Books – Page 11 – LOVE | ACCEPT

Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais

Is it just me or are the Cole/Pike books getting shorter and faster?

The latest from Crais in the Elvis Cole series is the fine Chasing Darkness, a tale that jostles the reader back and forth, all the while watching the L.A. skies turn from the tawny hues of fire season to the crystalline azure of the conclusion. The story is filled with false conclusions and suspects that we have come to expect in Cole’s work but with some easy-to-miss changes that allow him to emerge as more of a thinker; the unexpected tranquility of Pike for example, has he entered a Zen state where the arrows on his biceps no longer point to trouble?

Cole is roused by the suicide of a murder suspect he previously helped to exonerate. The death itself was not personally jarring, the photo album of a serial murderer found at the feet of the corpse was. It held the carefully framed pictures of seven dying women, images only the killer could obtain from his immediate presence and one of which caused the law firm that had used Cole to provide the evidence of the suspects innocence to move him back into action. Now, in addition to the pounding in his head from the suspicion that he might have been wrong, he receives beating on his head from the family of a women killed later in the serial killer’s sequence.

Page turner barely describes the pace at which the investigation proceeds as Cole interacts with some old names in the LAPD and finds himself at odds with some new antagonists in the department and in L.A. city government. Your own detective skills will be put to the test as you begin to sort and dismiss some suspects while being sure, as Elvis is occasionally, that you are on the right path to solving the mystery. Of course, you’ll be wrong but that’s half the fun in following Cole’s escapades.

Chasing Darkness is a solid entry in the Crais catalog and well worth the few hours of escape that it offers. Cole is as charming as usual and Pike, well, he’s Pike. The question I’m left with at the last page was why Carol Starkey was involved. We know she’s in love with Cole making her usual profane and clumsy come-on’s to him but what purpose does she serve in the story except to be the dues ex machina?

Nothing to Lose by Lee Child

Hope and Despair Lee? Hope and Despair?

The West is riddled with little towns and the remnants of other one-time settlements and they often have interesting names. Many of them point to historical or geographical facets of the community that someone, sometime thought were important. Cripple Creek for example, was said to be named by a rancher whose calf was crippled by an ill-timed jump over a creek as a result of an accidentally discharged six shooter. Bombay Beach was going to lure vacationers from the French Riviera to the edge of the Salton Sea until the salt-in-the-sea combined with torrential rainfall in the 70s overtook man’s ambitions. Given the long, long list of colorful place names that Lee Child could have used to place his latest Jack Reacher thriller in, he settles on the imaginary neighbors Hope and Despair. [CLICHE ALERT…CLICHE ALERT…CLICHE ALERT]

Reacher and his toothbrush are traversing the country from Maine to San Diego when his hitchhiked ride drops him on the road to a company town named Despair. He makes note of an important marker found where city or county lines meet, the change in the roadway. The road from Hope is smooth, well built, and recently blacktopped. At the expansion joint where Hope relinquishes the thoroughfare, the road becomes pitted, worn out and obviously constructed at minimal expense. Upon walking into town, Jack notices immediately that this was not a town with a huge tourist draw. Sitting in the only cafe he can find, Reacher is pointedly ignored by the waitress until the welcoming committee notices him. As they surround him, not to give him the key to the city but to tell him to leave, their fate is sealed. Those of us who know Jack Reacher know that the fastest way to broken bones and contusions is to tell him to do something without an adequate explanation.

The rest of this fast paced thriller follows Jack as he seeks to discover the reasons why people are so adamant about keeping non-locals out. Utilizing a temporary romance in next door Hope, Reacher learns more than he wants to know about the recycling plant that is the center of life in Despair. In the course of his nosing around we are exposed to Reacher’s/Child’s feelings toward the Iraq war as the snooping intertwines depleted uranium, army deserters, veterans brain injuries, the end-times, and preacher/town hoss. These positions might counter your own but, if you can put that aside, this is a typically good Lee Child effort. Reacher is himself throughout, able to take on and defeat multiple assailants, strangely attractive to women, and tack sharp in his detective skills. Once you are drawn into the story, you won’t stop until you cross the 400 page mark.

I’m hoping that the cliches were simply the result of Child wanting to make his anti-war stand through his hero Jack Reacher and that the next book will return to the generally smart character and fantastic pacing. If you haven’t met Jack yet, I would recommend starting with either Bad Luck and Trouble or The Hard Way to get a better feel for his personae before you draw any conclusions from this effort alone.

Cue Anti-Flag – Depleted Uranium is a War Crime

The Cactus Eaters by Dan White

In the late sixties I first read My Side of the Mountain and was forever hooked. Between that book and The Willie Mays Story (thanks Scholastic book service) my love for voracious reading was kindled. “Mountain” is every boy’s ideal adventure; running away, living in a tree with a pet peregrine falcon, how could it get any better? That remained the standard for a wild escapade until I checked out a library book about a young man who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone, the title of which escapes me. Here was an adventure, a solo journey into my beloved mountain forests, hiking with a gigantic, external-frame Kelty backpack and enormous leather boots. I longed for years to emulate this hike, thinking about it on shorter jaunts and knowing that I would never be able to set aside the time to actually accomplish it. I would have to enjoy it vicariously.

With my radar tuned this way, a browse through the local bookstore landed on Dan White’s recently published book The Cactus Eaters. White’s memoir brought Mountain immediately to mind as he chucks his newspaper job and goads his much more driven girlfriend into a grand lark, hiking the 2650 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. Never mind that they had not been more than weekend hikers nor had they shared any confined space in the past, this pair set out into the heat of the Southern California desert. Dan and Allison were going to face the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades and all of the challenges with 70 pounds of camping gear strapped to their backs. We’re not given Allison’s reasons for joining the expedition except boredome and wanderlust, but Dan is revelatory in hoping to reshape his image of himself and escape the tentacles of adult life.

The travails start early in the Mojave as the pair discovers that this journey might be harder than they anticipated. Scarce water is jettisoned on a whim as the barrenness of the environment plays with the hiker’s minds, exposing their raw personalities. Dan’s insecurities threaten to derail the journey at numerous junctions, his snarky observations of other hikers and the trail angels who come to his aid giving the narrative a darker edge. A part of Dan’s journey of self realization appears to be the criticism of others, evident in his gleeful attachment to the pejorative unbecoming description of hikers following Ray Jardine’s methods. As he describes his girlfriends transformation into a hardened, shapely, sun-bleached blond, he also seems to be so insecure that the reader is led to wonder why Allison doesn’t leave him at one of the supply stops…walking away humming a death metal hiking ode.

Unlike Bryson’s Appalachian trail memoir, The Cactus Eaters ends on a very sour note. Abandoning his girlfriend, Dan paints a picture of his spiral into near insanity after completing the trail in a second trip. His self absorption in the final pages threatens to ruin the entirety of the preceding pages as the ordinary guy of the first steps of the trek becomes little more than a simpering boy, sitting in his room in his boxers purportedly longing to be like the men he met on the trail who had cast off the bonds of polite society, yet lacking the courage to do so.

Cactus Eaters is a fine trail narrative, good for a summer read as we each consider our own little adventures. Except for White’s meltdown and his admittedly boorish treatment of his girlfriend, he is a writer we can look forward to reading in the future.

Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath

We begin with a quiz: In the 1992 presidential campaign, a memorable proverb coined by James Carville entered the national consciousness. It was:

A. It’s the economy, stupid.

B. Change vs. more of the same.

C. Don’t forget healthcare.

The truth is, all three of these ideas were written by Mr. Carville on that famous white board as reminders to the Clinton campaign staff that these were important ideas to be communicated to the American voters. While the political process may not be of interest to many, what is instructive is to discover what makes one idea lodge in our memory while others refuse to stick? This is the question explored by Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick.

One of the greatest challenges that we face as agents of social change is that we must transfer our passion for the good of others into ideas that can resonate with people that we want to engage in the process. The Heaths analyze the process of communicating ideas and discover that those that cut through the avalanche of information that we encounter each day and wedge themselves permanently in our minds share six principles: Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions, and Stories. A memorable acronym emerges from these words – SUCCESs.

Made to Stick offers change agents a toolbox for analyzing and improving the way in which we convey our passionate call to action to others so that they become equally engaged and moved to action. For example, we may have attempted in the past to draw others to labor with us in the area of serving the homeless. We offer statistics to demonstrate that toiling in this field is not without a harvest as the cynical culture leads many to believe. The Heaths point out that the standard message is lacking in any of the adhesive qualities that would make our plea sticky and thus remain in the recipient’s consciousness, standing a better chance of catching fire.

They offer a story (S in the acronym) that cements the credibility (C as well) of our desire to engage others. Rather than telling others that a homeless rehabilitation program can be successful, followed by a graph and slide show, the Doe Fund in New York City sent a driver to pick up representatives of a grant organization. Rather than listening to the Doe executives on the ride from the airport, the grant representatives were enthralled by the story of their driver Dennis, a formerly homeless man who was a successful graduate of the work of the Doe program. The power of Unexpectedness, Credibility, Emotion, and Story combine to make the effectiveness of the Doe program stick in the mind far better than a presentation of the statistics can. The Heaths demonstrate that we can analyze all of our ideas in this way and find ways to integrate these principles in such a way as to make our ideas unforgettable.

Many primers on preaching and ministry leadership have attempted to convey this same idea but very few are as successful as Made to Stick. The brothers Heath have given us a book that succeeds at what it recommends; the illustrations and applications make each of the principles immediately memorable even apart from the easy to remember SUCCESs. Those of us involved in the work of social justice and change are often personally impassioned but can be frustrated when others that we hope to engage in our crusade fail to equally catch the fire. Using the SUCCESs principles to analyze the way in which we promote our passion can serve the kingdom well as we find those things that can cement the idea in the minds of fellow believers and move them action. After all, isn’t that what Jesus does in all the red words?

Seven in 07: Books

My book piles grew by about 75 volumes this past year and there were seven standouts published this year within my church library that I recommend to everyone. In no particular order they are:

The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch

Hidden in Plain Sight by Mark Buchanan

The Path of Celtic Prayer by Calvin Miller

Gracism by David Anderson

The Dangerous Act of Worship by Mark Labberton

The Cost of Commitment by John White

The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaeffer

The Guilty Pleasure Pile

Some of my favorite authors graced us with fantastic fiction contributions as well. Here are a few for you mystery lovers…

The Overlook by Michael Connelly

Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child

The Watchman by Robert Crais

The Reformed Echo Chamber

This post at Arminian Perspectives takes on Tim Challies and his generally dismissive review of Roger Olson’s book Arminian Theology. The review follows the template established by other Calvinist reviewers, defaulting to the tired accusations of Pelagianism, etc. What is telling is that with the ability of nearly everyone in the age of the Internet to discover the facts about Arminian theology, the Calvinist accolytes continue to simply listen to one another, echoing the same incorrect notions, proof texts, and authorities back to the others in the chamber.

Jesus Mean and Wild by Mark Galli

God loves you and has a difficult plan for your life.

There’s a phrase almost guaranteed NOT to make an appearance at the next revival or evangelism event in your church. When introducing Jesus to others, we more often than not default to the meek and mild savior who rolls his eyes at our follies, who is our buddy when we want Him near and who conveniently walks the other way in situations where He is really not welcome. The attractive Jesus of the blue eyes and curly blond hair and piercing stare is the one who adorns our church walls and literature.

But what of the Jesus who makes a whip of cords to clear the temple, who expresses his anger and frustration at the blindness of his disciples, and who will leave us alone at just the wrong moment? What do we do with this Jesus, author Mark Galli asks in his superb book Jesus Mean and Wild. I’ve been wanting to read this book for about a year now and after finally sitting down for a couple of days to do so, I was not disappointed. Galli leads us to look at Jesus in a way different from how we usually encounter him, as the militant whose love for us sometimes takes the form of tough love. As he walks us through different passages in the Gospel of Mark, we run into a Jesus whose idea of comforting our wounds is to salt them – painful in the short term but healing in the long run.

The Jesus that we are reminded of in the pages of Galli’s book is a portrait that the modern Church often reads quickly past. This is the Jesus that loves us enough to speak harshly to us in order to encourage our repentance. He is the savior that is willing to heal but rebukes the receiver of the miracle as He pushes him away. The Rabbi we encounter is disrespectful of authority other than those truly devoted to the Father. In a reminder that is needed by the churches today that strive for relevance above all else, Jesus appears to us (Mark 8:31-33) as the ultimate measure of irrelevance. In a chapter that points out that following Jesus faithfully is far and beyond more important than being culturally relevant [that is also excerpted in Christianity Today July 2006], Galli offers a cutting warning to Church and pastors of vision.

Coming to the final chapters of the book makes you want to return to page one and soak in this portrait of Jesus all over again, slowly savoring the words and illustrations that help us to see a more well rounded Jesus than we are often tempted to preach or talk about. With just a few pages remaining, Galli gives us the starkest reminder of the way of the Savior when he says “Just when we need him most, God forsakes us.” We certainly do not want to admit this about our Lord, but he leaves us alone just at those moments that we most desperately think that we need Him. Why? So that we can share in the grief that Jesus knew at that bleak moment on the cross when he cried out to the silent heavens and know the indescribable joy of reuniting with God when He chooses to break the silence. We are shaken but stronger, mute in His glory but far more merciful than we could ever imagine.

Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child

If you haven’t met Jack Reacher yet, you’ll find him to be either your best friend or your worst enemy. A former Army investigator now in civilian guise, his ability to read the wind and find whoever it is he decides to search out fits perfectly with his itinerant lifestyle and the interesting coincidental violence that he finds himself involved in. Child’s protagonist is a multi-dimensional man with a profound sense of justice: righteousness does not end with the capture of an elusive perpetrator but with the suffering and sometimes demise of that individual. Judge, jury, and executioner. I came to discover the Reacher series through the paperback version of The Hard Way picked up while browsing before plane trip to L.A. and was captured from page one.

In the latest saga, Bad Luck and Trouble, someone has made the mistake of killing members of Reacher’s former investigative unit by dropping them helplessly from the back of a helicopter onto the packed sand of the Southern California desert. When he is cryptically contacted by another member of his former unit, Frances Neagley, and told of the murder, Reacher snaps into action vowing to avenge the death rather than just finding the murderer. Bound by the creed ‘no one messes with the army investigators’, Neagley has attempted to reassemble the remaining members of the crew only to discover that others have fallen to the same fate. The four who remain work methodically to close the noose on a murderous plot involving terrorism and a new form of SAMs.

Reacher is the perfect combination of brains and brawn to keep propelling the story forward. The picture the reader forms in their mind of this mind is well fed by Child’s prose. Laconic and violent when the situation calls for it, he can also be a smooth conversationalist when he wants to extract the secrets that you are so desperately trying to keep buried. His actions never veer into the implausible, except for the picture of Reacher folding himself into a hot rod Honda as surveillance cover. He takes his place alongside Harry Bosch, Elvis Cole, and Joe Pike as my choices for escapist heroes.