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Fiction And the winner is – SAVAGE LIBERTY : A Mystery of Revolutionary America By Eliot Pattison 387 pp. Counterpoint Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo This is the second book by Pattison I have reviewed and the fifth I have read. I have a passion for historical novels, and mysteries in particular. Eliot Pattison delivers both history and mystery, and no more so than in Savage Liberty . Following up in the Bone Rattler series, protagonist Duncan McCallum returns as the skilled warrior-hero who dares all and survives by his strength and wits. No matter we have to suspend disbelief at times - McCallum evades more death traps than Indiana Jones, escapes traitorous allies, is blind-sided by self-serving American patriot rebels, is chased and tortured by self-serving Royalists, and finds himself once again the target of Lord Ramsey’s revenge for daring to love his daughter. This is the classic entertainment portion of a Pattison novel. It works for the most part. In Boston harbor abo...

Fiction The wretched empress THE IMPERIAL WIFE By Irina Reyn 276 pp. St. Martin’s Press Reviewed by Dennis Rizzo The Imperial Wife  leaves us pondering the lives of Catherine the Great, Russian Empress, and Tanya Kagan Vandermotter, Russian Arts Specialist for fictional, upscale New York auction house Worthingtons. Either way, we are immersed in a world of immeasurable wealth, hauteur, and emotional ennui. Early on, we see that the label “imperial wife” could refer alternately to Tanya or Catherine. In fact, Reyn organizes the book as a series of back-and-forth chapters; at one point talking about Tanya’s rising star and failing marriage, at another discussing Catherine’s rising fortunes and despondent regal fiancé. Tanya’s entrance to wealth and privilege may as well refer to Catherine’s entrance into the world of Czarist Russia.   Can you even imagine an immigrant girl who finds herself in a gilded auction house, a junior cataloguer trainee in a palace of glass and white wal...

Fiction Stories my mother would never tell The Ivan By Erin Eldridge 189 pp. Austin Macauley Publishers  Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo The Ivan is set in Berlin at the very end of World War Two, during the occupation of the city by Russian troops and just prior to the division of the city following formal surrender. I was drawn to this book by stories told to me by my father, stories my mother would never tell. My mother was born and lived in Vienna and went through the Nazification and then the Russian occupation of that city. She had friends and relatives who disappeared. She had a cousin who wandered back virtually catatonic from an SS unit he had been conscripted into – he was sixteen. The experiences she never would discuss are summed up well in Eldridge’s story of Elise, Erich and Valery (the Ivan), including life in the shelters and basements. They had no news of events outside of their hiding place, no way of knowing anything about the status of the final battle for Berlin. ...

Nonfiction Working-stiff workers left behind LISTEN, LIBERAL -or- Whatever Happened to the Party of the People? By Thomas Frank 308 pp. Henry Holt Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo I suspect Thomas Frank is one of the few people not surprised by the victory of Donald Trump. Clairvoyant? Prophetic? Maybe. Perhaps simply willing to look beyond conventional wisdom and the smug predictions of egocentric pundits. In a little over three hundred pages, Frank explains how the Democratic Party self-destructed, forgot its roots in the working class, and convinced itself that it still stands for the wage earner while pandering to Wall Street and other typically “Republican” entities. I would have been convinced at one hundred pages, but he’s the writer. Listen, Liberal is written in the style of investigative journalism. This means you are provided with facts, figures and verifiable information in such a way that your eyes don’t glaze over after two pages. I could have dismissed this as yet another in...

Fiction Making certain we’re not certain THE PEOPLE OF THE BROKEN NECK By Silas Dent Zobal 352 pp. Unbridled Books Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo Shell shock. Battle fatigue. It’s had many names over the years. Now we know it as PTSD. Silas Dent Zobal peels back the layers of Dominick Sawyer, ex-Ranger, ex-husband, and father to two tweens whom he is afraid of losing. The People of the Broken Neck brings us into a desperate struggle of one person to protect his family. From whom or what remains uncertain until the last chapter. Zobal builds strong characters and gives each enough instability to create doubt in our minds. We might see the distancing and sparring between son, Clarke, and father as a natural component of teen years. We might see the dreams and nightmares of the daughter, Kingsley, as part of the uncertainty she is facing. We might look at Dominick and see a scared, yet protective parent – or a deeply disturbed veteran steeped in paranoia. Charlie, the diligent FBI agent, ple...

Fiction Double trouble PARADIME – A NOVEL By Alan Glynn 255 pp. Picador Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo What would you do if you discovered someone was your double? Not just “kind-a looks like you”, but a real double. The laws of probability say it’s fairly possible. Some of us have had the experience, or know those who have. In  Paradime , Alan Glynn explores what might be, and what might result. Danny Lynch, a two-tour veteran of Iraq and sometime sous chef, now slipping in and out of work in Manhattan, stumbles onto what he thinks is an opportunity to make some cash. I then stand there, staring through the window, and it takes me a while to see it, for it to click – my own reflection in the glass is superimposed on Trager. He’s facing in my direction but is busy with his phone and doesn’t appear to see me. For my part, I switch focus from one image to the other, from mine to his, and back again, until I get confused...Trager scruffy and unshaven one second, me groomed and in a ...

Fiction A set of lies agreed upon RETURN TO TAYLOR’S CROSSING By Janie Dempsey Watts 277 pp. CreateSpace Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo I recall my Austrian-born mother being chastised by an elderly matron for innocently drinking from the “colored only” fountain at an Oklahoma bus station. In Return to Taylor’s Crossing , Janie Watts has penned a story that draws out memories like this from anyone living in America in the 1960s. It is clear she is drawing on personal experiences living in the Deep South; her character’s white bigotry rings all too true. Interestingly, she has also used colloquial dialogue in her characters, requiring some   familiarity with the phrases and idioms. Dropped conjunctions and disrupted tenses are characteristic. “Care for some pie?” he said.   “I’m putting away this slaw,” she said.   Old Miss Lizzie, who wore red lipstick that matched her New Testament she carried in her pocket piped up. “Go ahead, Lola, I take care of it.”   “Are you sure...

Fiction Unraveling in America NATIVE BELIEVER By Ali Eteraz 272 pp. Akashic Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo Any society tends to be xenophobic. Outsiders are scanned and tested and permitted entry only upon assuaging the fear (or guilt) of the group. In  Native Believer , Ali Eteraz gives us a character who has been successfully assimilated; so he is led to believe. Set in the first person, our unnamed protagonist starts off as a medium-level ad executive at a medium-level advertising firm in Philadelphia. Eteraz chooses average-to-mundane for all of the settings, including Philadelphia. It’s not New York, not ‘top of the barrel’, but life is good. M (as he refers to himself at one point) embraces the new boss at work, then is fired because the boss finds a Koran in M’s apartment. This duplicity startles both M and his Southern-born wife because they have been studiously non-religious. M was not even aware his mother had placed a Koran on the very top shelf of his bookcase, to be disco...

Nonfiction Typhoid Mary and pungent stew THE PRISONER OF HELL GATE By Dana I. Wolff 212 pp. Picador Reviewed by Dennis C. Rizzo Dana Wolff is a pseudonym; something adopted to hide a real identity. The Prisoner of Hell Gate might also be considered a pseudonym. The book's eerie premise is well-conceived and then hidden in an undergrowth of information dump and affected events. At 212 pages this really should be a novella and might work better as a short story or expanded to a full-length piece. I read it in about two hours. That said, The Prisoner of Hell Gate has hidden merits. The East River in New York City is a place long associated with the disposition of unwanted members of society, whether via prisons, asylums, or mob hits. It is on North Brother Island that Wolff strands her characters. The now-abandoned island hosted one of New York's most notorious asylums and was also the scene of one of the most atrocious cruise ship disasters of the early 20 th Century. It is to...