Who Knew?

Big Whiskey – Carlo DeVito (Cider Mill Press)

While some of the distilleries that pour forth the subject matter behind  the new book, Big Whiskey have long and rich histories, I could only conclude, who knew that the tales behind these storied practitioners of the distilled arts ran so deep.

A few years back I became intrigued by images of bourbon/whiskey drinkers in film and and references made in novels. Thriller master Brad Thor went so far as to compile a blog post detailing a list of his suggestions for serving a flight of bourbon or hosting a home tasting. A beer drinker by choice, I was intrigued enough to try my hand and my taste buds out and branch out into sampling a range of small batch vodkas, and now have moved on to sampling a range of bourbons.

It seemed like a natural step to pair this tasting journey with some new knowledge, hence delving into Big Whiskey. This heavy, dense tome is beautifully illustrated and would make a nice addition to any spirited connoisseur’s bookshelf, looking to expand and engage with their spirit of choice.

DeVito along with WhiskeyReviewer.com managing editor, Richard Thomas and Emily West, a writer for the Tennessean, who covers spirits, business and local news, deliver a very approachable writing style. While it does serve up some insight into the taste palate of the variety of brands and types of whiskey, it doesn’t slide off into the land of the fru-fru, with spice notes and hint of chalk board. Even if you aren’t a participating drinker, the rich and often times colorful history behind these familiar and not so familiar brands make for great stories and a raise a glass to their skillful telling.  

Brad Thor Should Scare the Crap Out of You

Act of War – Brad Thor (Emily Bestler/Atria Books)

Simply put; Brad Thor’s new book Act of War, should scare the crap out of you.

Thor’s thirteenth entry in the Scot Harvath series reads like a scenario that could have come from one of the Department of Homeland Security’s, Red Cell brainstorming sessions. Red Cell was a group of creative thinkers, that included Thor, who came from outside the Beltway and traditional intelligence circles, to dream up potential terrorist scenarios and targets.

In Act of War lays out an unconventional attack under the umbrella of “unrestricted warfare” where the Chinese could literally bring the United States to its knees, killing off millions, without ever firing a shot. While I think Thor is a pretty smart guy; if he can think of this kind of scenario, then you know the bad guys can too. Hence the heavy duty pucker factor.

Thor laces just the right amount of “current events” into the story line to give it a believable quality; like the NASA outreach program to be inclusive of Muslims being used as a method to get terrorists into the country. It is that kind of simplistic thinking that politicians have given us for years that makes Thor’s plot all the more chilling; we spend billions to build bigger, nastier weapons or have the TSA pat down kids and grandmothers at airports, while we leave our borders basically wide open.

With the bad guys in place and their objective in play, the dominoes start to fall quickly and it’s up to Harvath and his band of usual suspects to play beat the clock and save the country from itself. If you needed a geographical depiction of how this “unrestricted warfare” attack to “remove the country’s technology” would play out, just grab a copy of the county by county “Red vs. Blue” voting map from the last Presidential election and know that the focus of the attack would be on the blue and the populace that believes food comes from the grocery store and can’t function without their I-Phone an infusion from Starbucks.

The plot certainly strikes a chord and Thor hits on the right mix of facts and action to keep the pace crisp and the thrills on point.

Hidden Order: A Thriller – Brad Thor (Atria/Emily Bestler Books)

Hidden Order: A Thriller – Brad Thor (Atria/Emily Bestler Books)

I have held a secret, not guilty wish that somewhere out there in the world there exists a super-secret entity, to borrow a term from author Brad Thor, full black; that in which resides and works folks like Thor’s Scot Harvath or the late Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp. Tough character’s who burn with a patriotic fire and a take no prisoners attitude fighting on behalf of the United States against fundamentalist whack jobs who want to do us harm.

 

That being said, for this installment of the Harvath series, Hidden Order, Thor casts his hero in a new role of domestic police officer on the hunt for kidnappers/murders, bent on destruction of the U.S. economic system by systematically killing off potential heads of the Federal Reserve in a story that is interlaced with historical elements of the founding of this country.

I certainly didn’t envision Nicholas Cage playing the role of Scot Harvath, but there is an undeniable similarity between Hidden Order and Cage’s National Treasure movie series. Thor traces the roots of the formation of the Federal Reserve at a super-secret meeting of banking power brokers that took place the exclusive Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia and the tale told in G. Edward Griffin’s book The Creature From Jekyll Island.

The historical romp continues through pins on the map of the founding of the United States in and around Boston. The general feedback from Thor fans will likely include a loud and clear BUT; something to the effect of, “it wasn’t what I was expecting, but it wasn’t bad.” We’ve come to expect that Harvath with lead the charge taking out the next series of bad guy’s hell bent on causing us harm. As the world continues to turn, new chapters of bad guys will spring up and I have no doubt be taking down by Thor/Harvath.

 

The Masters of Thrill

Eye For An Eye – Ben Coes (St. Martin’s Press)

There is an almost built in inevitability that author Ben Coes work will draw comparisons to that of authors like Brad Thor and the late Vince Flynn. All three have succeeded in creating larger than life characters who not only are at the center of their storylines, but who literally drive the action that takes place in their thrillers.

Pace is what separates the men from the boys when it comes to writing a great thriller and Coes once again does a masterful job of delivering pages that demand to be turned. Coes lead character, Dewey Andreas is back in full force, delivering the dish that is best served cold; revenge!

 

While he’s not the first author to use the revenge factor, and he certainly won’t be the last, Coes’ Eye For An Eye serves up tit-for-tat exchanges between Andreas and the head of China’s ministry of intelligence Fao Bhang.  Picking up the thread from The Last Refuge, Coes last outing, Andreas breaks a terror mastermind during an interrogation and delivers a Chinese mole to the Israeli Mossad. When the Israeli’s turn the mole into a special birthday surprise for the Chinese premier’s granddaughter, complete with a large ribbon and an ax to the skull, the story is off to the races.

Some may complain that Eye for An Eye stretches its grip on reality, but in the end this is a thriller, it’s supposed to be chock full of super human action, cool spy guy and heroic feats. Coes delivers all that and more and earns his spot among the masters of thrill.

 

Brad Thor – Full Black

When it comes to recommending authors who never disappoint, two names come to mind; Vince Flynn and Brad Thor. I have often, wholeheartedly, endorsed the works of these to guys to friends and co-workers.

I always find it interesting and often entertaining to gauge the reactions of those I pass the recommendations onto, when they make their first foray in the scary world of Flynn and Thor. They tend to range from enthusiastic fist pumping agreement to tight-assed, butt puckering comments like, “well I don’t know about the politics.”

If you are among the mind-numbed who think we need to “try to understand our enemies” or think that “we must have done something wrong for them to hate us” then don’t waste your time or hard earned money buying Flynn and Thor’s books. Oh and do me a favor, keep your opinions to yourself, I really don’t want to engage in the empty debate. If you are like me and think that there are evil people in the world who hate this country simply because we exist, then what are you waiting for?

Thor’s new book, his eleventh, Full Black features the latest installment in the ongoing Scot Harvath series. Full Black picks up the story thread where Foreign Influence left off. Thor once again exercises his ability to quickly grab you by the throat and set you off to the races. Think 24 on steroids without the short guy hero.


Full Black has a ripped from today’s headlines quality with characters that parallel many of today’s newsmakers; most notably the character James Standing, who seems similar to another famous, evil billionaire who seems bent on the destruction of the U.S. economic system and way of life. Sound familiar?


The thing that makes Thor’s wild storylines more believable is the “been there, done that, got the T-shirt” authenticity to his writing. He clearly has spent some time around and learning from the special operators of the U.S. Military. Stack the adventures and actions of Harvath up against the non-fiction accounts of Special Forces types and you’ll see a lot of similarities.


Here’s hoping that Thor continues to crank out engaging thrillers not only for my entertainment, but also for the butt puckering they cause for those folks who live in the land of the shades of gray.