{"id":794,"date":"2018-12-31T14:02:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=794"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:02:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:02:00","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-81","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=794","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews<\/span> and Foreword Reviews, <\/span>writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine,<\/span> and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/span>MYSTERY\/SUSPENSE<\/p>\n

Jon Land<\/span><\/p>\n

Strong Cold Dead: A Caitlin Strong Novel<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Forge Books<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-0-7653-3513-5 (also available as an e-book), 352 pgs., $26.99<\/p>\n

October 4, 2016<\/p>\n

\u201cNature takes care of its own, Ranger, and we are its own.\u201d \u2014White Eagle, Comanche shaman<\/p>\n

Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong is on desk duty<\/span> after a dustup involving Mexican cartel apprentices in San Antonio, when trouble between a drilling company and Native American protesters sends her into the Texas Hill Country to investigate a mutilated body discovered just off the reservation. History is preparing to repeat itself as Caitlin returns to where the Strong family legend was birthed. The case has strong echoes of similar circumstances investigated in 1874 by Caitlin\u2019s ancestor, the first Ranger Strong.<\/p>\n

Strong Cold Dead: A Caitlin Strong Novel<\/span><\/a><\/span> is the eighth installment in Jon Land\u2019s<\/span> mystery-suspense series starring the fifth-generation Texas Ranger. It can be read as a standalone, but I recommend beginning at the beginning. The backstories of the recurring characters, and history of their relationships to each other, will make understanding the underlying currents easier.<\/p>\n

A hallmark of this series is Land\u2019s use of Texas Ranger history, skillfully woven into the present-day tale. Land names the prolific Texas historian and author Mike Cox<\/span> in the acknowledgments, and quotes T. R. Fehrenbach<\/span> and the Bullock Texas State History Museum\u2019s \u201cThe Story of Texas\u201d in epigraphs introducing each part of the narrative.<\/p>\n

The action in Strong Cold Dead<\/span> centers around a fictional Comanche reservation, but ranges near and far, from Houston and Dallas to the Middle East and an Inuit village in Canada. The international cast is vivid and similarly varied. There\u2019s a psychic bingo caller, formerly a member of the Venezuelan secret police; a decorated veteran turned enforcer for the New Orleans mob (now retired), who has philosophical conversations with a root beer\u2013swilling ghost; Homeland Security honchos; Native American shamans; ISIS operatives; denizens of the Deep Web; a Royal Canadian Mountie; and a descendant of Peta Nocona. This is a partial list.<\/p>\n

The conflicts are ripped from the headlines: police killings of bystanders, protests turned riots, fracking, leaking coal-ash storage ponds, Standing Rock, WMD, terrorism.<\/p>\n

Despite a few odd word choices (\u201cswirling\u201d tunnels) and instances of purple prose (\u201cthose who sought their demise\u201d), Land can turn a phrase. When a bad guy disparages the threat Caitlin poses, he\u2019s admonished, \u201cPistols don\u2019t come in genders.\u201d Of a persistently annoying character, Caitlin muses that he \u201cjust like a bottle top, kept sticking to her boot and scratching everything it touched.\u201d Land is also funny. \u201cYou find shit to step in, no matter how well the pile is hidden,\u201d Caitlin\u2019s supervisor tells her. A young man attempting to stash a pistol in his waistband ruefully remembers his father\u2019s advice: \u201cI warned you about those skinny jeans, son, didn\u2019t I?<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n

The third-person narrative is fast paced and steady, the plot featuring multiple subplots, lots of moving parts, and plenty of twists. I detect strains of Lee Child\u2019s<\/span> antihero Jack Reacher, Taylor Stevens\u2019s<\/span> heroine Michael Munroe (with a little of Nevada Barr\u2019s<\/span> Anna Pigeon), and the antics of James Lee Burke\u2019s<\/span> Clete Purcel.<\/p>\n

However, Land\u2019s concoction is original.<\/p>\n

Strong Cold Dead<\/span> is a creative hybrid, blending mystery and suspense with elements of horror and science fiction. You\u2019ll have to suspend disbelief, but you\u2019ll be rewarded and appreciate Land\u2019s inventive, audacious spirit.<\/p>\n

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

Michelle Newby is a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews and Foreword Reviews, writer, blogger at TexasBookLover.com, member of the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop advisory committee, and a moderator for the Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, Concho River Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, The Rumpus, PANK Magazine, and The Collagist. […]<\/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-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","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=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}