You are here

Home » News

Columnists

Book Review: Blind Tiger

By Robert McCool
Posted by Paula Scott on January 2, 2022 - 6:09am

In her twenty-sixth novel Sandra Brown takes us back to Prohibition era Texas in order to present an ambitious story about a couple bound to come together over illegal whiskey making. It is also about 1920s societal norms for women.

Blind Tiger  (Grand Central Publishing, Hatchette Book Group; ISBN 978-1-5387-5196) is a big five-course dinner that fills you completely up and satisfies your appetite for action and romance. Really, it is a big book with room for each character's development into a fully fleshed human with a human's desires and drives.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Book Review: The Stranger in the Lifeboat

By Robert McCool
Posted by Paula Scott on December 26, 2021 - 5:00am

And now a brief word about the Lord.

Mitch Albon's new novel “The Stranger in the Lifeboat” (Harper Collins: ISBN978-0-06-288834) is a conundrum and mystery. Is it a discussion about God, or is it a study into the human condition? It is both.

A $200,000 yacht explodes in the middle of the ocean. All that's left behind is a raft containing ten people. They are a mixed group containing men and women and a young girl named Alice.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Book Review: Billy Summers

Posted by Paula Scott on December 12, 2021 - 8:21am

Billy Summers (Simon and Schuster ISBN: 978-1-9821-8966-2) is the latest release from Stephen King, and at 528 pages it tells the story of the complex man that Billy Summers becomes. As a child he sees his little sister stomped to death, then kills the man who hurt her. Having an alcoholic mother, he was removed to live in a group home, which is all that you've heard about and more. When he comes of age he joins the Marines and becomes a deadly sniper. When he leaves the service he becomes a sniper for hire.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Book Review: Bone Deep

By Robert McCool
Posted by Paula Scott on December 5, 2021 - 7:20am

In Charles Bosworth Jr. and Joel J. Schwartz's  brand new true crime book, Bone Deep, Untangling the Betsy Faria Murder Case (Kensington Publishing, ISBN 978-0-8065-4197-6), the characters and story are real. The circumstances happened as portrayed.

The writing is crisp and compelling, driving the reader to keep reading without stopping, in this true tale about Russ Faria supposedly killing his wife Betsy two days after Christmas in 2011. This book is all about the truth being stranger than fiction, and as it unfolds the truth gets abused by law enforcers and the prosecuting attorney in order to rush a guilty conviction.

Section: 
Columnists
»

Book Review: Robin Cook's "Viral"

By Robert McCool
Posted by Paula Scott on November 14, 2021 - 5:09am

With a name like "Viral," you'd expect this book to be about COVID-19. But in Robin Cook's 2021 release (Penguin Random House, $27.00, ISBN: 978-0-5933-2829-3) the title refers to an encroaching wave of an even deadlier disease without a vaccine to protect those exposed to it.

Section: 
Columnists
»

How fair is the public defender system?

By Amelia Alexander
Posted by Staff on November 11, 2021 - 7:35am

This is the one-year anniversary of Amelia Alexander, an Ada High School student, becoming an Icon columnist.

Recently, I learned about the public defender system in my government class. This article is inspired by what we learned and our discussion.

What are public defenders?

Section: 
Columnists
»

Pages