Baxter Clare

"With this unique book, the reader buys one ticket and takes two trips: one through the sunny and tangible realm of a California oak woodland, the other through the enchanging province of mythology. Both journeys lead into comfortable and charming country.

"Writing with a deep reverence for nature, poet and biologist Baxter Trautman reveals how the world of science connects with the worlds of history, myth, and the human spirit. Why do magpies chatter and bluebirds whisper? What common show more roadside plant was used as a poison in medieval times and centuries later as medicine by U.S. soldiers? Can female gall wasps really reproduce without males? Why do lizards have an 'inevitably affinity' with human beings, while their cousins, the snakes, produce terror? Trautman answers these and other fascinating questions with the black-and-white pen of science dipped in the colorful ink of myth. The result is a thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining book of natural history and much, much more."
~~front flap

An absolutely enchanting and enchanted book! I could hardly put it down -- drawn in to the author's dual worlds almost from the very first words. This book is liminal ... neither pure science nor pure poetry, existing somewhere in between, reconciling the best of each. show less

I'm conflicted about this novel. On the one hand, wow, followed by a whoa. It's fast paced, tightly written and a very, very intense plot. But on the other hand from one moment to the next one page or chapter to the next I wasn't sure if I liked the characters, minor and major, or not. It wasn't that they were badly written. I think that they were so much more human than the normal (even really good) novel characters. On more than one occasion I wanted slap Frankie, or Kennedy upside the show more head 'cause they were being stupid.

The main story is about Lt. Detective "Frankie" Franco, who commands the LAPD Homicide Squad #93, there are a few different cases, but the main one is about a serial killer who likes to beat and humiliate young women (that would be the very intense part).

Interspersed between the police procedural parts of the novel were short vignettes from the point of view of the killer. They were well done. They didn't make me like the guy, but they did contain some of the killer's story from a non-police point of view. Some mitigating circumstances even.

A solid three stars and almost a four star book, if I'd been able to engage with the characters just a bit more. Still I'll keep reading the series. show less

Baxter Clare doesn't do storylines halfway, that's for sure. We're back on the mean streets of Figueroa in LA California with Lieutenant A. Franco and her squad of Detectives.

This time we start the story with the slaughter of an entire family, then a young woman in the same gang also gets killed and the mystery gets more and more complicated from there. At least, it gets more complicated in the characters minds. Personally I was pretty sure what the solution to the mystery was going to be show more (at least generally, I wasn't sure exactly who did it). There's also a romantic subplot that was even better than the mystery. (and what bumped this book from three stars to four).

There was still the problem of too many characters and sometimes I had to keep going back to figure out who was whom. I think some of the problem was the fact that everyone seemed to have multiple nicknames, which made keeping track of them hard.

On the other hand, unlike in the first book in the series, some of the characters who were supposed to be likable actually were.

I thought it was a much better book than the first, a definite four stars. show less

I have to say, with each of the books in the LA Franco series the writing, the plotting, they seem to get better.

Cry Havoc starts with the death of a semi low level guy in the drug trade, the only weird thing is that he is found with a chicken in his lap. One of the two new Figeroua Detectives, a female rookie Detective, Cheryl Lewis, catches the case and it turns into a doozy going from drugs to more of a supernaturally/spiritual story. That was really the only part of the novel that was a show more bit hard to get into because it was a little out there. But it was also interesting since Franco was written as Agnostic we got to follow along her path as the story went deep into the spiritual stuff.

The new characters were good. I didn't love the two women Detectives, Cheryl and Jill Simmons (Simmons had the longest maternity leave ever apparently), but I really loved the new veteran Detective Darcy James, who's been transferred. And his ex-wife Margarite was a great character too, she was fleshed out very nicely.

As for the Gail Lawless/Franco relationship, it continued, and was interesting. Even though Lawless and the relationship didn't have a big role, it was a nice backdrop fro the main plot. A solid four star book. show less