Assassin's Creed: Forsaken - Oliver Bowden

I had been watching the first book of this series on eReaderIQ, because I thought it would be interesting. When we went to HPB, I was shocked to see three copies of this book in the clearance section! After a quick search to make sure it was okay to read them out of order (it is), I snagged this one up. It was in perfect condition and was only $2! 

This is the fifth book in the series. If you know anything about the Assassin's Creed video games, the books are separated the same way. There's a period of history the game/story focuses on, and the story is centered and unique to that particular era. I don't know a ton about the lore associated with this series, but that's my impression of it.

In this book, Haytham is still a young man when his father is murdered, and his sister is kidnapped. His father was teaching him to fight, and a Templar named Birch takes Haytham under his wing. As he ages, Haytham learns that both Assassin and Templar believe in what they're doing, and he ends up caught in the middle, not sure he really believes in either. The era is what I would call American Revolution.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the writing style, even though it was in first person. It takes away some of the tension you would feel for the main character, because there wouldn't be more book if he had died, but Haytham's life was a sad and lonely one. The book was really good, and I look forward to reading more of Bowden's work. Out of the 10 books currently in the series, only 8 are written by Bowden. I'm not going to keep track of the others at this time, but you never know what the future holds! Good Book!

Sergeant Rex - Mike Dowling

My next nonfiction book was an easy pick. I love dog stories. Rex was a MWD and one of the first sent to Iraq. At that point, there hadn't been any K9 units since Vietnam, so the entire group was going in as guinea pigs. The troops they were stationed with weren't sure what to do with them. Mike had to take the initiative to show the officers what Rex was capable of. In no time, the K9 team a vital part of the group.

Rex has a personality the guys in the 2/2 Warlords end up loving. The team gets into firefights, but Rex and Mike prove their bravery every time. Not only were they courageous, Rex found caches of weapons and materials that would've been used for IEDs.

This is one of the better autobiographies I've gotten to read. Rex's personality really comes through. Mike sprinkles his past in the story at various points, but it wasn't in a jarring way. The writing style was easy to read, and I was invested in the story.

One thing I will point out is the pictures. The whole time I was reading, Mike would mention taking pictures, and I kept wondering if pictures were included. I hit the epilogue, then the acknowledgements, and then...there they were! The pictures were wonderful and cover many of the moments I wanted to see.

SPOILER: I'm sorry Mike wasn't able to adopt Rex. He did a wonderful thing by passing the opportunity on to a fellow soldier. It was a heartbreaking end to the story of a man who loved Rex so much. Even if it was the right thing to do, it was a bummer. I'm happy Rex made it through all his tours and got to live out his life in retirement.

Good Book!

Murder with Puffins (Meg Langslow #2) - Donna Andrews

When I saw this book at HPB, I knew I had to have it. I love birds, so seeing it was an instant purchase. It was $2. I knew absolutely nothing about it. I just saw "murder" and "puffins," and I was on board. Even though I was burned recently with the absence of owls in An Owl Too Many, this was a totally different author. And I couldn't resist the cute puffin.

Meg has come to the small island of Monhegan off the coast of Maine to spend some quiet time away from it all with her boyfriend, Michael. To her dismay, most of her family appears to be on the island as well. To top it off, a hurricane has picked the island to torment, and the local curmudgeon ends up dead.

The murderer is trapped on the island, and it seems that everyone is a suspect, including Meg's father and her aunt. Meg has something of a reputation (according to her father) as a detective, since she recently solved another mystery. That happened in book 1, Murder with Peacocks.

I really enjoyed this book! The writing was easy to follow, and there were actual puffins! Okay, so the entire book isn't cover to cover puffins, and one of the puffins isn't in the best shape (as in it's dead), but I learned facts about puffins that I didn't know, and it wasn't shoehorned in there in an irritating way.

In total, there are apparently 37 books in this series. That was a bit of a downer at first, but I did a bit of research, and it doesn't look like they have to be read in order. I added the author's name to my watch list on eReaderIQ, so hopefully, I'll be able to get more bird-related murders solved in the future! Good Book!

The Hastings Conspiracy - Alfred Coppel

This was another one of my epic finds from the trip to the book store a few months ago. This particular book was on a clearance rack, and I ended up getting it for $1.

The book has a number of story lines, which overlap at times. A member of the CIA has taken the details of a contingency plan with the intent of sharing it. It's a plan for the invasion of Britain. A spy, Brede, is sent to Britain to meet up with an old friend. When Brede arrives, his friend's car blows up, taking away any chance for him to relay what he knows.

What follows is a twisty, turvy road involving multiple countries and a lot of nefarious intentions. Some of the characters had similar names, which gave me fits at times. The Russian guys that all started with K were the bane of my existence. Even if I could differentiate one name from the other, then I had to keep their roles separate. Then there was the Davis/David scenario. These two confused me as well.

The last part of the book was fairly interesting. I could tell it was a James Bond-ish story, so it had to have the obligatory disposable woman (although at the end, he goes back for her). She was more of a hindrance and only really came in handy once, so I wasn't really a fan of her. She also had a very strange attitude about the man who was taking care of her (the blown up guy). Not a fan of her.

So, the book was okay, but I wasn't sucked into the story. I didn't care about the characters since they would only show up for brief periods of time and disappear. I never really understood the son's motivation since he was barely in it. It was an okay book, but I don't see myself recommending it to anyone.

The Daughter of Auschwitz - Tova Friedman

Tova (who has gone through a few name changes through her life) was very, very young when she was first living in the ghetto in Poland and spent most of her childhood in concentration camps.

The book is written in an easy to read manner. The horrors this child went through were so difficult for me to wrap my head around. Thinking about children today, I can't really imagine most of them able to stay quiet/hidden/still for an entire day.

Sometimes I wonder about Tova's memory when it comes to those really early years, but I don't have any really traumatic events to compare. I do notice especially happy and tragic things are easier to remember, so I can't say for sure. It's just hard to accept that level of detail from a child that young after so many years. I'm not saying it didn't happen - I'm wondering how accurate the memories are.  

I commend Tova for her willpower and bravery. I admire anyone who had the courage to not only make it through the Holocaust, but to also relive those events so future generations can learn from the past. A fair amount of this book deals with Tova's life after being freed from the camp, and I always appreciate when these memoirs include that time of the subject's life. It's important to realize that freedom from the camps wasn't the end of these stories.

This was a good book, and one of the better Holocaust survivor stories I've read. Good Book!

Ragman - Ray Fawkes

My daughter picked this up at our favorite game store. She'd had exposure to the character through one of the shows she'd watched (I think it was Arrow). She'd really enjoyed the character and snatched up this comic.

Rory is the sole survivor of a tragic mission. Something happened when the team discovered a cloak, and now Rory is Ragman. Demons are streaming into reality, and they seem to be coming for everyone Rory cares about.

This comic went way beyond my expectations. I knew absolutely nothing about this character when I opened the cover, and when I was done, I was super sad it was over. The depth of feelings explored was surprising. Topics like survivor's guilt, grief and finding a new normal are part of this tale. I mean, demons are getting demolished as well, but the core of what attracted me to the character was the internal conflict Rory dealt with.

The art was amazing and the story so good. Ragman is a seriously underrated character. He's had a series three times, this particular one being the most recent. His first series was in the 1970s. The one that drew my interest was in the 1990s, where it gave Rory a Jewish background, and he was fighting Nazis. I'd like to read more, but it seems like Ragman is hard to find. I'll see what I can do, but my hopes aren't high for more Ragman. This particular comic was excellent though. Highly recommend it. Even if you don't know anything about Ragman (like me), I think the character arc he goes through is so well done. Great Comic!

 

The Saga of "San Demetrio" - F. Tennyson Jesse

During WWII, the San Demetrio was attacked by the German cruiser Admiral Scheer. They were part of a convoy, and the Scheer did a lot of damage. Some of the crew of the San Demetrio was killed, and the rest abandoned ship.

The next day, one of the lifeboats found a burning vessel, only to discover it was their own. They had circled back to the San Demetrio. This short book is the account of the ship, and the men who brought her back to port.

The important thing to note here is that this was published in 1942. The war wasn't over, so a lot still remained to happen. It seems the San Demetrio was actually sunk in March of 1942, but the bravery shown by the men in late 1940 was probably a huge morale boost to those who read the tale.

With something this short, it's hard to pass any type of judgement. It was basically a factual telling of the events as they happened. A member of the crew wrote a book named after the ship, and that might have been a better way to go. His name was Calum Macneil.

I didn't really have time to get bored, so that's something. I'm not going to say this is good or bad, but it was a neat story. RIP to John Boyle, the man who died on the way to land. It's nice that his estate was given some of the proceeds of the salvage. I also thought it was neat they gave Second Officer Hawkins the Red Ensign (I actually learned what that was!).

Red Ensign