although it is about the 30th installment in the series, it is the first one I've read. There was a BBC show based on the books which I liked and thought it would be fun to read one of the books on which it was based. As often happens the book is better. While I love Robert Carlyle he looks nothing like the flame-haired hero of the book nor does he seem to have the same approach to the work. These are easy books to read with wonderful characterization and interesting plots. Not great literature, perhaps, but enjoyable fast reading that helps to pass away an unseasonably cold Spring day or an early dark winter's evening. Think I'll start at the beginning and get to know Hamish and his town, Lochdubh, better. It seems Detective Chief Inspector Blair has been a thorn in his side for quite awhile now and in this installment he is attempting to have MacBeth spied upon by a young officer, Cyril Sessions, who gets himself killed. Blair has been directed to help determine which local police stations should be closed in a Scottish effort to cut costs. This murder causes his plan, that Lochdubh be high on the list, to back-fire and gives MacBeth yet another opportunity to prove his value to Scottish law enforcement.

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Another Author of CounterTerrorist Activity

The Midnight House by Alex Berenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a Goodreads giveaway and the first Alex Berenson I've read. One of the nice things about these giveaways is the chance to read authors that are new to the reader and, at times, an author becomes a favorite. That is the case with Berenson.

This particular book deals with the black ops carried out by the various intelligence agencies, and they are myriad, which operate world-wide under the aegis of the American government and the most recently passed laws that hold few accountable for their actions, so long as they can be justified, even vaguely,as performed on behalf of National security. So here is an interrogation center, located in Poland, using methods no longer acceptable on US soil. The squad who ran it are home again and are being murdered one by one in various locations around the country. John Wells,a burnt out CIA operative is recalled to find out who is killing them and why.

The action spans the globe and runs from the present to the past and back again. Wells and his pal and boss, Ellis Shafer follow the trails, confused and, at times, hindered by the government until they answer more questions than they were asked.

Moving on to the next Berenson now.

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As Usual, Big, Bad America Has Brought Terrorism on Itself by Its Arrogance--Oh, Please!

The Joshua Effect by P.S. Meronek
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a Goodreads first reads and while thoroughly enjoyable it was too preachy and wordy. The central theme of the development of a method to blow up buildings using a machine hooked into preplanted C-4 during the construction phase of the buildings was interesting and confusing at the same time. The effort to discover who had come up with the plan and to find a way to prevent the threatened destruction of two more buildings within a month kept me intrigued. I guess I should have caught on earlier with all the bemoaning the heavy handed attitude of America toward the rest of the world and the resulting resentment, if not hatred, directed our way as a result.

Though I never figured it out for myself the, I suspect, desired surprise on my part at the climatic resolution just wasn't there. Instead, it was oh, ho-hum, of course. Greed, ego, power seeking wins, or almost wins, again. Amusing to think the world will ever have totally free energy--when I was a kid TV and radio waves were free--hi, there, PBS, cable, satellite etc,etc. Not only not free, but also not free of irritating commercials. Free energy? Ah, well, this is, after all, fiction.

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A Fun Read on a Cold, Blustery Afternoon

Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Received as a Goodreads first reads giveaway. An excellent example of summertime or anytime chick lit. A heroine fending for herself by taking care of orphans and discarded newborns with the aid of her younger brother. A hero, mysterious, aristocratic, disreputable. An unusual meeting of the two in which a pact is made--she will guide him throughout the seedy neighborhood in which her home for Foundlings exists, as he searches for the murderer of his prostitute mistress; he will introduce her to his aristocratic friends so that she may find a patron to support her establishment and her work.
Needless to say, the excitement of the mystery leads to many revelations in the neighborhood of the St Giles alleys, as well as many revelations about the proclivities of Lord Caire and the secrets of Mrs Dews. Danger, romance, mystery, erotica, family relationships, emotion, true love, salvation--it's all there. Easily read and enjoyed in a single sitting of one day with breaks for tea and biscuits. All neatly solved and resolved but for the mystery of the identity of the Ghost of St Giles--several suspects eliminated but several still to be explored. In another installment, perhaps?

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The Last Leg of our Fabulous Journey

Sunday March 30, 2014 Executive Suite!! 130 Comfort Inn Erie Pennsylvania 5:40 PM EST

As you may recall we decided to spend two nights in Bowling Green, especially since we had a hot tub and a nice big comfortable room. Friday, dawned rainy and foggy but by afternoon the sun had broken through and the clouds were huge puffy and tall but all in all the day was quite nice. We read and in general reveled in what we felt would be our last Southern warm day. The weather looked as though it was going to move out ahead of us and by staying the extra day we hoped to assure ourselves of clear driving the rest of the way home. I started The Devil’s Backbone : The Story of the Natchez Trace. It is very interesting but is slow paced and the author throws in not only the names of the people who traveled the Trace and their enterprises but also their ancestry complete with names and locations. There is no sense trying to read the book quickly because it only leads to confusion and back tracking to clear it up. It is not difficult reading, just slow.

On Saturday we woke up to rather heavy rain—the Weather channel had said it would be well past us and the USA Today maps showed the whole area clear. Well, so much for trusting anything you hear on TV or read in the papers. We had the most hellacious rain and wind and horrible driving from Bowling Green all the way to Cincinnati. I amused myself by playing tag with the windshield wipers—how many pictures could I take between swipes? As you can see I was successful more times than I thought possible. Needless to say, with the rain and the mist from the trucks I didn’t take many shots. Notice, though, that the weather has become cold enough that I’ve put away my sandals and am again in sneakers. It was in Cincinnati on the way South that I first put on my sandals and also gave up my sweaters. I haven’t dug them out yet, but I think I’m about to do so tomorrow.  The traffic was quite heavy especially across the Ohio from Covington, Ky into Cincinnati, Ohio, Haven’t a clue where the Ohio welcome sign was—probably obscured by some truck or other.  After dinner at Applebee’s we retired early—both of us quite tired from a stressful day on the road.

Fortunately, today dawned cold but bright with sunshine. We didn’t see any snow until some distance north of Cincinnati and then it was very little and obviously had been dropped yesterday.  We stopped at a rest area and could see how the wind blew it –even up the trunks of the trees. I was able to remember where some of the Ohio barns were this time so I could add pictures of them to my collection. It wasn’t too hard to drive through Columbus even though there was enough traffic—it is pretty much a straight shot. Up around Mansfield we began to see significant snow—and it is fresh. Looks as though that extra day in Bowling Green was good after all. Instead of the torrential rain we would have been far enough north to hit the snowfall. I’d rather have the rain and so would Bill.

There is a good loop road around Cleveland so we really don’t have too much of that traffic. Although we had planned on making Batavia today we decided to stop in Erie—we’d still covered over 300 miles. It will be a long haul to Barbara’s in Saratoga tomorrow but we’ll head out early. She says there is supposed to be a wintry mix in the morning near her. Our weather seems to show clear and partly cloudy along our route==of course, there are no guarantees.

Bill will stay at Barb’s Monday night and then go on home and I’ll spend a few days with her before heading back to Vermont. I like to delay it as long as possible—mud season, leftover dirty snow, flooding in the fields—not in any hurry to see that. For tonight we have a four room suite with another hot tub. Sounds like a plan for me—then Call the Midwife, Selfridges and ,if I can, I’ll fit in the Good Wife otherwise I’ll stream it later in the week. So, the next missive you will all receive will be my summary with which I always end our trips but it won’t be until I’ve been in Vermont for a bit—there is mail to be opened, unpacking to do etc, etc,etc. Til then, thanks for coming along with us on our journey. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we have and that you will join us again the next time we hit the road!  Night all KandB

Trace to Nashville then On to Bowling Green

Thursday March 27,2014 Room 306 Sleep Inn Bowling Green, Kentucky 7PM CST

Continued on the Trace in on again off again drizzle ---at least through the remainder of Mississippi and the tiny bit of Alabama across which the road runs. Although we saw none of the promised daffodils yesterday and the Trace people said the large field was located south of French Camp, we did see several clumps here and there and several large swath of them, especially in Tennessee.

They are in really strange locations, not near any cellar holes or other evidence of ancient habitation. Also, though they are “ naturalized “ as bulb catalogues describe the scattering, they are in many places just a single clump—the rest could not have all been planted and died out! So, I did a bit of research to determine whether they could be wild. It seems they are—BUT since daffies are not native to North America they must be escapees from earlier planted gardens. It seems that like all angiosperms they form seeds and, though bulbs are the more successful method of propagation, the seeds will germinate if they fall in favorable conditions. The plants produced are smaller than the garden variety and they also take anywhere from five to seven years to bear flowers. This explained the presence of multitudinous clumps that we easily recognized but that had not borne flowers nor did they seem to have buds in the offing. At any rate, like all daffies they were wonderful touches of golden sunshine on an otherwise dreary day. Very few trees leafing out and those that were are really more encased with a slight haze of color indicating swollen but not yet opened leaf buds.

In several places along the road in Mississippi there were swaths of trees that had been blown down since we passed through here in February—there were certainly several areas of very gusty winter winds if not outright tornadoes. In one area the very large trees had been blown over on the edge and fell right across the two lanes of the road. Glad we weren’t here for that!

Once we crossed Cedar Creek at Bear Creek Mound we entered Alabama and came across fields that will be planted in corn a bit later when the ground starts to dry out. There was, however, a field of cotton already planted for this year. Alabama line is 310 miles from Natchez so we pass through a good distance of Mississippi on the Trace—as a matter of fact most of the Trace is in Ms—since it is only 444 miles to Nashville from Natchez. We cross the Tennessee River within a few miles of the Al-Ms line which is really interesting. That river flows in a very  strange path to the Ohio! Although the next picture shows us entering Tennessee it is really a distance from the river but the scenery didn’t change very much so I didn’t take many pictures.

Once in Tennessee we had entered Mid-Temperate hardwood forest—no more stands of pine, no more magnolia, lots of oaks with last fall’s leaves still clinging to them. The greenest thing around is the grass at this time of year and the clumps of daffodils and clumps of leeks—which by the way, according to my research are connected linguistically, at least, to daffodils.

Let’s see if I can explain this clearly. St David is the patron Saint of Wales and the daffodil is his flower. In Welsh, which I’ll neither try to spell nor pronounce, the name of the daffodil translates as Peter’s ( who knows why ) leek AND the leek, as we all know, is the symbol of Wales!

Shortly after Little Buffalo River is the Tobacco Farm and Old Trace drive. I didn’t photograph the field of cut tobacco nor the inside of the empty tobacco barn—probably have a dozen pictures of both—when growing, when harvested and hanging in the barn and when the harvested field is dry and the barn empty—but we did take the Trace drive—which is always scary because there is an area where it runs dangerously close to the eroding edge of a very high ridge. Still, I love driving on it and looking through the trees to the fields of the farms below. For most of its short distance it isn’t much different than that “two lane paved road” I found to follow in Louisiana the other day! This time I spotted a red-tailed hawk perched in a tree looking over the valley, too. Bill backed up slowly—got me right opposite the hawk—I opened my window—lifted my camera--------------and the hawk yawned and lifted himself off the limb and with wide-spread wings and tail flew swiftly through tangled branches and out of sight. How do they, with such a wing-span fly through that mangled mess so swiftly and without mishap? Amazing!

When you return to the main Trace you soon come to the Baker Valley overlook and my favorite farm in this part of the country. I have a zillion shots of it framed by that tree but I just love it.

Then it was onto that part of the Trace we followed weekly while staying in Nashville last Fall. Took shots of the ever present, throughout the country, of these ugly but graceful turkey vultures. Soon we crossed the beautiful white bridge that crosses the Franklin historical area—it is the bridge that every website and brochure use to depict the beauty of the Trace.

Stopped at Loveless Café on the off chance we might get a table—much of the parking lots are out of view so I didn’t know they were packed. The wait was 45  minutes to an hour. No way—there isn’t food delicious enough to wait for it. I should have remembered the whole town is packed with this March Madness stuff! So, off we went down Old Hickory Blvd under trees so full of blossoms they looked covered in snow. Got on 65 north and struggled through traffic and roadwork until finally across the Cumberland and headed to the suburbs the traffic thinned out.

Traveled the remaining hour or so to Kentucky and Bowling Green. Ribs for me and Pork loin for Bill at Smoky Pig. Then to the Sleep Inn. We are staying two nights—trying to get in just a little more warmth if not sun before truly entering the North and the eastern time zone and the return to what is left of winter—probably another month to month and a half.

Have a nice double hot tub, books to read, a River walk park, if it doesn’t rain all day tomorrow and maybe a museum if we feel like it. NOT the Corvette plant and museum—have done that several years ago and have no desire to see a sinkhole close up. Tomorrow, therefore,may be a slow picture – blog day. Just another lazy day!

Have to go—cute Cavuto is on---just love him. Goodnight all, KandB