Category: Books

Let us now turn our attention to a story of a bunch of people who are pitted against each other in a vicious, high stakes game of blood sport. No, I’m not talking about the Trump Administration. I’m talking about The Hunger Games.

Maybe you knew that a new installment in Suzanne Collins’ series came out a couple of months ago. Of course, it’s another prequel. This one focuses on Haymitch Abernathy, the prickly, drunken mentor of Katniss Everdeen. This novel seeks to explain Haymitch’s life in District 12, how he was chosen for the 50th annual Hunger Games in The Capital, and how he came to be the wrung-out drunkard who mentored Katniss and Peeta in the original books.

Let me warn my two readers that spoilers abound from this point. I advise you to go read Sunrise on the Reaping yourselves, form your own conclusions, then come back to absorb my obviously correct opinions.

Yes, Haymitch takes center stage in this story. When I first heard about it, I was excited. Next to Katniss, Haymitch was always my favorite character from the books. I should also say that I was less than impressed with Woody Harrelson’s interpretation of him from the movies. Woody’s version played Haymitch as a boozer who was a burn-out, but who was humorous and charming underneath the prickliness. As the movies progress, he evolves to affectionate avuncularity toward Katniss.

I realize that this is subjective, but how many of you who read the original trilogy got the impression that Haymitch was always kind of a jerk, even before he survived the Hunger Games and became an unwilling mentor under the boot of President Snow?

If you took this vibe from the book version, you’re not alone. I too got the idea that Haymitch was never really a warm, cuddly person. This is a perfectly reasonable take. If you know anyone who is of above average intelligence, you’ll often find that they are not particularly nice or endearing people. In my experience, ultra-smart people seldom suffer fools gladly, have very little patience with opinions that differ from their own and are not particularly adept at effectively communicating their inner voice to the outer world. In other words, they may have plenty of intellect, but they are often lacking in emotional awareness or empathy.

That was book Haymitch to a T. Of course, Katniss comes to know him as a tragic, solitary alcoholic who has no tolerance for her willful, headstrong ways, especially when he is proven right in the face of her stubbornness. It is a credit to Collins that, despite the current trend of girl power in young adult fiction, she writes Katniss as a flawed human being who indeed discovers that Haymitch (a man) kind of knows what he’s talking about when she is out of her depth.

I prefer Haymitch, the irascible asshole we come to know in the original Katniss trilogy. What if you peeled back the layers of pre-Hunger Games Haymitch and discovered that he was, in fact, kind of a prick all along? Would that not make him a character worthy of exploration? Would that mean that he couldn’t have a moral center? Think of Dr. Gregory House. Before he experienced muscle death in his leg and used it disability as an excuse to become a pill-popping dick, he was still an unpleasant, unhappy person. Yet, House did have a moral code that helped to redeem him for the audience. Why do we need to sanitize this notion in a dystopian world of authoritarianism and autocracy? In fact, wouldn’t an arrogant, smartass Haymitch be a more lamentable figure when he ultimately loses his battle with President Snow than watching Mr. Nice Guy get owned? Even if he were a full-fledged jerk, Haymitch has plenty of reasons to be prickly, even before the games. He’s a super smart kid living under the yoke of an oppressive regime with a bunch of indigent people who are dumber than he is. Why is that a story not worth telling?

If you agree with my impressions of Haymitch, you may find Sunrise on the Reaping to be a disappointment. When we meet Haymitch for the first time, he’s a relatively normal, happy kid. Like Katniss, he’s taking care of his family in the impoverished, oppressed District 12. He’s also in love with a gypsy music girl named, Lenore Dove. I mean, like, really in love, like, teenage boy love. Love, like, he talks to the spirit of Lenore while he’s in the arena. If you want to give alcoholic Haymitch a run for his money, play a drinking game wherein you take a big gulp every time Suzanne Collins writes the catch phrase, “I love you like all fire.” Take two drinks every time Haymitch says some variation of, “Time to play the rascal.” Take three drinks every time he cries.

Did we really need all that lovey-dovey shit? I’m a big romantic at heart and I dig a good love story as much as the next straight guy, but come on! God knows we got plenty of that in the Katniss Chronicles with her emotional oscillations between Gale and Peeta. Even future President Snow got smitten with his tribute. Why couldn’t Haymitch just be in love with Edgar Allan Poe and have done with it?

Whoa there! I’m putting the chariot before the horse. Sorry ‘bout that. Anyway, as the story opens, Haymitch is actually in a happy relationship with a girl, is nice to his younger brother, loves his mama and only pretends to be a rakish rascal from time to time in order to annoy adult authority figures. But he’s a good kid at heart and it shows. There’s also nothing to suggest that Haymitch possesses brilliance-level intelligence. Sure, he’s a smart kid with some streetwise cred, but he’s not a genius by any stretch.

Of course, Haymitch’s tranquil existence goes shitside up when, through a twist of fate, he is selected for the 50th Hunger Games. He is ripped away from his family, his girlfriend and his mostly peaceful life in order that he may provide the rich, entitled citizens of The Capital with some gladiatorial combat for their amusement.

I should note here that, if you want to thumbnail version of How Haymitch wins the games, you need only consult Chapter 14 of the second HG novel, Catching Fire, in which Katniss and Peeta watch the tape of Haymitch’s experiences. You can capture the entirety of the events in about four minutes, including how Haymitch wins the contest. Collins knows this, of course, so she has to add some extra plot elements and backstory to elevate the emotional stakes for veteran readers. In service of this, we get return engagements with familiar characters like Plutarch Heavensbee, Effie Trinket, Mags and, of course, President Snow. In Catching Fire, we are left to conclude that Haymitch found the edge of the arena containing the force field because he was smart enough to deduce that it was there. In the current novel, we discover that Haymitch figures it out because he is carrying out a mission assigned to him by Plutarch, who is already a clandestine rebel.

If you want more of what made the original Hunger Games novels so dark and gritty, you get plenty of it here. We have a blood-soaked slaughter with many heartbreaking deaths, some of which involve children who don’t even shave yet. There’s a plot involving a tribute named Louella McCoy that is particularly shattering. We get action, treachery, resourcefulness of the main character and random terror from mutated animals (called mutts) that add that extra bit of demonic intensity. We are treated to carnivorous squirrels, electric butterflies, poison apples and a porcupine with lethal projectile quills.

What we don’t really get is a story that we haven’t already been told. We already know that President Snow is an evil, vindictive man who will render Haymitch’s victor a hollow one. We already know that the Hunger Games are terribly, relentlessly savage. We already know that Haymitch drinks to dull the physical, emotional and psychological pain over the trauma of the games. Even with the extra frosting Collins has added to the cake, we don’t really learn much about the bleak and brutal world of Panem.

All that said, Collins deserves a lot of credit. In a world where creative types (especially young adult authors) wear their politics on their sleeves and bludgeon their readers with it, she has always played her hand close to the vest. My limited research has not turned up any interview where she has sounded off about war, class disparity, media propaganda or even climate change. Aside from some general comments in service of her books, she doesn’t use her position as a soapbox. Her messages are evident, but she allows the readers to form their own conclusions.

One of her obvious points concerns state-sponsored media disinformation. When Katniss and Peeta watch the tape of Haymitch’s contest, they are viewing a deceptively edited final product, courtesy of The Capital. The point of Sunrise on the Reaping is that Haymitch’s authentic story can now be shared with the fans. The behind-the-scenes account is meant to be poignant and devastating, but for me, it didn’t really land. The softened Haymitch is too different from the image I had conceived in my mind’s eye.

As is always the case with prequels, we get a lot of box-checking. Where did Madge get the MockingJay pin? Check. Is Mags an extra tragic figure? Check. Did Haymitch know Katniss’s parents when they were kids. Check? We even learn the *real* reason why Haymitch always calls Katniss, “Sweetheart.” Hint: He’s not patronizing or needling her as we originally assumed. Bummer.

It would be the irony of ironies of Collins herself fell victim to media influence in the writing of this book. I’m referring to the Woody Harrelson version of Haymitch from the movies. As I read this novel, it struck me that the Haymitch we come to know in Sunrise in the Reaping would be a dead ringer for the Harrelson version of the character. What if Suzanne Collins gave us unfiltered, undiluted Haymitch in her original trilogy, but then the movies colored even her perceptions of the character? Remember that the last HG novel was published in 2010, almost two years before the first movie. How’s that for irony?

I’m approaching this book with a critical eye, but I really did enjoy it. I certainly liked it better than the previous installment dealing with the backstory of Coriolanus Snow, though I also do recommend that one for HG enthusiasts. In fact, in another paradox, I found A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to be less entertaining, but more informative than Sunrise on the Reaping.

The 50th Quarter Quell was more straight forward and less circuitous. I guess I just want to know why we couldn’t get Haymitch the jerk, rather than Haymitch the nice boy who’s just putting on an act for The Capital? Could it be that Collins didn’t want anyone (particularly male readers) to interpret her treating Haymitch the jerk respectfully as a tacit endorsement of *gasp* “toxic male behavior?” “How dare you call Katniss sweetheart, you mansplainer!” In a contemporary world where male figures like Donald Trump, Elon Musk and J. D. Vance are viewed as heroes by scores of young men, Collins may have felt it paramount to show Haymitch as a paragon of male virtue; or at least, the leftist stereotype of it.

There is certainly plenty of wiggle room in my theory. Maybe folks should read the book and decide for themselves. Whatever you do, go reread the original Katniss trilogy. Those books hold up beautifully. In fact, I’ve seen a few pundits on Twitter recently crapping on the books as, “Fifth grade level material.” All due respect…go chew on a tracker jacker. The Hunger Games is a compelling piece of fiction that has a lot of important things to say. My compliments to Suzanne Collins for bringing this dark, soul-crushing world to life so vividly.

Sidebar: I read The Hunger Games in 2012, four years before I got my first cat. When I reread it, the scene near the end of MockingJay when Katniss is reunited with Buttercup just wrecked me. I mean…I’m glad Kylie doesn’t judge. I should also mention that Katniss wasn’t a warm and cuddly girl either. She wanted to drown Buttercup until her sister interfered. What kind of twisted freak does that!?

I see that a movie about Sunrise on the Reaping is already in production. It will be released sometime in 2026. I’ll probably go see it. So what’s next on Collins’ list of prequels. Personally, I’d love the backstory of President Alma Coin. Remember her? I bet the progressives won’t like that one. President Coin proved that the resistance often become the tyrants when they win. Even if Suzanne Collins were willing to write it, I bet Hollywood won’t want to film it. Plutarch Heavensbee would be so, so disappointed.

Before I go, here’s a glimpse into my blind world, which is like District 102 in the world of minority intersectionality. I read the audiobook version of Sunrise on the Reaping. The narrator, Jefferson White, didn’t have the right voice for Haymitch. His voice was a tenor with a rasp to it. Think a more refined, slightly more effeminate version of Bob Odenkirk. I got used to him, but it did put a dampener on my reading experience. Santino Fontana was just lousy. He sounds like a glorified voice-over artist doing radio commercials.

Erin Jones, however, the BARD narrator of the original trilogy, did masterful work. You sighted Capital dwellers will have to be content with Carolyn McCormick, who does a good job, but Erin Jones is better. Erin, wherever you are, God bless you. Thank you for bringing Panem to life for us blind folk. Great job, sweetheart.

Here comes another book recommendation. “The Force,” by Don Winslow. Let me say right off the bat that this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s right up there with “Lonesome Dove,” “The Caine Mutiny,” “Presumed Innocent,” and “The Godfather.”

Denny Malone is a New York City cop. But he is not New York’s finest. He is corrupt and North Manhattan is his kingdom. He is not the stereotypical cop of crime fiction. He sports sleeve tattoos, loves gangsta rap, has an estranged wife and a black mistress on the side and he has a bad habit of popping Dexedrine before he goes on duty.

Malone busts his share of perps, but he also steals drugs, cash and guns from other criminals to further his own interests, along with those of his partners on an elite task force designed to combat street crime. In the book’s opening scene, Malone executes a notorious drug dealer for reasons that will eventually become clear.

Does he get away with it? Faugh! Read the book. Let’s just say that Denny will soon find that his agenda comes into conflict with those of the mafia, a ghetto drug lord, a Dominican hitman, the FBI, city politicians and, most important of all, his fellow cops.

This book is not merely a pot-boiler crime thriller. The characters are fully realized human beings, all driven by human frailties. Current events such as police shootings and the Black Lives Matter movement serve as an authentic backdrop to the plot and motivations of the characters. But most of all, this book is an honest, unvarnished look into the culture of the police force, for both good and bad. Though politics does play a role in the novel, I don’t detect an overt pro or anti-cop bias on the part of the author.

Yes, my blind friends, the book is available on audible, which means you can go ahead and pirate it like I know you’re gonna do. It is not on BARD and probably won’t be for a while, since the book was published only two weeks ago. Apparently, it is also available on Bookshare.

The more books I read, the more I realize that being an author is a perilous avocation, particularly if you want to write a series. On one hand, you have to keep your books fresh and unpredictable. On the other, you have to keep the elements in place that initially drew readers to your body of work. It must be a precarious balancing act and often, a thankless one.

Take John Sandford, for instance. For years, Evaney From Miami kept bugging me to read the Lucas Davenport series. Finally in May of 2012, I grabbed, “Rules of Prey,” and tucked in. I was hooked!

It wasn’t that Lucas was all that different from many of his literary counterparts. At least, not on the surface. Renegade cop who plays by his own rules? Check. The thing that drew me to Lucas was the fact that he shamelessly flaunted his methods for criminals and his peers alike. By the end of the first novel, it became clear that, while Lucas displayed many of the trappings of his contemporaries, he had (or didn’t have) something that the likes of Harry Bosch, Peter Decker and J. P. Beaumont all possessed. A conscience. Sandford verified this in an interview with the New York Post in 2002, in which he confirmed the fact that Davenport was a sociopath.

This literary twist fascinated me. Here was a guy who cloaked himself in the trappings of upscale civilization (a house, Italian suits and a Porsche, for God sake!), yet he was a thinly-veiled animal underneath.

Each of the Davenport novels contains the word, prey. Yet, as you read, you quickly come to question who exactly is the prey and who is the predator. Is the predator a lawyer who leaves a written rule at the scene of each kill, a crazed Native-American seeking revenge, a sadistic surgeon who steals the eyes of his victims, or a child molester hidden deep in the frozen Wisconsin woods? Or, is the real predator a man who uses his badge only for cover, but who could care less about the rule of law, preferring the thrill of the game to anything else?

This was the Lucas Davenport I fell in love with five years ago. Sadly, this was the Lucas Davenport whom John Sandford could not sustain for more than 10 novels. Eventually, much to my dismay, Lucas mellowed out. He got married, adopted a daughter, had a couple more kids and began hopping from one employer to another in search of villains. Gone was the solitary, nocturnal predator who prowled the streets of Minneapolis playing cat-and-mouse with twisted bikers, warped kidnappers and southern hitwomen. In his place was a more conventional crimebuster who was chasing more conventional villains. When I found myself reading a Lucas Davenport novel that involved quilting, I knew it was time for me to stop living in denial and move on.

In fairness, John Sandford is doing what I only dream about. He’s now writing three series and raking in the bucks, while I eek out blog entries during stolen moments in a control room. Yet, a relationship exists between author and reader, much like the one between predator and prey. Whether it is antagonistic or not, an inherent understanding is present that allows the reader to criticize the author. This knowledge allows me to stem the guilt that I, as a non-sociopath, might feel at criticizing a writer whom I once loved.

As I said, I think maintaining a series is probably tough. Many excellent scribes fall prey to the pitfalls of time. Nelson DeMille is another example. John Corey is a great character, if not original. He’s another rogue cop who always knows better than his superiors, but what made him special was his razor-like wit. When he stopped being funny on a consistent basis, I quit reading.

Maybe Dennis Lehane has a point, I thought as I ran through the Kenzie-Gennaro private eye novels in the autumn of 2015. There are only six. Less is more, right?

To quote Waylon Jennings, “Wrong!” Lehane appears to be done with the tumultuous Boston couple, having chosen to move on to historical American epics. This was probably a good thing as the series was hit-and-miss for me and their final adventure, “Moonlight Mile,” left me with a pretty sizeable meh feeling.

All of this was on my mind as I started the Joe Pickett series, by C. J. Box, in May of last year. Sixteen novels about a Wyoming game warden who solves crimes, I thought? Whatever.

Joe Pickett’s first outing, “Open Season,” left me impressed. A guy drops dead on Joe’s woodpile after being shot. His cute little daughters subsequently discover a mysterious animal hiding in said woodpile. Soon, more bodies start falling and Joe and his family find themselves smack in the middle of a power struggle between the town’s corrupt sheriff, Joe’s former boss and environmentalists with an agenda.

That was great. I bet he can’t do it again, I foolishly thought.

“Savage Run,” is about eco terrorists, exploding cows and a covert range war involving a secret cattleman’s association.

Can we go three for three, I wondered.

“Winter Kill,” involves a group of anti-government separatists, an overzealous FBI director and a man wrongly accused of murder. The man, Nate Romanowski, is a mysterious fellow who wears a pony tail, loves falcons and has a shadowy Special Forces background.

Great, I mused. Mitch Rapp, the nature boy version. But where Mitch Rapp is too often one-dimensional, Nate (a running character who turns out to be Joe’s best friend), is written in a far more nuanced and layered way. As the novels progress and we learn more about Nate, we come to realize that he carries a lot of baggage over the things he’s done in his past.

Let me skip to the part where I tell you that Mr. Box just published his seventeenth Joe Pickett novel, “Vicious Circle,” a few days ago. I am sneaking chunks of it at work when I should be tending to business, it’s that good. Mr. Box is the only author I’ve ever read who has never written a novel in a series that has disappointed me. This includes, not only his entire Pickett series, but his various stand-alone novels such as, “Blue Heaven,” “Three Weeks to Say Goodbye,” and “The Highway.”

One of the elements that makes Box’s novels so compelling is the setting. Michael Connelly knows the streets of Los Angeles like the back of his hand. So does George Pelecanos in Baltimore, or Dennis Lehane in Boston. They have intimate knowledge of the world in which their characters flourish.

C. J. Box is a native of Wyoming and currently resides there with his family. When he writes about Joe Pickett exploring the Big Horn Mountains on horseback, or Nate Romanowski swimming naked in the Yellow Stone River, his attention to detail lends a necessary tint of authenticity to the literary landscape.

But more than that, Box paints an accurate picture of the average citizen of the Cowboy State. The plight of ranchers in the face of land developers, the clash of western values with the bureaucratic mindset of Washington D.C., the relationship between humanity and nature are but some of the themes explored at length in various novels.

Over the years, I’ve lost Patience with crime novelists who I tend to regard as too gimmicky. James Patterson, David Baldacci and Patricia Cornwell are three examples that come quickly to mind. Granted, a series revolving around crime detection is bound to become formulaic by it’s very nature. There’s nothing wrong with that. If I’m comfortable with the formula, I’m happy. Raymond Chandler is considered to be an American icon and, though he only wrote seven Phillip Marlowe novels, he was somewhat formulaic. So was Arthur Conan Doyle, for that matter, and Sherlock Holmes still survives in modern media.

In order for a formula to work for me, I need to care about more than just a basic crime procedural (I’m looking at you, Longmire.) The crime universes I like to inhabit need to have as much of a cultural feel as a sense of forward momentum through plot. C. J. Box does a masterful job of this.

Consider the violence portrayed throughout his novels. Aside from the afore-mentioned exploding cows, people have met their demise from such creative means as, death by hanging from a wind turbine, death by geyser, death by bear and death by arrow, among others.

A lesser author would merely see the wild violence of the west as a means of employing shock value to draw readers, but the violence has consequences, both for Joe Pickett and his family. Box is not an overly-emotional storyteller, but he often conveys Joe’s feelings from the things he does not say.

In one instance, Joe gets into a western-style gunfight with a character. As the other guy lies on the ground dying, he mutters, “It hurts! It hurts!” over and over again. Later, multiple characters praise Joe for prevailing in the gunfight, but he can only hear the dying words of the man in his head.

Sidebar: It occurs to me that Lucas Davenport and Joe Pickett run parallel in some ways. They are both law enforcement officers who piss off their superiors, even to the point of being fired, yet who ultimately catch bad guys. But if you scratch the surface, they are antithetical. Lucas does what he does purely for the sport of it. Both men are hunters, though Lucas hunts humans, while Joe hunts game to feed his family. Lucas is an animal in human form who thrives in the jungle of crime, while Joe is a civilized man who protects his family from the horrors that he encounters on the job.

Unlike Lucas, Joe’s family is integral to his life. Thus, they are necessary to keep the audience engaged. His wife Marybeth is a strong woman who sometimes exhibits more common sense than her husband. Their marriage is not incidental to the action of the story. Often, it serves as a reservoir of strength for Joe and Nate. Joe’s family is a necessary reminder that human civilization can and must perpetuate itself, even in the face of the destructive power of raw nature and the lower elements in the human soul.

Joe is a righteous man, but he is a flawed man. He can’t shoot worth a damn. His optimistic view of the world sometimes blinds him to the darker impulses in others. He has a by-the-book approach that often causes him to butt heads with his friends and family, including Nate, a man who believes in his own code of justice.

No matter how careful an author may be, he/she can’t help but let their worldview bleed into their work. I quickly tired of the Harry Bosch novels because I noticed that Michael Connelly has an anti-police bias that I found to be off-putting. Dennis Lehane and George Pelacanos both love to perseverate about issues of race and class ad nauseam, often straying from solid storytelling into the realm of moralizing. When an author tells a reader what to think, he’s lost them, whether they agree with the viewpoint or not. I agree far more with the late Vince Flynn’s worldview about the war on terror and I share his pro-C.I.A. bias, but even I rolled my eyes (figuratively, of course) at times at the way he wrote any character who dared to oppose Mitch Rapp.

Based on his work, I’m going to hazard a guess that Mr. Box is not a leftist, or even center-left in his politics. Some might read his work and infer that he is a conservative, or even a right-winger. I would not be comfortable making such an assumption. He might be libertarian, or even center-right in his politics. But he does a good enough job presenting multiple angles on an issue that the reader is left to make up their own mind by story’s end. This is the mark of a writer who truly respects his audience.

So, seventeen Joe Pickett novels down, and I don’t know how many to go. Meanwhile, Mr. Box has developed another series centered around a cop who is an overweight single mother in her 30’s. I have a major crush on her. “Paradise Valley,” is the third novel in the Cassie Dewell series and it will be published this summer. If this proves to be Cassie’s last hurrah…well…maybe I’ll come back to this blog and dip my quill in some poison where Chuck is concerned. We’ll see.

In the meantime, a guy known only as, The Real Book Spy, has recommended several new series to me featuring characters with names like Cork O’Connor, Nick Mason and Logan West. With those characters in the queue, plus an unusual foray into the world of Harry Potter, my daily commute from Littleton to Boulder isn’t likely to get boring anytime soon.

Sidebar: I had the pleasure of meeting C. J. Box the other evening at a book signing here in Denver. I was struck by the fact that there is a lot of Wyoming in his demeanor. He seemed to be a man who is unassuming and unpretentious. In other words, there is a lot of Joe Pickett in C. J. Box, and vice versa. I took Katy, since she was the one who introduced me to the Joe Pickett series. She handled herself well, both during the Q&A period and when he signed her bookplate. I was not so fortunate. I had 10 things I wanted to say to him, but when the time came, my tongue got cramped.

Here’s a funny story he shared. He was at a writers’ conference and was seated between Michael Connelly and Lee Child, the author of the Jack Reacher series. Child was apparently complaining that fans kept asking him why the movie studio had cast Tom Cruise, a relatively diminutive figure, as Reacher. Child felt that this bit of casting (or miscasting) eclipsed anything positive about the film.

Hell, maybe I should be glad that Joe Pickett hasn’t yet made it to the screen.

David E. Kelley is supposedly interested in turning “The Highway” into a limited series. I feel more than a little trepidation about this. Kelley’s worldview is decidedly liberal and it suffuses all of his work. To me, this would be incongruous with Box’s overarching philosophy. But Box seemed to be happy with their collaboration thus far.

I’m done now. Time to do a recording studio maintenance check.