Russell Atkinson's Blog

The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I tend to be skeptical of novels written by celebrities but this one is a legitimate thriller. The author is a former astronaut and obviously knows his stuff scientifically and technically, which adds a lot of plausibility and just plain interesting detail. In an alternate history 1973 NASA is sending one last Apollo mission to the moon. But shortly before launch they learn that the USSR has put a spy satellite in orbit that will uncover many US secrets so the NASA team is tasked with taking care of that in its initial Earth orbit before shooting off to the moon. Meanwhile the USSR has its own secrets and objectives. Things do not go as planned for either country. There’s plenty of suspense and clever plot twists but I’d better stop here to avoid spoilers. As the title makes clear, some people don’t make it. For those like me who are old enough to remember those days it all seems quite plausible. Real persons, like Nixon, Kissinger, Andropov, Al Shepard, Deke Slayton, etc. appear in the book. It was a bit slow for the first 150 pages or so, but it quickly became a page turner after that.

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Such Quiet Girls by Noelle W. Ihli
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Two miscreants with a get rich quick plan kidnap a busload of children and hold them for ransom. The children and their bus driver are imprisoned in a buried container that had been fitted out with water, a makeshift toilet, and some mattresses. One resourceful 12-year-old girl, the tallest in the group, becomes a lead character as does her mother, who has access to school funds and who receives the ransom note. The story is full of suspense and clever ideas. It is inspired by, although not completely true to, an actual kidnapping that occurred in Chowchilla, California in 1976. I remember that kidnapping well, or at least the news coverage of it, as I was in the FBI at the time, stationed only two hours drive away, but I did not have any direct involvement because I was in language school, not on an investigative squad. I was involved in three other kidnappings in my career, only two of which resulted in the survival of the victims. Perhaps it was because of that experience and memory that I found this book more chilling than the writing alone might have been. For me it was a page-turner.

There are two or three other books with this title, so be sure you get the right one.

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If you’re not familiar with What3words, search that term or W3W in the little search box above. I enjoy commenting on the news from time to time by finding W3W combos that seem to apply to items in the news. Today I’ve done that with the arch President Trump is proposing to build in the Memorial Circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery. It’s quite a large grassy circle (the proposed arch is over 250 feet wide) so there are hundreds of W3W combos there. I haven’t had time to examine them all, but here are a few that seem to apply:

ocean.voter.scam
giant.single.stick
tunnel.cult.logic
system.thing.cult

Approaching a different way and looking for the locations of appropriate terms, I found:

trumps.huge.arch – near Vladivostok, Russia
trumps.vanity.project – near Irkutsk, Russia
huge.imperial.arch – in Antarctica

All of these locations seem more appropriate to me. Funny how often the word cult shows up in MAGA-related sites. Have a nice day.

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This Might Hurt by Stephanie Wrobel
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I can’t believe I finished this piece of garbage. The story is an intermixed tale of two pairs of sisters, in each case and older one and younger one. Some names are given, but for one pair, the names are not clear because one of them is narrating those chapters, referring to herself only as I, and the other sister is referred to by a nickname that we know is not her real one. Thus it is possible the two sets are the same women but at different stages of life. I suppose this was intended to add an element of suspense, but all it does is irritate and confuse the reader. The two sets do eventually connect, but it takes way too long to get there. There’s lots of meaningless filler before that. The rest of the book is pretty much just descriptions of sadistic behavior, either physical or psychological torture, something the author seems to relish. All the characters are either sadists or idiots and the plot is ridiculous and unbelievable. I think it’s the lowest rating on Goodreads of any book I’ve ever read and I’ve read a lot. I grabbed this off the new book shelf at my local library and it’s a lesson in why one should always read reviews and descriptions first.

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Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed the Course of History by Giles Milton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book chronicles the history of the Banda Islands in what is now Indonesia. The author has done an admirable amount of research of the voyages of various ship captains of both the Dutch and English, two countries that were fighting over the East Indies spice trade in the 16th and 17th centuries. It’s shocking how much violence there was between the two countries and between the Dutch and the natives. Slaughter is an understatement and torture and slavery were rampant. Control of the islands, and Run in particular, shifted back and forth several times. The last Englishman to have control of it before its ultimate disposition by treaty was a man named Nathaniel Courthope, the eponym of the book. The bravery of the sailors and tradesmen of the day is incredible today since most of them ended up dying of scurvy, disease, or violence. Life (and death) was quite literally cheap. I found the accounts fascinating, although I must say they became rather repetitive in nature. I liked the liberal quoting of the captains and others using what seems archaic English now. There are many hints throughout the book that the island of Run was later to play a very big and unexpected part in history, but that part is not revealed until the very end. I don’t fully accept the idea that Run was as instrumental as the author makes it out to be, nor do I find Courthope to be the transformational figure he is made out to be.

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Bering Strait by F.X. Holden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In a near future, Russia attacks and sinks its own massive container vessel in the Bering Strait and accuses the U.S. of doing it. Why? No one is sure, but it serves as an excuse for Russia to launch a military campaign to take over St. Lawrence Island and gain total control of the strait. But wait! America has a secret drone base in a cave on Little Diomede Island. It is “manned” by Rodriguez and O’Hare, two kick ass women. Bunny O’Hare is a crack drone pilot from Australia operating jointly with U.S. troops. That much seems like a fun plot but it doesn’t really live up to its potential.

The book suffers from, or benefits from, depending on your point of view, of a bad case of Clancy-itis. From that point on it is a discussion of weapons and battles, mostly air battles with drones and fighter planes, but also submarine and land warfare to an extent. At the same time, the American ambassador to Russia, another woman, is facing down the Russian foreign minister. Like Tom Clancy, the author simplifies world politics, makes the scenario increasingly implausible as the plot progresses, and dwells on the capabilities and weaknesses of scores of military weapons and systems ad nauseam. Throw in a ridiculous AI system that falls in love with the ambassador, speaks with a British accent, and who can hack anything and predict what Russia will do for good measure and you’ve got the gist of it. The ultimate goal of Russia is eventually revealed. If you’re into all that bang bang stuff like Clancy, you’ll enjoy it, but for the rest of us it becomes a page flipper and eye roller after awhile. Except I couldn’t flip pages since I listened to it as an audiobook and the reader is what else … drum roll, please … another woman of course. She did a good job but sounded about 20 years old. I put it on 1.5X speed just to get through it faster. I don’t know anything about FX Holden, the author, but I’ll bet F is more likely a Francine than a Frank. (I looked it up – he’s actually male.) I’m all for women being allowed in combat. I’m no Pete Hegseth, but I find it ludicrous to think all the major important military and political figures in the next world war will be women. In short, this is a chick lit Clancy novel, even if a man wrote it.

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Fuji Fire: Sifting Ashes of a Forgotten U.S. Marine Corps Tragedy by Chas Henry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This documentary-style account of a tragedy I had never heard of was riveting at times and educational at others. In 1979, 10 years after I spent several days in an inn on Mount Fuji, a typhoon hit the same area and led to the rupture of a huge gas bladder used to fuel vehicles at a U.S. Marine Corps training camp there. The fuel mixed with the pouring rain and flowed downhill into the barracks where a spark or flame caused the fumes to erupt. The fires spread throughout the camp severely burning dozens, several fatally. The book is most compelling when describing the storm conditions and outbreak of the fire, and equally as it followed the rescue and treatment of the victims. It started a bit slow in order to give necessary background and personalize some of the key figures, but even that was interesting to me as I’d never been in the military. It was heartwarming to read sections where community members, other military branches, doctors, and others made personal sacrifices to treat, comfort, or help the burn victims. I lost interest a bit at the end as it chronicled the finger-pointing, lawsuits, possible cover-ups, and so forth. Personally, I found little if any fault with the Marine Corps. Typhoon Tip was the biggest, fiercest on record at the time, and I don’t believe anyone could have anticipated the accident. There were preventative measures in place, but they failed due to the extreme conditions. I give this one 4 and a half stars.

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Although I don’t do much geocaching these days, it’s still a big part of my life, so I wrote this song parody of “When I Was a Lad” from H.M.S. Pinafore. This has proven to be quite popular among my geocaching friends. Enjoy.

Listen on Suno

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Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream by Joshua Davis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This documentary-style narrative tells the story of four teens in Phoenix Arizona starting in 2004 and follows them for years. The teens are all Mexican-Americans, some undocumented, others with legal status. Led by a go-getter named Oscar Lopez they formed a robotics team at their high school, one of the most impoverished in the area. This team went on to compete against other robotic teams in national competitions going up against the likes of MIT among others. The grit, smarts, and persistence of the boys is well-told and inspiring, but the book is more than about robotics. It sets forth the hardships they faced and in particular the racism and discrimination that hindered their efforts. The story is both inspiring but also a tad schmaltzy. The movie based on the same story was even more so, and whitewashed a lot of the negatives, especially some of the family relationship issues and post-graduation troubles the boys faced. I enjoyed the book, but I couldn’t finish the movie knowing what I did from the book.

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The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne by Chris Sweeney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Roxie Laybourne was a diminutive woman, but a firebrand who made a lasting impression at the Smithsonian Institution as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the FAA, the U.S. Air Force and many airlines. She was an expert at identifying birds using forensic methods she invented herself in days before DNA sequencing was possible. As a young woman she was called on to identify some bird remains during a deadly airline crash caused by that bird and that catapulted her into a career in bird identification. The book is basically a biography, not a criminal whodunnit. Roxie did testify in some criminal cases and even some civil trials, although her testimony may not have been crucial, but her main focus over the years was aviation safety. Bird strikes do bring down planes and kill people. Her work identifying bird species led to establishing standards for strength of windshields and engines, but also helped airports, air bases and airlines with knowing migration patterns at specific times so that they can mitigate the risks. She no doubt saved many lives during her career and mentored many others. Much of the book deals with the struggles of a woman without a PhD fighting her way up the ladder in a world of men with doctorates. I can’t say the book was riveting, but I found Roxie to be an interesting character and there was enough detective work and bird facts to pass muster. I’ll stretch a 3.5 to a 4 for this rating.

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