Tiffany Justice (Moms For Liberty) X Ronald Pergman (Big Sky): Bonding Over Common Ground

 

Ari Emanuel (TKO) X Jade Pettyjohn (Big Sky): "Just Be a Fan..."

 

Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fiction vs. Tim French

 

His last name is French, but he doesn't know why France calls it a Royale with Cheese instead of a Quarter Pounder.

"Force of Nature" by C.J. Box

BOOK TITLE: Force of Nature
AUTHOR: C.J. Box
YEAR: 2012
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Mystery Thriller
GRADE: Extra Credit

I don’t give five-star reviews very often. When I do, it’s because the book wasn’t just likeable, but it moved me in some way. I’ve always known Mr. Box to be a competent writer, but I wasn’t expecting to be completely blown away by this piece of fiction. The action and drama in this mystery made me feel alive. It heightened senses within me that were otherwise dulled by the COVID-19 pandemic going on and all the psychological fallout from that. Why wouldn’t this book be exciting? You’ve got a hardnosed warrior named Nate Romanowski who’s in a cat and mouse game with his former commander. You’ve got the always professional Game Warden Joe Pickett, whose family is being threatened by this bloody struggle. You’ve got increased paranoia and distrust among people who are supposed to be supportive of Joe and Nate. You’ve got all the makings of a tried-and-true thriller turned up to twenty. Bloody violence, enigmatic characters, betrayal, and no reason to believe that Nate and Joe are capable of winning. Do they? You’ll ask yourself that question all throughout this reading experience. You’ll have doubts as your anxiety increases. If they do win (and that’s a big if), you’d better believe they’re walking away with trauma and scars.

Speaking of trauma, the way C.J. Box portrays Nate Romanowski is just as disturbing and cold as the character himself. He’s not just an emotionless killer. He’s got an entire history behind him that bubbles to the surface far too often for the reader’s comfort. The military training he had to endure, the fallout with his father, and the coldness required for training falcons, they all will send a chill up and down your spine as if you’re actually trapped in Wyoming’s winter weather. You’ll be eternally grateful that Nate is one of the good guys, because if he for some reason turned evil, this world would turn into a bloodbath. Sometimes you wonder if his innocence is completely gone and maybe he does have evil tendencies. He’s a shades-of-gray hero, but those shades are darker than the night sky. If you ever see Nate Romanowski in real life, you’d better turn the other way and run. He’s got his morals for sure, but he’s also got a heart of stone that could make even the toughest of tough guys knock their knees together in fear. If you think he’s all bark and no bite, just watch the way he tortures people to get what he wants and how quickly he can kill someone in a life-or-death brawl.

The minor role characters can be just as compelling to read about. The one I feel like I have to talk about the most is Pam Kelly, whose husband Paul and son Stumpy were murdered by Nate after they tried to assassinate him. When Pam was younger, she had her starry eyes set on a handsome superstar cowboy. She even carried his baby, who grew up to be Stumpy. But instead of landing a country stud, she settled on Paul and led a mediocre life. Pam was angry when Paul and Stumpy were killed, not because of them, but because she felt like she threw her life away on those two and had nothing to show for it. Old and fat in today’s world, she doesn’t have a chance at starting over and has to clean up the mess left behind by the only two men in her life. While Pam isn’t the kindest character in the book, she is one of the most sympathetic. I’m fat myself and am looking down the barrel of wasted opportunities. Pam’s characterization hit me hard, even if we don’t get to see a lot of her.

Joe Pickett is always a reliable character when it comes to likeability. He’s professional, he’s intelligent, he always knows what to say and when to say it, and he’s a family man at heart who goes the extra mile for those he loves. April, Joe’s adopted daughter, is as bratty and nasty as she has ever been, even going so far as to mock her sister Lucy for missing her high school play. Lucy and Sheridan both have their own projects outside of home and when a monkey wrench is thrown in their plans, they have no problem with showing their disappointment and rage. Marybeth is a caring wife, nurturing mother, and efficient librarian, the latter of which will come into play when she’s being stalked at her place of work (another source of dramatic tension). Kyle McLanahan is a cartoonish redneck Sheriff who somehow keeps getting public praise despite his idiocy. Aside from April, there’s not a character in this book that I felt slowed the pace of the story. Everybody has a role and everybody plays their role with undying commitment. Seriously, though, somebody please give April the spanking of the century.

Out of every book I’ve read from C.J. Box’s catalogue, Force of Nature is without a doubt my favorite among them. Will there be others that exceed or meet that standard? I’m sure Mr. Box can figure out a way to make that happen. He truly earned every award and every word of praise he’s racked up over the years. Even people with opposing political views from Box will get a kick out of his mysteries. They’re well-written, they’re enjoyable, they’ve got splendid character work, and Force of Nature in particular stands out the most in terms of quality. Five stars out of five for this brilliant piece of fiction!

"Cold Wind" by C.J. Box

BOOK TITLE: Cold Wind
AUTHOR: C.J. Box
YEAR: 2011
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Mystery/Thriller
GRADE: Pass

Will Joe Pickett find out who murdered wind farm scammer Earl Alden? Will Nate Romanowski exact revenge on the people responsible for his girlfriend’s death? These questions and many more will haunt you during your entire reading adventure through Cold Wind. Just when you think you can breathe a sigh of relief, there’s another twist or obstacle that comes around the corner to mess things up. Even as the book winds down to a close, there’s no room to breathe comfortably. Earl’s murder isn’t an open and shut case; there’s a conspiracy at work involving pyramid schemes and Joe’s own disliked mother-in-law Missy, who is the first accused. And Nate? He can’t depend on the law to help him since he’s an outlaw himself. When you want a revenge murder done right, you’ve got to do it yourself with the help of gigantic pistols and stealthy know-how. All in all, this is a well-crafted mystery that will keep you guessing until the end. You want to cheer for Joe and Nate to find justice. You also want their stories to intertwine since they were former friends. You may have to wait patiently and put together the pieces like everyone else, but your eagerness to crack the case won’t allow you to step away from this book. That’s the mark of a good mystery: always keeping the readers hungry for more.

Behind all of the good writing and carefully-constructed mysteries, the author has an obvious rightwing agenda. This book was published in 2011, when conservatives were paranoid about where their tax money was going. Speaking from my own liberal point of view, I appreciate the fact that C.J. Box’s politics don’t come off as ham-fisted. They’re tolerable so as long as they play a vital role in how the mystery unfolds, which they do. One thing that rubbed me the wrong way, though, was the whining and complaining about diversity in a mostly-white state like Wyoming, which is where the book takes place. People say it’s about preserving realism, I say it’s about celebrating bigotry. But that’s just my opinion. Obviously, the politics of this book didn’t bother me enough to put it down permanently. I read the whole thing from cover to cover and it’s still an effective murder mystery no matter what biases the reader has. I can still get behind characters like Joe Pickett, Nate Romanowski, Marybeth Picket, Alicia Whiteplume, and yes, even Marcus Hand despite this defense lawyer’s sometimes piggish behavior.

You know who I can’t get behind, though? Joe’s adopted daughter April, who comes off as whiny, spoiled, and bratty in all of her appearances in this book. So her parents took away her electronics. Big deal! With all of the venom pouring from this kid’s mouth, I’m surprised they didn’t give up on her right away. At least with Sheridan, you’ve got a college kid who’s worried about navigating life on her own. With Lucy, you’ve got a high school kid who wants her parents to acknowledge the fact that she earned a part in the school play. There’s no reason to feel sympathetic towards April. Yeah, she had a hard go of things in the first Joe Pickett novel, but unless you’re familiar with that side of her story, then all the reader is going to see is a bratty little goblin. At least there’s a reason for Missy Alden’s wicked behavior even as she’s trying to prove her own innocence. It plays into the story. April? Get her out of here already. She’s too much.

While this book isn’t going to change your life or convert anybody to C.J. Box’s beliefs, it will provide you with an exciting thriller with protagonists you can love and cartoonish villains you can hate. Joe Pickett’s family man shtick is evident in not only his personal life, but also in how he takes care of business as a game warden. When he does make stupid mistakes, they’re not so stupid that his family is left without a father figure and a husband. When Nate Romanowski hunts down his girlfriend’s murderers, he does it with precision and intelligence, which is more than I can say about some of the hillbilly villains. Cold Wind gets four out of five stars for being an enjoyable mystery/thriller and not having to be anything more than that.

The Hateful Eight

MOVIE TITLE: The Hateful Eight

DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino

YEAR: 2015

GENRE: Western Thriller

RATING: R for violence, swearing, nudity, and rape

GRADE: Pass

A blizzard hits Wyoming in the middle of bounty hunter John Ruth transporting his $10,000 captive Daisy Domergue to Red Rock to be executed. After his stagecoach picks up two extra passengers along the way, Major Marquis Warren and Sheriff Chris Mannix, the travelers are forced to hunker down in a lodge together with other suspicious characters until the blizzard passes over. As the strangers get to know each other, not everyone can keep their stories straight and it leads to paranoid distrust. Bodies begin piling up until their paranoia tapers, which means Daisy’s chances of escaping execution increase even more.

Just like with any other Quentin Tarantino movie, every character is developed through realistic, gritty, and vulgar dialogue. It’s not just cursing and slurs for the sake of edginess. Everything said in this movie has a purpose and nothing goes to waste. This is especially true when Marquis is telling old man Sandy Smithers how the latter’s son died at the former’s hands. It’s also true when John Ruth tells stories about how he prefers to hang his bounties rather than give them an easy route to death. And it’s true again when Chris Mannix brags about his father’s renegade army of confederate remnants fighting for a dying cause. None of the characters’ back stories or present actions make them appear sympathetic, I’ll admit, but if we were meant to sympathize with them, the movie wouldn’t be called the Hateful Eight. This is classic Tarantino storytelling at its apex.

I also must commend the musicianship of Ennio Morricone, who provided most of the soundtrack for this movie. Whenever a feeling of impending doom or hard justice needs to be experienced by the audience, Morricone’s music will make them believe in the brutality they’re seeing onscreen. He has a legendary track record of providing fantastic scores for western movies, so recruiting him was a natural fit on Tarantino’s part. I’m not sure if the Hateful Eight’s soundtrack has been released as a CD or digital album, but if it hasn’t, then it’s a crime. Classical music never goes out of style and even if it did, it can always be revived by conductors like Morricone.

Tarantino movies could be criticized for dragging themselves out too long or being overindulgent in their exposition through dialogue, but in the case of the Hateful Eight, I don’t agree with that sentiment at all. Everything had its place. Every conversation had its own feeling of drama and excitement. If you watch Tarantino movies just for the brutality, you might have to wait a while, but it’ll be worth it in the end. Think of the conversations as the slow build and the violence as the major crescendo in a symphony of masterful filmmaking. I wouldn’t lump John Ruth punching and elbowing Daisy in with that symphony since it was disturbing to watch and out of context it would make John Ruth look like a jerk. Yes, your butt will go numb as you go through this two and a half hour long masterpiece, but when you’re kicking it in the Caribbean, you’ll be saying to yourself, “Marcellus Wallace was right.” Wait a minute, wrong movie! But you get the idea.

While this movie isn’t anything earth shattering, it is a piece of art to be admired and rewatched just to soak in the talents of everybody involved. Samuel L. Jackson was undoubtedly the show stealer when it came to the acting. Ennio Morricone’s music is always heaven on the ears. The story itself can be easily pieced together once the movie draws to its conclusion. All in all, there’s not much to complain about even with the lengthy screen time and the scenes where Daisy gets punched (despite the fact that she too is an unsympathetic villain). A passing grade will go to this modern day Tarantino classic!

Cancellation

***CANCELLATION***

There’s been a change of plans regarding the vacation to Steamboat Springs. When my mom, step-dad, and I had dinner together, I just then found out that the vacation would involve many hours of car travel since Steamboat Springs isn’t the only destination. Wyoming and Denver were the other two places we were planning to go since there’s family in Wyoming and Denver is where the actual airport is. I can tolerate long airplane and car rides as long as they’re few and far between. This vacation in particular means I have to go for five or six hour car rides almost every day. I can’t sit on my ass for that long since I would get insanely bored, irritably impatient, and physically sore. I don’t care how loudly Phil Anselmo is growling in my ears or how many kick-ass matches Daniel Bryan talks about in his book, because books and music only make lengthy travel a LITTLE bit better. I’ve been on many vacations with my parents where long distance car travel plagued what was supposed to be a good time. Therefore, at dinner, I told my parents that it would be best if they went on vacation without me while I stay home and babysit the animals with my brother. The best part about making that decision was that my mom was very understanding about it and didn’t put up any resistance to it. I can even quote her as saying the exact words, “I often forget that what’s fun for me can be a trial to you.” She’s right. It’s the price of being an extroverted mother with an introverted son. But she accepts that and is okay with my decision to stay home.

"Open Season" by CJ Box

BOOK TITLE: Open Season

AUTHOR: CJ Box

YEAR: 2001

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Crime Thriller

GRADE: Pass

As the new Game Warden for Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, Joe Pickett hasn’t made a whole lot of friends. Whenever he needs to write a ticket or make an arrest, he does it without a second thought. It wasn’t anything personal until a former suspect of his wound up dead in a woodpile in his backyard. Three other hunters ended up dead in what would appear to be an open and shut case. Joe wasn’t satisfied with such an easy ending. He looked further into this case and uncovered a conspiracy involving an endangered species and plans to build an oil pipeline from Wyoming to California. The danger even goes deep enough to involve his family, the same family he vowed to protect throughout all of this.

Joe Pickett is far from a perfect character, which is actually a compliment and not an insult. As readers, we identify more with flawed characters than we do Gary-Stu’s. Joe tries to be the by-the-books, no-nonsense good guy, but occasionally he makes mistakes that cost him dearly. For example, in the opening moments of the book, Ote Keeley, the dead suspect I mentioned earlier, steals Joe’s gun right out from under his nose and could have killed him right there. Instead of dying, Joe took a huge hit to his pride. He constantly berates himself for not being a good enough husband to his wife or a father to his children. He fears that one of these blunders could cost him his entire family. And then what? What would he do with himself then?

Joe’s moral compass is one of the things that make this novel such a fascinating read. The other thing of course is how the mystery and the action is put together. Everybody knows that a happy ending is almost always on the horizon. The question then becomes, how? With all of these obstacles and unanswered questions in Joe Pickett’s way, how exactly does he go through hell and earn the ending he so rightly deserves? If I revealed the how’s, then I would need to post a spoiler alert. All you need to know is that Joe Pickett is the standup guy he so desperately wants to be. He puts his family first and himself second. With that kind of mentality, do you honestly believe he would settle for anything less than a shut case?

And then of course, there’s the political side to CJ Box’s Joe Pickett series, to which Open Season is the first one. As a hardcore liberal, commonsense would dictate that I would be irritated with the conservative views shown on this book. But I’m not. In fact, I don’t mind at all. As long as CJ Box continues to put out instant classic after instant classic, I’ll continue to read them like the devoted fan I am. Did I also mention that I’m a liberal who listens to Five Finger Death Punch and an atheist who listens to Skillet? The point I’m trying to make is that politics don’t dictate enjoyment. CJ Box sounds like a conservative, but he’s not overly preachy when it comes to his views. Open Season is not the first CJ Box book I’ve read and it sure as hell won’t be the last.

All in all, not only did CJ Box kick down the doors with his first Joe Pickett novel, but he also won so many awards and all of those victories were completely justified. This novel is fast-paced, emotional, and well-orchestrated. What more could you possibly want out of a mystery novel than that?