Charles Ashbacher Reviews

  Review of Runner in the Dark , by Ed Gorman ISBN 0743498100 Five out of five stars Great, intense hostage scene at the end   David and Roy Gerard are the kind of men that will make opponents of capital punishment change their minds. Both are ruthless, brutal killers that have a history of meting out death to others. Roy is in prison and scheduled to be executed. David is free and has concocted an elaborate plan to free his brother moments before he is to be killed by the state.   Jessica Dennis is an attractive woman that prosecuted Roy, achieving the death sentence. This makes her a prime target for retribution, so she is part of the plan. There is to be a debate in a television studio between Jessica and an aged priest named Josek, where the topic is to be the morality of capital punishment.   David Gerard’s plan is to take control of the studio as the debate is to start and trade the lives of the hostages for the life of his brother. David has access...

 Review of Lynched, by Ed Gorman, ISBN 042519082x Five out of five stars Murder mystery with many twists  Marshal Ben Tully is riding back into town after a significant absence. He does not need to have a significantly tuned radar to detect that there is something wrong in the town. He goes to his office to find a deputy lying on the ground outside, the office ransacked and a man hanging dead in a tree in the backyard.   It takes him some time to discover that his wife has been murdered and the man that was hung has been lynched for the murder. Some of the leading citizens performed the lynching and the other members of the town are very tight-lipped about the event. The man that was killed was a hobo that was passing through and went to Tully’s house with his hobo pal in hopes of acquiring some food.   While Tully initially wanted to simply drop the matter and he is strongly encouraged by the leading citizens to do so, his lawman professionalism takes char...

 Review of Where Have You Gone? Catching Up With Billy Rohr, Earl Wilson, Oil Can Boyd and Other Red Sox Favorites, by Steve Buckley, ISBN 1582619611 Five out of five stars Recap of players, not all legends  What makes this book more interesting than other books about past players for a team is that not all the profiled players were stars. Some of them had very little history while wearing a Red Sox uniform. For each player there is a page with a photo as well as a summary of his best season with the Red Sox.   For example, a profile of Don Gile begins on page 96. During his best season with the Red Sox, he appeared in 8 games and had 18 at bats. In his best season with the Red Sox, Jack Baker appeared in 12 games and had a batting average of .130. The most interesting profile of the men that were not stars is that of Carroll Hardy. He has the unique distinction of being the only man to pinch hit for Ted Williams.  The emphasis is on players that were still aliv...

  Review of Warren Buffett Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Investor , by Janet Lowe, ISBN 047116996x Five out of five stars It does indeed contain wit with the wisdom     In a world where the billionaires seem to be expanding their power and influence and exhibiting a lack of concern for the rest of the world, Warren Buffett is a breath of fresh air exception. He has clearly stated that most of his fortune will be given away and he had made what is for the uber-wealthy some rather unusual statements. He is on the record as saying that short term capital gains (less than a year) should be very heavily taxed (over 90%) in order to strongly encourage investors to invest on a more long-term basis. He has also lamented that his secretary pays a higher rate of taxes on her income than he does.   Buffett’s investment strategy is well known and he has repeatedly stated it publicly. He examines a company, looks for long-term potential earnings and i...

  Review of With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa, by E. B. Sledge Five out of five stars The brutality of the Pacific war   The author patriotically signed up to be a U. S. marine and he was a member of the famed First Marine Division that fought some of the toughest battles with the entrenched Japanese forces on the Pacific islands of Peleliu and Okinawa. Despite the American superior firepower of planes and ships, the Japanese proved to be determined fighters and capable of creating very strong defensive positions. The casualty rates of some of the marine units was 150 percent.   His account of the war is descriptive and moving. Sledge also mentions some of the nonsense of the service people that did not have the combat experience of the frontline units. Given how long Sledge’s unit was on the front lines with near constant shelling, the ubiquitous smell of death, being dirty and often soaked to the skin with no respite, it is amazing that more of the men...

  Review of Every Second Thursday , by Emma Page, ISBN 0708909221 Three out of five stars No suspense or drama   Vera Foster was found dead of a drug overdoes and given that she had tried to commit suicide via an overdose before, and there is no evidence to indicate that there was foul play, the result of the inquest is that Vera died by her own hands. At the time of her death, her husband Gerald was many miles away conversing with a business associate over dinner. Gerald took over the business of Vera’s father when he died, and all indications were that the business was thriving under his leadership.   However, there was a fleeting moment of a smile passing between Gerald Foster and Edith Jordan, a woman that was attending Vera Foster at the time of her death. This action was observed by Detective Chief Inspector Kelsey, and it raised his suspicions. With so little to go on, he was discouraged from pursuing the case further, so he had to dodge his overseers as ...

  Review of The Afghan Syndrome: The Soviet Union’s Vietnam , by Major General Oleg Sarin and Colonel Lev Dvoretsky, ISBN 0891414207 Five out of five stars   In American political circles, the phrase “Vietnam Syndrome” is used to refer to the political and social fallout from the American involvement in Vietnam. After growing increasingly unpopular, public outrage led to a pullout and recriminations. The often acrimonious discussions regarding the goals and consequences led to new political rules being put in place designed to curb the potential for future undeclared wars.   On July 7, 1979, the Soviet Red Army invaded neighboring Afghanistan. While there were some conflicts in the years when the Russian Empire bordered Afghanistan, relations between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan were generally friendly. This policy dates to the years when Lenin was in power as he saw the social, economic and political advantages of good relations with Afghanistan.   Thi...

  Review of We Stole to Live , by Joe “Fingers” Brown Five out of five stars A POW story that is a bit different   The author was captured by the Japanese early in the conflict between the United States and Japan. His rendition of his years of captivity is similar to other accounts in that they were subject to deprivation in both shelter and food. In his case the last years were spent in Japan where he and his fellow captives were put to work as manual laborers.   What makes this story different is that the men became experts at stealing food from the Japanese stores and their guards were not the brutal sadists that the guards in places like the Philippines where. One wonders regarding the reason, it is possible that the Japanese used as guards in the homeland were the least warlike and so retained some of their basic humanity.   In any case, this book sometimes reads with a hint of “Hogan’s Heroes,” in that the prisoners get away with a lot of misdirecti...

Review of Wiped: The Curious History of Toilet Paper ,  by Ronald H. Blumer , ISBN 9781489573865 Five out of five stars A history of intimate cleanliness It is impossible for humans to complete the grunting squat action without there being some residue. In the need for cleanliness and overall health, humans have found it necessary to wipe afterward. It is only recently that toilet paper as we know it has been widely available, so over the years, other items have served the purpose.     Stones, leaves and even seashells have served the purpose, with the obvious wide differences in comfort. The author is somewhat of a pioneer in that he found the background research difficult as there was very little written about cleaning oneself after losing a load. I was reminded that the use of toilet paper is more recent than at first thought. My great-aunt lived on a farm with her husband, and they struggled to make ends meet. They used corncobs to wipe.   This book i...

  Review of If You Read Me, Rock the Tower!, by Bob Stevens, ISBN 0816865051 Five out of five stars Quality humor for the aviation enthusiast   This book is a collection of anecdotes regarding the process and practice of flying airplanes. The author is a very experienced pilot, having flown combat planes in World War II and then went on to jets, at one time holding the world’s record for speed. In this case he is using his experience to amuse the reader by describing some of the more zany events in the history of flight.   The structure of the anecdotes is that there is text on the page on the left side that describes the event while the right contains a set of illustrative cartoons. The text and illustrations are both by the author and the quality of both are quite good. While there is naturally some poetic license of exaggeration in the stories, they never go too far from what is the obvious truth.   While this material is targeted at aviation enthusia...