By Leslie Pratch On July 6, I read the obituary in the New York Times by Tim Weiner of Robert S. McNamara. Weiner cited the unsigned editorial written that appeared in the New York Times in 1995 in response to McNamara’s tendering his “prime time” explanation/apologia “three decades late” in his book, “In Retrospect.” An [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson John Lescroart’s slightly shabby white knight, defense attorney Dismas Hardy, is back. “The First Law” represents a change of direction, however. There is relatively little law practice; there is precious little law abiding, for that matter. Private police forces (yes, they exist in the city) are in [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson What we have here is a story about a young intern who turns up missing after having an affair with a powerful San Joaquin Valley legislator. If you’re thinking this is a thinly veiled rehash of the Chandra Levy case, you’re right—and wrong. Hill, a Fresno journalist, [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson Watching one of his famous victories unfold, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee remarked, “It is well that war is so terrible—we should grow too fond of it!” That’s a famous quotation, but it doesn’t quite make sense. If war were not terrible, why shouldn’t we be fond [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson If you’ve lived in the South, “The March” can be only one thing: Gen. William T. Sherman’s trail of destruction in 1864 from Atlanta to the sea 275 miles away, then north through the Carolinas. Sherman led 62,000 men on his infamous march, cutting a 50-mile-wide swath [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson “The Revenant” is my sleeper novel of the summer, a simple, powerful tale based on a true story. In 1823, Hugh Glass joins a fur-company expedition up the wild Missouri River. Severely wounded by a bear, Hugh is abandoned to die by his two companions—one of them [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson Professional killers are all the fashion these days. I must have received a dozen new novels in the past few months in which the heroes were murderers—bright, successful, charismatic and working for the right side, but still murderers. The funny thing is, this works. I’m won over [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson Talk about baggage; John Rain has a load. The son of a Japanese father and an American mother, he was bullied as a boy in both countries. In Vietnam he learned he was a natural fighter, but he did things—we don’t know what for many pages—that he [...]
Edited by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson Is it my twisted imagination, or is there at least a minor backlash going on against the gore of the horror genre? “Superstition,” by David Ambrose is the latest and among the best of the more cerebral, character-driven and sophisticated supernatural thrillers that have been showing up [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson When Trisha, Kate, Lang and Molly graduate in ’79 from exclusive Briarcliffe College, Trisha’s rich dad “gifts” them (I hate that word) with matching telephone answering machines so they can always stay in touch. That’s the overarching conceit of “Gossip” by Los Angeles television anchorwoman Kelly Lange, [...]
Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson Thrillers and adventure novels are filled with natural disasters. We love our hurricanes and tornadoes, our floods and tsunamis, our forest fires and volcanoes, our occasional asteroid on a collision course with Manhattan. Although the earthquake is the quintessential lurking fear of Californians, it has been a [...]