{"id":1287,"date":"2018-12-31T16:34:53","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:34:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:34:53","slug":"lone-star-reviewsmichelle-newby-nbcc-105","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1287","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Minotaur Books<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-2500-7288-7, (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on Audible), 336 pgs., $26.99; April 17, 2018<\/p>\n

A pair of human feet are found in a Styrofoam cooler<\/span> in the middle of a judge\u2019s living room in El Paso, Texas. Another pair are found in a defense attorney\u2019s living room in Tucson. FBI Operations Specialist Magnus Craig and his partner, FBI Special Agent James Donovan, along with intelligence research specialist Diane Parker, form the FBI\u2019s Special Tracking Unit. They have a serial killer on their hands, apparently meting out vigilante justice.<\/p>\n

Whispers of the Dead: A Special Tracking Unit Novel<\/span> is the second in a mystery-suspense series by Spencer Kope<\/span>, a crime analyst for the Whatcom County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Washington State. Collecting the Dead<\/span> (Minotaur, 2016) is the first installment in Kope\u2019s series, and while not necessary to understand follow the action in Whispers of the Dead,<\/span> it provides some references to prior events, including in the epilogue, which also tees up the third book.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Alfred A. Knopf<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-0-5255-2010-4, (also available as an e-book, on Audible, and as a large-print paperback), 368 pgs., $27.95<\/p>\n

April 17, 2018<\/p>\n

In a former life, I was a paralegal for an international law firm in Dallas.<\/span> During a conversation with a lawyer from Philadelphia, he told me something astonishing. According to him, neither does Pennsylvania require years of state history in school curriculum, nor do automobile manufacturers create Pennsylvania-edition SUVs. He\u2019d never experienced anything like the Texas identity juggernaut and wanted me to explain it. I\u2019m going to send him an email recommending Lawrence Wright\u2019s<\/span> new book.<\/p>\n

Wright focuses his razor-sharp lens inward and on his home state in God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State.<\/span> Austinite Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and author of ten books of nonfiction, including Pulitzer Prize winner The Looming Tower<\/span> (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). God Save Texas<\/span> is history lesson, cultural criticism, reporting, and memoir. By turns funny and fond, disgusted and resigned, Wright defaults to weary exasperation, but he can\u2019t deny that only Texas feels like home.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

FICTION<\/p>\n

Glen Larum<\/span><\/p>\n

Waltz Against the Sky<\/span><\/p>\n

Walking Three Bar T Publishing<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-0-9966865-0-1, 400 pages; $28.95; 2016<\/p>\n

As you open Austin and Midland writer Glen Larum\u2019s debut novel, <\/span>get ready for a dance with characters who are caught in swirls of life\u2019s randomness, its chance convergences, and their own spur-of-the-moment decisions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waltz Against the Sky<\/span> has echoes of mysteries by such writers as Tony Hillerman<\/span> and Elmore Leonard.<\/span> But Larum also has his own style, and he\u2019s good at building tension and suspense within seemingly commonplace moments and everyday encounters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What you do get in this 399-page book is a fast foxtrot of familiar actions and conventional plot.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Larum\u2019s novel is set mostly in a small, fictional West Texas town known as Indian Springs. (Yes, the Lone Star State has at least two communities\u2014one in Southeast Texas and one near San Antonio\u2014that call themselves Indian Springs.) Waltz Against the Sky<\/span> takes place in a town where five highways converge. >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

>> archive<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Texas cookbooks appeal to wide range of taste buds<\/h1>\n

Every year Texas chefs produce mouth-watering cookbooks,<\/span> and four have come across my desk already in 2018. They are:<\/p>\n

Hard Core Carnivore: Cook Meat Like You Mean It<\/span><\/a><\/span> by Jess Pryles<\/span> (Surrey Books, $29.95 flexbound).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span>The Austin Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from Deep in the Heart of Texas<\/span><\/a><\/span> by Paula Forbes<\/span> (Abrams Books, $29.95 hardcover).<\/p>\n

Paulie\u2019s: Classic Italian Cooking in the Heart of Houston\u2019s Montrose District<\/span><\/a><\/span> by Paul Petronella<\/span> (Greenleaf, $27.95 hardcover).<\/p>\n

The Ultimate Tortilla Press Cookbook<\/span><\/a><\/span> by Dotty Griffith<\/span> (Harvard Common Press, $24.99 paperback).<\/p>\n

As the title of her book suggests, Jess Pryles<\/span> focuses on cooking meat, with plenty of recipes for chicken, game, pork, lamb, beef, and sides. Her own personal favorite, she admits, is beef.<\/p>\n

Pryles, who was born in Australia, now makes her home in Austin. She said she \u201cused to be intimidated by the idea of cooking meat,\u201d and so she set out to change that, visiting ranches, butcher shops, and other locales to learn about meat. \u201cPut simply,\u201d she writes, \u201cI\u2019m a meat nerd, and now I get to share both my discoveries and recipes with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few entrees from the beef chapter: the perfect steak, twice-cooked cola short ribs, chicken fried steak, the steakhouse burger, beef hand pies, and chile-crusted roast beef.<\/p>\n

Paula Forbes,<\/span> a food and restaurant writer in Austin, devotes chapters in her Austin cookbook to barbecue, tacos, Tex-Mex, Texas standards, new Austin classics, breakfast and brunch, drinks, sweets, and salsas, sauces and chilis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dishes in this cookbook,\u201d she writes, \u201ccome from some of the great Austin restaurants. In fact, in many ways this book doubles as a restaurant guide.\u201d She said she personally tested the recipes in her own home kitchen to make sure they could be reproduced at home, but she notes that \u201cwhile many of the recipes are easy enough for beginners, this isn\u2019t really intended to be a book full of quick weeknight meals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just a few examples: chicken tinga, from Jack Allen\u2019s Kitchen; 24 hash, from 24 Diner; sweet potato nachos, from Odd Duck; the fried chicken from Lucy\u2019s Fried Chicken, and chicken fried steak with cream gravy from the Broken Spoke.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span>Paul Petronella<\/span> includes recipes for a number of Italian-American dishes and desserts but also tells the story of operating a family business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest myth is that owners of small businesses are sitting on piles of money,\u201d he writes. \u201cThat couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. Small business owners should know how much money is going out and how much is coming in at all times. In most cases, inexperienced restaurateurs don\u2019t account for all the costs that restaurants incur to operate in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the book consists of recipes for such fare as fettuccini scampi, rigatoni Bolognese, eggplant parmigiana, citrus asparagus, and key lime pie, interspersed with Petronella\u2019s experience of operating Paulie\u2019s for twenty years.<\/p>\n

Dotty Griffith,<\/span> longtime Dallas food journalist and author, provides 125 recipes for burritos, enchiladas, tacos, fajitas, soups, and desserts.<\/p>\n

The first section of the book is about basics: tortillas and how to make them. But whether you make them yourself or just buy them at the grocery or tortilleria, Griffith offers plenty of tasty ways to use them.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

>> <\/span>Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit<\/a><\/span>erary Life<\/span><\/h1>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>2018 TEXAS BOOKISH DESTINATIONS<\/h1>\n

Can you name this literary place in the Lone Star State?<\/h1>\n

Admit it: bookfans love traveling almost as much as they love reading itself.<\/span> Beginning March 4, 2018, Lone Star Literary Life will roll out #10 through #6 in our annual list of Top Texas Bookish Destinations, for readers who want to visit the settings of their favorite books, the birthplaces and haunts of favorite authors, and hot spots for book buying, readings, and other literary activity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But throughout Texas\u2019s 268,597 square miles, there are also lots of out-of-the-way points of interest that we don\u2019t always have space to cover in our Top Ten pages.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Watch this space each week for a new bookish place that you\u2019ll want to add to your own travel list. Be the first to email us with the correct identification, and win a prize!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This week, we continue with a bookish place that\u2019s located in 2017\u2019s #2 Top Bookish Destination. There\u2019s plenty of poetry in this literary-rich city, but there\u2019s a Poet Tree, too. Can you name the city? And extra credit for telling our readers the neighborhood or street where they can find it, too.<\/p>\n

Email us at<\/span> info@LoneStarLiterary.com<\/span><\/a><\/span> with the specific right answer,<\/span> and we’ll send you a free copy of Literary Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

LAST MONTH\u2019S PHOTO<\/span> (below<\/span>) was correctly identified as the Capitol Gift Shop, inside the state capitol building in Austin. Congratulations \u2014 your prize is on the way!<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contributing Editor Minotaur Books Hardcover, 978-1-2500-7288-7, (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on Audible), 336 pgs., $26.99; April 17, 2018 A pair of human feet are found in a Styrofoam cooler in the middle of a judge\u2019s living room in El Paso, Texas. Another pair are found in a defense attorney\u2019s living […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}