Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

by Max Brooks
282 pgs

Fourteen years after publishing World War Z, in which he gives a brilliant account of the war between the human race and the zombies, Max Brooks releases another cautionary tale. This time, he uses interviews and the found journal of a survivor as his source materials to provide an account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. That's right, this time around, it's Bigfoot. Need I say More?

Greenloop is a small affluent community near Mount Rainier consisting of wealthy and (not surprisingly) ill-prepared people, who have chosen the isolated, but comfortable lifestyle Greenloop provides. It's only 90 minutes away from Seattle, but its residents are far enough away from civilization that their weekly groceries arrive via drones. Kate Holland is the newest person to move to Greenloop, and it's her journal through which most of the story is told.

Within days of Kate's arrival, Mount Rainier erupts, and the eruption severs the few remaining ties Greenloop has with the rest of the world completely. But Kate and her new neighbors have little to no time to consider how they'll survive the weeks or potentially months before they're rescued before even bigger problems arrive. The eruption has also displaced the creatures, which for years have been rumored to be living in the forests of the Pacific Northwest and sent them right into Greenloop.

For anyone who has ever thought, "Enough with the vampires and zombies. Give us a new threat to humanity," Devolution is a welcome response. It's not without its flaws (halfway through the book you'll be asking yourself when Kate has the time to write in her journal when she's spending all of her time trying to avoid having her skull crushed in by a sasquatch), but it's still a very enjoyable book. Hopefully, it will get the same cinematic treatment World War Z did one day, and we'll finally have a Bigfoot movie that will help us forget Harry and the Hendersons.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Western Star

by Craig Johnson
295 pgs  (Longmire series #13)

The Western Star is the 13th book in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series and I'm excited by the fact that it's one of my favorites so far. It tells two distinct, but interconnected stories, both of which involve the most ruthless killer Walt ever went up against.

The first story took place back in 1972, when Walt was a brand-new deputy with the Absaroka County Sheriff's department. He was accompanying Sheriff Lucian Connelly and 23 other Wyoming sheriffs on the Western Star, a sheriff's train that ran from Cheyenne to Evanston, when one of the sheriffs is killed. Walt, who is the newest and least experienced lawman on the train, is the one who identifies the killer and it's this investigation that solidifies his decision to become a Wyoming lawman.

The second story takes place in current times and involves the same killer from the Western Star. Every four years, Walt travels to Cheyenne to complete his weapons recertification and he plans that trip to coincide with the scheduled four-year parole hearings for the Western Star killer. Walt has made it a point over the years to attend each of the parole hearings in order to ensure parole is never granted. This year, armed with a diagnosis of less than a year to live, the man who has spent nearly the last 50 years behind bars, is trying to get a compassionate release, so he can live out what little time he has left outside of a jail cell.

As the story jumps back and forth between the two time frames, Johnson does a fantastic job of building towards the book's conclusion. And while this one ends on a bit of a cliff hanger, it's still a very satisfying conclusion. Fans of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express should enjoy the book that much more, as it's clearly an homage to it, and a worthy one at that.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Just Watch Me

by Jeff Lindsay
358 pgs

Riley Wolfe is a thief. But he's not the typical steal-your-identity, snatch-a-purse, shoplift, or even rob-a-bank variety. Those things are all far below Riley and the jobs he pulls off. For Riley, who doesn't need the things he steals, or even the money he could get from selling them, it's the challenge of stealing something that no one in their right mind would go after that drives him and makes him feel alive. If he's going to steal a piece of art, it's going to be the Mona Lisa. If he's going to break into a vault, it's going to be Ft. Knox.

Just Watch Me begins with Riley's successful theft of a 12.5-ton sculpture in downtown Chicago on the day of its unveiling. But soon afterwards, he falls into a state of near depression, feeling like what he does has become too easy for him. He needs to find the next great, and possibly impossible challenge

It's a diamond called Daryayeh-E-Noor that eventually brings him back to life. Riley learns that it, along with the rest of the Iranian crown jewels, will be traveling to New York, on loan from Tehran in the coming weeks and Riley knows what kind of security will be protecting it. Stealing that diamond is exactly the type of challenge that gives meaning to Riley's life.

Just Watch Me is obviously a heist story, and as such, it's the meticulous planning and tireless preparation needed for pulling off the job that sucks me in, and it's here where Jeff Lindsay's story shines the brightest. Ever since he wrapped up his Dexter series a few years ago, I've been excited and anxious to see what he would come up with next. Thankfully, Just Watch Me is a pretty good second act. I didn't find Riley to have the same appeal as Dexter did (not sure what that says about me), but the story was entertaining and fun, enough so that if I'm right in assuming this is the first book in a new series, I'll be picking up the next book as soon as it's out.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Atmosphæra Incognita

by Neal Stephenson
97 pgs

I haven't read much by Neal Stephenson, but what I have, I've really enjoyed, enough so that I have several more of his books sitting on the bookshelf right now, yet to be read. The reason they're still to-be-read, is because I feel like I need to prepare myself sufficiently before I start each of his books. For one, they're usually door stoppers, at around 1,000 pages each. But they're also dense and cerebral books, full of big ideas that I worry could potentially cause a brain aneurysm in a a person like me, if I'm not prepared beforehand.

So, I was interested to see what Stephenson could accomplish with a story less than 100 pages long. Atmosphæra Incognita is about the building of a 20-kilometer-high tower in the Nevada desert. The purpose of the tower is given, but it's not an important part of the story, nor are the limited characters it contains. What Stephenson instead focuses on in the few pages he uses is the architectural innovation needed to realistically build a structure that reaches into space.

Atmosphæra Incognita is an interesting read, but not the one I'd recommend for an introduction to his work. For that, do some mental stretches and calisthenics and then pick up one of his fictional tomes.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck
602 pgs

I attempted, like I usually do with the other books I've reviewed, to begin by writing a brief summary of East of Eden, considered John Steinbeck's most ambitious book. But I didn't get very far before I realized I was not going to be able to do it justice and still keep it relatively brief. There's just so much to this story that I feel is worth mentioning, and in trying to figure out what characters or elements to leave out, it became an exercise in frustration.

Fortunately, remembering this is a classic book, and one that has been around for nearly 70 years, I realized I really didn't need to write a summary after all. I assume most people have either read it already or plan to one day, so a summary isn't necessary for the former and could potentially ruin the experience for the latter. And I think those who don't fall into either of those two categories don't deserve to know what they're missing.

At its core, East of Eden is Steinbeck's investigation into good and evil, along with mankind's ability, or inability, to choose freely between the two. He took a lot of his inspiration from the fourth chapter of Genesis, the story of Cain and Abel, and patterned two of his main characters after the brothers. But each of the characters in the book is impacted by his theme to some degree or another throughout the story.

Until now, Of Mice and Men, which is one of my all-time favorite books, was the only other Steinbeck novel I'd read, and my plan had been to read The Grapes of Wrath next, eventually. But a friend mentioned he was about to reread East of Eden soon and said I should read it at the same time (like being in a little manly book club). So, I picked it up...and had a hard time putting it down. Now, I not only plan to read The Grapes of Wrath (sooner now, rather than later), but I feel like I should read several more of his books as well now.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★