Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

A convict with a thirst for revenge. [Mattias]

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager. [Jesper]

A runaway with a privileged past. [Wylan]

A spy known as the Wraith. [Inej]

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. [Nina]

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. [Kaz]

This book brings together these people with Kaz "Dirtyhands" Brekkker the leader of this band of not so merry followers who are in a gang called the Dregs in lower Ketterdam.  Kaz is approached by a mercher or merchant, Van Eck, who tells him that the Council of Merchants wants a man Bo Yul-Bayur and that they want him themselves to kill because they don't believe the Fjerdan who are holding him captive will do it before someone else manages to kidnap him first.  Bo knows how to take jurda parem, a substance like caffeine and alter it so that it can make it so that Grisha who have special powers like the ability to heal have their powers super enhanced and can control men's minds.  Or those that are Summoners such as Tidemakers who can affect the tidal waters can walk through walls by turning themselves into mists and fabrikators can turn any metal into gold or create something powerful out of metal.  The Fjerdans believe those who have that power to be witches and need to be put to death.  Though the government does not condone burning at the stake anymore it still happens without any punishment.  

Van Eck offers Kaz $30,000 kruge, twenty percent he'd have to give to Per Haskell his boss, but with the right crew, they could each clear $4 million kruge, a life-changing amount for each of them.  But for Mattias whom they break out of jail, he offers him a pardon that would allow him to go back home to Fjerda and being a druskelle, a soldier in the Fjerda military.  But because of something Nina did Mattias wound up in Hellsgate prison under the charge of being a slaver.  She's spent the last year trying to get him out--recanting her testimony--but nothing has worked and now Raz has come to her with this crazy plan that will not only make her rich but will get Mattias out of jail, finally.  Nina is a Grisha Heartrender which means she can control the heart and circulatory system.  But being a Grisha she did receive basic training in healing and fabrikating of the body.  

Mattias at first wants revenge and to kill Nina, but he overcomes this with his desire to want to kill Bo Yul-Bayur.  He is spending his time trying to convince Nina to come over to his side and kill Bo as soon as they get the chance to prevent him from creating more monstrosities.  Mattias and Nina have loving feelings toward each other that they would like to deny exist but exist they do.   

Jesper's job is to look after Wylan who is Van Eck's son who a month or so ago began slumming his way around the Barrell.  Kaz made sure nothing happened to him just in case and threw him some work in demolition which he was okay at.  Jesper is Kaz's second whom he never tells anything.  Jesper is a killer with his guns and was once a farm boy.  He gambles too much and this time he really did gamble too much because he put up his father's farm and he needs this haul to pay off the debt and save his dad's farm.  

Inej was sold into slavery and worked as a prostitute at the Menagerie, one of the worst places to work at, until she met Kaz one night and he saved her life by getting Per Haskell to buy her indenture off of Madame Hellene.  From that point onward she became the Wraith.  She worked for Kaz finding out people's secrets.  Inej was trained as an acrobat and can climb anywhere and sneak into anywhere.  She's what's known in the industry as a spider.  Inej has a deeply spiritual belief system and can filet you in five seconds flat.  

Kaz can pick any lock and has a bum leg.  He carries a cane with a crow's head on it with him that has been fabricated and can break any bone in your body.  Kaz seeks revenge for his brother's death and with this money he can get his revenge.  He also has feelings toward Inej that he doesn't want to have.  He has a reputation as being the toughest guy in the Barrell. He didn't get the nickname Dirtyhands for being a nice guy.  

The job involves breaking into a place that has never been successfully broken into The Ice Palace of Fjerda and taking a prisoner out.  And they wouldn't be the only ones trying to get Bo Yul-Bayer out of there.  This is the first book in a series and I just love the characters.  It's hard to choose a favorite because just as soon as you do, another character pipes up and does something spectacular that leaves you feeling rotten for not giving that character it's due.  There are no words to describe how fabulous this book is.   I cannot wait to read the next book in the series.  I give it my highest score possible a five out of five, but know that if I could I would give it a higher score.              

Quotes

Oh, its worst than that, Van Eck.  If I fail I don’t get paid.

-Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows p57)

“He wants his revenge, Kaz” “That’s what he wants, not what he needs,” said Kaz. “Leverage is all about knowing the difference.”

-Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows p 80)

Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you’ll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won’t matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.

-Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows p 136)

She wouldn’t wish love on anyone. It was the guest you welcomed and then couldn’t get rid of.

-Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows p 163)

Better terrible truths than kind lies.

-Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows p 308)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Six-Crows-Leigh-Bardugo/dp/125007696X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548675503&sr=8-1&keywords=six+of+crows

Star Wars Journey To Star Wars The Last Jedi: Captain Phasma by Kelly Thompson (Writer), Marco Checchetto (Artist), Andres Mossa (Colorist), VC's Clayton Cowles (Letterer)

Thompson who has written comics such as Rogue and Gambit, Captain Marvel, Hawkeye, and the new Jessica Jones has written a book that takes place when General Organa's resistance forces have staged an attack on the First Order's most powerful weapon, Starkiller Base.  A team consisting of Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Finn has penetrated the base to lower its defense shields.  While Starkiller is charging in order to destroy planets, Captain Phsma is forced at gunpoint to lower the base's defense shields, allowing Resistance forces to attack in full.  Then the trio forces her down a garbage chute.

When Captain Phasma goes to erase the evidence that she was the one to lower the shields she finds evidence that someone else helped to lower the shields--a Sol Revas.  He has taken a ship and left Starkiller Base so she nabs a pilot and does the same.  They chase Rivas to the planet Luprora where he likely landed because he ran out of fuel.  Their ship was being worked on when they commandeered it and it has its own problems.  They land without letting Rivas know.

When they kill a monster called a Tse'ells they make friends with some of the locals who have landed there from elsewhere and wish to make Luprora their home but are having trouble with the natives, the R'ora and the new creatures that have started to pop up such as the Tse'ells.  The R'ora have Rivas and they are a merciless lot and will kill him, but Captain Phasma cannot count on that. She must see to it herself so she agrees to lead these people in a war against the R'ora in order to get close to Rivas.  Will Captain Phasma succeed?  And what will become of the people being led into battle against the R'ora?  In this book you get a real good look at Captain Phasma and how she works and what she is willing to do for the First Order and for herself.  She is cunning and ruthless and takes care of business.  Thompson does an excellent job of demonstrating just who Captain Phasma is. The art by Checchetto and Mossa is excellent.  I give this book four out of five stars.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Journey-Captain-Phasma-ebook/dp/B076BX9MS1/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1548427242&sr=1-1&keywords=captain+phasma

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 3: Double Trouble by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Mark Bagley (Penciler), Art Thibert (Inker), Erik Benson (Inker), Transparency Digital (Colorist), and Dave Sharpe (Letterer)

In the previous comic, Spider-Man goes after Wilson Fisk whom he believes is the man ultimately responsible for his uncle's death.  He fails miserably.  He also goes after the Goblin and puts that villain to rest.  However, Norman Osborne had been involved in an experiment with Dr. Otto Octavius that went terribly wrong and fused his mechanical arms to his body.  S.H.I.E.L.D. took him into custody.

Dr. Octavius, or as his handlers have taken to calling him, Doctor Octopus,  wakes up from his coma three months later with his eyes sensitive to light and four mechanical arms fused to his body.  He kills his handlers and leaves to go home where he kills the woman who lives there now.  His memory of what happened is gone but he wants revenge and he knows where to get it.

Kong believes that Peter Parker is Spider-Man so he has to take a beating to prove he is not him.  New girl Gwen Stacy stops him by pulling a knife on him and gets in trouble with the principal and her dad Captain George Stacy.  Meanwhile, his relationship with Mary Jane Watson has progressed to something like a girlfriend status.

Spider-Man also has to deal with the TV show hunter Kraven who has decided that he wants to hunt him down.  Doc Ock is after the man who helped Osborne, Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries, who has his own humans with superpowers that he created in his lab locked up in that lab.  Spider-Man finds himself protecting a man who is pretty despicable, while S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to go after Doc Ock. Hammer put the blame on Spider-Man when it was Doc Ock who attacked him.  Peter Parker has had to deal with being slammed in the press by J. Jonah Jameson constantly and now Hammer has him looking even worse.  He can't catch a break.  He's treated like a menace when all he wants to do is help people.  Bendis writes great dialogue and fabulous wisecracks.  This is a wonderful series that just keeps getting better.  I give it five out of five stars.   

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Spider-Man-Vol-Trouble-Graphic-ebook/dp/B00AAJR3PG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1548253737&sr=8-2&keywords=ultimate+spider-man+vol+3

The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade For Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Deborah Blum

Starting in the middle of the nineteenth-century companies started using preservatives and additives to the food and drinks in America.  For example, milk which was still not being pasteurized even though Louis Pasteur had invented the method in the 1860s, leaving bacteria in the milk, but that was not all that was being left in the milk, manure could be found, sticks, dirt, chalk to give it a white appearance and formaldehyde to preserve it longer.  Children were getting sick and dying from drinking this milk, yet few were doing anything about it.  But that was just one thing. Beer and wine were being preserved with salicylic acid, which could make people ill at certain doses.  Butter was using borax, the cleaning product, to help itself while canned vegetables were using copper sulphate, a toxic metallic salt that makes pickles greener.  And of course the huge debate over what was whiskey and how to label blended whiskeys that added dyes and differentiate between imitations that were just ethanol. 

Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, a chemistry professor from Perdue, who had grown up on a farm in Indiana, in 1883 was hired on as the chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture.  Of course, at the time there was no Secretary of Agriculture because it wasn't a cabinet position yet and wouldn't be until 1888.  The head was known as the commissioner.  There were several that were great to work with who supported his work, but there was one who slashed the budget to pieces for running experiments and that was Julius Sterling Morton.  He didn't want him running experiments on food issues but concentrating only on farm concerns.  

Then in 1896 his biggest friend and then foe would be placed in the position of Secretary of Agriculture.  James Wilson was interested in running experiments and fixing the food problem.  But Wilson was also a friend to the businessman and didn't believe in hurting business if possible, while Wiley was becoming more and more of a crusader for the consumer.   

In 1901, Wiley had become even more famous when he experimented on preservatives and additives to food when he got a group of men to dine their three meals while taking a pill (or not if they were in the control group) in various degrees of strength. A newspaperman called them the Poison Squad.  He tried out borax, salicylic acid, saccharine, sulfurous acid, and other things on the men.  The results were the same. They all got sick and at least half if not more could not finish the test for these substances.        

After a long fight, with support from scientists, the American Medical Association, women's groups', and some businesses such as Heinz who used no preservatives and were being hurt by companies who did, a watered-down Pure Food and Drug Act would be passed in 1906 but the real fight would begin after that by trying to enforce it.  They would sue Coke Cola for having the dangerous drug caffeine in it.  But by demanding labeling they helped consumers. It wasn't the best law. Better laws would come along later.  But it would get the ball rolling and Wiley was the father of this first law.  Wiley could be stubborn and unbending especially in his later years when he became even more protective of "his" law, but he believed in protecting the people first.  This is a fascinating read about a little-known law that we take for granted.  The author does an excellent job of keeping you interested in a book that could easily slip into boring territory with talk of lab work and agriculture.  I give this book four out of five stars. 

Quotes

In a talk to chemists visiting from Europe, he [Harvey Wiley] said, “Man’s highest ambition in this country is to strive to be the equal of woman.”

-Deborah Blum (The Poison Squad: One Chemist Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century p 108)

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Poison-Squad-Chemists-Single-Minded-Twentieth-ebook/dp/B079WNPRRQ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=J418OP7QRPK6&keywords=the+poison+squad&qid=1548080085&sprefix=the+poison+%2Caps%2C180&sr=8-1

   

All New X-Men Vol 6 The Ultimate Adventure by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Mahmud Asrar (Artist), Marte Garcia (Colorist), Jason Keith (Colorist), Cory Petit (Letterer)

After having defeated the Purifiers and some time travelers who wanted to change the future the gang is taking a much-needed break with Angel and Laura, X-23 going off on their own overnight.  Jean has been training with Emma and the two are surprisingly becoming friends.  Suddenly Storm and Beast arrive to pick up Scott to take him to the reading of Professor X's will leaving the X-Men unsupervised.

New Beast is examing Cerebro when a new mutant registers on it.  He tells Angel and Jean Grey who both decide it would be a good idea to go and make contact with this mutant.  So they take the Blackbird to the location and introduce themselves to Clarissa who is freaked out naturally about discovering she has mutant powers and uses them to send all the X-Men to another Earth in another dimension.

Iceman finds himself fighting Molepeople under the earth while Angel finds himself in the Savage Lands where he meets those that look like younger versions of Wolverine.  Beast has been captured by Dr. Doom.  Jean Grey finds herself in New York City with Miles Morales as Spider-Man and when she reads his mind she realizes she's on the wrong Earth.  She has him take her to the address of the X-Men mansion which at first appears disserted, but they are soon set upon by X-Men, including Jean Grey.

They use Cerebro to find the other X-Men and go after them.  The hard part is getting to Beast who is being held by Dr. Doom and finding the young girl and working out a way to get home.  This was a great comic because it had Miles Morales in it and he was a welcome distraction.  Also seeing a different world where man created mutants puts a whole new twist on things.  It's one thing to be proud you're a mutant or finally come to terms with it as something that couldn't be helped because you were created that way and another thing altogether to be forced to become a mutant and likely wish you weren't.  Bendis, as usual, has written a brilliant book that really makes you take a different look at the mutant question.  I give this book five out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:   https://www.amazon.com/All-New-X-Men-Vol-Ultimate-Adventure-ebook/dp/B00TEC31AG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547815482&sr=8-1&keywords=all-new+x-men%2C+volume+6+the+ultimate+adventure

The Secret Life of Sleep by Kat Duff

I wouldn't be true to this blog if I didn't write bad reviews too, so this is one.  This book, which I hoped would provide me with insight and perhaps help in my twenty-year long battle with sleep, did neither.  It was completely biased against using medications, which do happen to work, at least for a while, and believes that if we don't keep our children in our bedrooms until the age of five, they will become poor sleepers as adults.

She approaches this from various angles; the mystic, pseudo-science, anthropology, and first-hand accounts.  Her only saving grace is her belief in the use of cognitive behaviorism, which is actually a helpful way to deal with problems like sleep.  First, you must understand and fix your ideas about sleep; making it less a battle.  Then, you must also provide a good sleep environment, with the use of few electronics before sleep and using your bed for only sleep, so that your body will know what to do once its there.

A better book on sleep is Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randal.  He is a journalist who has had sleep problems, including sleepwalking, for years.  His book is unbiased and really examines the issue from a very real and scientific view.  It also offers good suggestions to help you sleep, for example, turning the lights down an hour before you go to sleep so that the melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep, will begin to produce early and help you to go to sleep.  I've used this method with some degree of success.

In the end, there are better books out there to read on sleep than The Secret Life of Sleep.  Unless, of course, you want something to read to put you to sleep, because this book is so boring, it just might do that.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Sleep-Kat-Duff-ebook/dp/B00DPM7RO2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547644419&sr=8-1&keywords=the+secret+life+of+sleep

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

Diana was made from the clay of the ground by Hippolyta on the island of Themyscira--the island of the Amazons.  Her mother is the queen of the Amazons which makes things tougher on her in that she must work harder to be the best.  Tek, her mother's top general, and best friend, is always picking on her and calling her names.  There's a race that Diana has entered, her first competition and she has worked with one of the other Amazons with a plan on how to win the race by mapping out a winning course.

Diana is in the lead and is guaranteed to win when she notices a crashed ship right at the boundary of the island's existence.  She sees a woman floating in the water alive and knows she can save her. But it is forbidden to interfere in the affairs of man in this way and it is definitely forbidden to bring someone to the island.  But Diana does it anyway and hides her in one of the caves along the beach telling her she will be back with help soon since Diana needed to be at the race's ceremony and the banquet afterward.

Soon, though, Diana's friend Maeve becomes the first to become sick and then the island begins to quake.  Diana's mother is going to see the Oracle but Diana gets there first.  She knows the reason for the all the trouble is the girl but she wants to save her. She has three questions to ask the Oracle and she asks her how to save Themyscira and the answer is to do nothing. The girl is sick too and will die and once she dies the island will be fine again.  Her second question is how to save the girl, Alia's life.  This is when she finds out that Alia is a Warbringer, a haptandra, or hand of war.  She is a descendant of Helen of Troy who was the cause of the Trojan War.  But Helen's descendants have caused many wars and much destruction over the years.  Diana's third question is how does she save everybody and Oracle tells her that there is a river where Helen's is buried that the Warbringer can be bathed in and it will cleanse the girl stopping the war from coming.

Diana gets Alia onto a boat and uses her heartstone and tells her to think of the spring. Alia doesn't really believe in this spring and that isn't really where she wants to go and the heartstone works by taking the user with the most powerful desire to that destination.  So they end up in New York City, Alia's home.  Alia picks up one of her brother Jason's emergency packs from a car parked in a lot. Inside is cash, flashlights, and a phone.  The phone has a tracer on it which Alia knows and hopes that Jason will track them because Diana says that it isn't wise for them to go straight to Jason. That it is wise that people think that she is dead since the ship was blown up.  When Jason shows up and tries to pick the door open, Diana throws him to the ground.

Once his ego is dealt with and he realizes that Diana is there to protect Alia, Jason, who is strict on things he feels are obligations which are everything, insists that she attends a charity fundraiser before they leave for the spring which he buys into because he knows she is a Warbringer because their parents left data behind about it and how they were going to try to cure her.  Their parents were scientists who worked on many things such as vaccines and genetic work.  Alia insists on having her best friend Nim there who is a fashionista who finds them all outfits to wear and sent over.  Nim is funny and sarcastic and the kind of best friend we all wish we could have.  Nim and Theo Santos, Michael Santos son, who was a friend of Alia's parents and a member of the board of the company, argue constantly.  Theo is cute, a smartass, and good with computers but also has to deal with being a disappointment to his father.  Alia has had the biggest crush on him for years.

The party is interrupted by men with guns trying to kill Alia.  But Diana and Jason get them out of there and to a waiting plane heading toward Greece.  They've got people out to kill Alia because keeping her alive is causing the world to go to war.  Also, there are gods and goddesses who are out to keep them from getting to the spring because they live off of the chaos of war.  But not everyone is being completely honest with the group.  Diana has her magic lasso. Does she use it to compel the truth from someone?  I loved this book.  Greek mythology has long been a favorite of mine and while the author has made up a myth there are still plenty of real myths and gods and goddesses in this book to make me very happy.  Besides, the myth she made up is very interesting and cool and decidedly possible.  Also, Wonder Woman has long been a hero of mine and this book portrays her very well.  I adored the character of Nim who just sparkled with life and wit and Theo with whom she sparred that gave as good as he got.  Theo was also a sweet guy with a tender heart.  Alia was a good character too. She was tough but buckled under the pressure of living as a black girl in a white world and having to be careful of what she did.  That's how her mother raised her that no amount of money could change the fact that she was still black.  Her father, who was Greek, never understood this. Alia was also sometimes ashamed of the science geek label she wore as it didn't get her the attention of guys.  Or the one guy she was interested in.  But she begins to question her thinking on these ideas. This was a fabulous book that keeps you turning the pages as fast as you can to find out what happens next. I give it my highest possible rating a five out of five stars.

Quotes

Because the whole world loves to tell us what we can’t do, that we aren’t good enough. The people in your own house should be on your side. It’s the people who never learn the word impossible who make history, because they’re the ones who keep trying.

-Leigh Bardugo (Wonder Woman: Warbringer p 168)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Warbringer-ICONS-Spanish-ebook/dp/B07612H2P7/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1547484659&sr=1-1&keywords=wonder+woman+warbringer

            

Silk: The LIfe and Times of Cindy Moon by Robbie Thompson (Writer), Stacey Lee (Artist), Annapaola Martello (Artist), Tana Ford (Artist), Ian Herring (Colorist), and VC's Travis Lanham (Letterer)

As a teenager, Cindy Moon was bitten by the same spider that bit Peter Parker giving her similar powers such as spidey sense, powers of adhesion, and the ability to weave webs from her fingertips.  To protect Earth from a deadly family of spider-hunters and murderers called the inheritors, Cindy Moon was locked up in a bunker that prevented them from sensing her presence.  Spider-Man opened the bunker, unaware of the danger that revealing Cindy's existence could cause, and set the events of the Spider-Verse in motion.  After fighting side-by-side with countless other spiders against the inheritors and saving the world, Cindy is now back in New York, fighting crime and trying to find her family in a world she hasn't lived in for years.

The comic opens with Cindy being attacked by a Pokemon-like dressed villain named Dragonclaw.  She takes her video from their encounter and uses them for her job as an intern at Fact Channel where she works for J. Jonah Jameson who likes Silk and gives Cindy the nickname Analog for using a notebook and pen which he likes.

Cindy helps her roommate find love and then the girl practically moves in so Cindy decides to move out and go back to the bunker where she spent ten years of her life and stay there for a while. If nothing else it's quiet. She's been having trouble with dealing with hearing people's cries for help when the help most often is nothing they need help with.

Dragonclaw has gone to Black Cat who has sent him to a mysterious man who helps him become more of a dragon with the weaponry and he comes back after Silk.  But things don't go as planned and Silk convinces him to turn his life around which does not make Black Cat happy.  But someone else is watching Cindy and someone else wants her for their own reasons. Sometimes it's not good to be wanted.  With help from Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, Cindy must fight off Black Cat and the other bad guys.  On top of which something catastrophic is happening to Earth.  Cindy is an interesting character. She suffers from anxiety and a bit of PTSD from staying in the bunker for ten years with a man who was supposed to be on her side.  All that's left of him are videos in the bunker he left for her.  She still manages to be tough and believes in redeeming the bad guys if she can rather than sending them to jail.  She's on J. Jonah Jameson's good side, which I didn't know he had one.  Don't worry, he hasn't gone soft--just develops a soft spot for Cindy.  She may feel the need to spend most of her time alone, but there are lots of people who care about her. She brings that out in people. But she also has steel inside her that drives her to find her family and fight crime and move forward with her life.  This book was a good start in her life and her career as a superhero.  I give it four out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Silk-Vol-Life-Times-Cindy-ebook/dp/B016LLE1YC/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1547221867&sr=1-8&keywords=silk

Rat Queens Vol. 2: The Far-Reaching Tentacles of N'Rygoth by Kurtis J. Wiebe (Story), Roc Upchurch (Artist), Stjepan Sejic (Artist), and Ed Brisson (Letterer)

In the previous comic, someone sent assassins to take out the mercenary groups the Peaches, the Four Daves, Brother Ponies, Dark Obsidians, and the Rat Queens in order to have an easier time taking over the city of Palisade.  But the mercenaries joined forces with the local military and fended off the evil and a big party was put on by the Rat Queens afterward. The Rat Queens are Betty, a hippie halfling thief whose idea of a meal is drugs and candy, Hannah, a rockabilly elven mage, Violet a dwarven warrior who shaved her beard and then there's Dee, an atheist human who is skilled in combat has magic abilities and can heal, who comes from a family who worships a squid deity named N'Rygoth.

The next day they are sent a message from the mayor of Palisade to find a young woman named Bernadette. Sawyer, the head of the local military, and Hannah's on again off again boyfriend is also looking into it, but he wants them to look for her too. Sawyer is working with Lola and finds a clue that leads him to believe that an assassin of the Black Khali are involved and that he must go and deal with this alone.  He finds Bernadette and the person who has taken her hostage and becomes a hostage himself.

Dee's husband Mezikah shows up and tells them that the Haruspex Requiem was stolen. This is the death mask worn by the high priestess of their religion that absorbs all of their knowledge upon their death to be transferred to the next high priestess who wears it.  The Rat Queens have found Bernadette and all they can do is fix her so she is back to normal and not spouting nonsense but she will still be blind.  A man named Gerrig has stolen the Haruspex Requiem with plans destroy Palisade the town he created.  He doesn't have the papers with the spells so he is using what he knows from memory to call to the creatures from the abyss causing the others to hallucinate mostly bad things that will distract them from coming after him. Dee has the spells he needs.  What she will do with them is a mystery.

The Rat Queens are such interesting characters with Hannah a bitch in the best possible way and in this comic you get to know everyone's past more through the hallucinations.  Violet who has a mother who is an alcoholic, but supports her more than her father ever did. And Hannah and Izzie from the Peaches surprising past history.  Will Dee find the answers she has been seeking her whole life from her family's religion that she has doubted most of her life?  Will they be able to once again save Palisade from destruction?  This is a great comic with wonderful art. I give it four out of five starts.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Rat-Queens-Reaching-Tentacles-NRygoth/dp/1632150409/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547040084&sr=8-1&keywords=rat+queens+vol+2

Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart

In the last book set in 1915, Constance Kopp is promised a sheriff's deputy's badge by Sheriff Heath, making her the first lady deputy in the state.  But when this book opens Constance is doing the work of a female deputy, but without the badge.  Her main job is as the jailhouse matron for the female prisoners.  One of the male prisoners, Herman Albert von Matthesius, who has posed as a doctor and did horrible things but is in jail for theft and received a year of jail time. While there he would insist on speaking German and the only person who spoke German was Constance so she would be called in to interpret for him.

Then he got sick and the county had refused the Sheriff a doctor for the jail, so they had to send Matthesius to the hospital.  He would only speak in German so Constance was called to the hospital to translate.  A train had had an accident injuring at least half a dozen people so the hospital was jumping.  Deputy English, whom Constance doesn't think too highly of, escorts her the hospital room.  English wants to leave and go help the Sheriff so she tells him to go ahead and he does.  She questions Matthesius about his complaints and he tells her of his problems.  She steps outside to look for a doctor and to guard the door.  Then the lights go out and things really become chaotic.  Just then Sheriff Heath arrives and they go to check on the prisoner and he's gone.  Heath sends his deputies out to search for him and he sends Constance home.

He had finally given her something really big to do and she blew it.  Constance wants to hide under her covers but her two sisters Norma and Fleurette won't let her.  Well, sister and daughter, though Fleurette doesn't know that she's her daughter.  That's another thing that she has to worry about now that Fleuette is eighteen-years-old and while she enrolled her into a school for the dramatic arts to keep her busy she is taking to it very seriously and is coming into contact with dashing young men whose intentions are perhaps all too clear.  And she wants to run off to New York City to become an actress. Whatever are Norma and Constance to do with Fleurette?  But then Norma and Fleurette convince Constance to go out and capture Matthesius herself and redeem herself and perhaps get her badge in the process.

She starts off going to the place where the sheriff has already gone to but it provided no answers.  She went to a friend of hers in New York City who is a photographer whom she thought might have followed the story, but he had no information for her except that she should follow the names in the crime and ask them herself what happened since the papers didn't report it in great detail and the sheriff never told her.  So she hunts down the three young men involved in this horrible act and finds out the truth which helps her get a step closer to Matthesius and helps to redeem herself in the eyes of some of the deputies.

Constance is more than a character in that she really lived and this case really happened, though not entirely the way Stewart depicts it in her book.  Stewart took newspaper clippings and brought them to life to tell the story of a dangerous criminal who escaped from jail and how Constance hunted him down alongside Sheriff Heath and how the Freeholders of the town were calling to have the sheriff put in jail if the prisoner wasn't found which was the law back then.  There is also the story of one of the female jail inmates who is accused of murder who the local detective has found evidence that shows she is innocent, but whom the woman herself swears she did it.  It's up to Constance to get to the bottom of it.  This book is just as good as the last book which was fantastic.  These sisters are such interesting characters and the fact that they really lived just adds to it. Constance's need to prove herself in a man's world doing a job that she loves and fighting to keep doing it really speaks to me as a woman, but it has universal themes to anyone who feels that life has given them the short end of the stick.  This is an amazing book and I highly recommend it.  I give it five out of five stars. 

Quotes

It was the belief of Sheriff Heath and some of the more reform-minded sheriffs in the state that the criminal mind could be rehabilitated by imposing order upon a disordered life.  According to this line of thinking, women committed fewer crimes precisely because their days were filled with domestic duties. 

-Amy Stewart (Lady Cop Makes Trouble p 35)

It occurred to me that there was something about a man in his late thirties. He was old enough to know his own mind and still young enough to do something about it.

-Amy Stewart (Lady Cop Makes Trouble p 46)

Yes, well he’s a man of limited intellect, and if he had more than one idea at a time they’d die from overcrowding.

-Amy Stewart (Lady Cop Makes Trouble p 71)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Makes-Trouble-Sisters-Novel/dp/0544947134/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1546868203&sr=1-1&keywords=lady+cop+makes+trouble+by+amy+stewart  

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 1: Power and Responsibility by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer, Story), Bill Jemas (Story), Mark Bagley (Penciler), Art Thibert (Inker), Dan Panosian (Inker), Steve Buccellato (Colorist), Marie Javins (Colorist), Colorgraphix and Transparency Digital (Colorist), Richard Starkings and Comicraft (Letterer)

The great Brian Michael Bendis has put his own spin on the origin story of Spider-Man in this first volume of the Ultimate Spider-Man series.  While Norman Osbourne is working on animal research to create something spectacular that is nearly ready for human testing, Peter Parker is spending his days being bullied with some reprieve by Harry Osbourne who helps him out because he does Harry's homework.  Mary Jane also sticks up for Peter.  Peter works in his lab at home on something his father left behind--a formula for something adhesive.

Harry convinces his dad to allow his class to come to Oscorp in order to spend some extra time with his dad.  Then a radioactive spider falls down and bites Peter and Flash Thompson, Peter's main tormentor stomps on it killing it dead as Peter passes out. Peter gets checked out at the hospital and Osbourne pays for the stay. Nothing is found wrong, but the next day when Flash comes up to trip up Peter, Peter flips Flash and he lands flat on his stomach.  Then Peter passes out.  Osbourne sends someone to take care of Peter, but he evades the killer and Osbourne gets the idea to study him instead.  So, he has Harry invite him to the lab where Doctor Octavius can get more blood to test.  Peter isn't happy about this and bolts.

Peter gets the idea to fight the local ring fighter but in a costume.  After he wins his first fight, the people who own the arena buy him the Spider-Man costume we are so familiar with and give him the name of Spider-Man.  Uncle Ben gives Peter the speech about with great power comes great responsibility. Some of this is expected but Bendis does make some small changes to make it his own.  Overall this is a great comic and I give it five out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Spider-Man-Vol-Responsibility-2000-2009-ebook/dp/B00AAJR3M4/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1546619512&sr=8-6&keywords=ultimate+spiderman

The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America's Law Enforcement by Matthew Horace and Ron Harris

Matthew Horace has spent twenty-eight years in law enforcement across the nation and in Guam during his time as both a police officer in Arlington, Virginia and then later for the ATF as both an officer and then as a leader, rising through the ranks to the highest levels.  As an officer, he is quite competent to talk about matters concerning the police. As an African American, he is beyond qualified to talk about racism in America.  The problem with cops is that they see African American men as dangerous, a stereotype that has long been around since slavery days and is no truer than it is of other races.

But black cops on the force will look at African American men and see them as a threat, just as he himself did in 1986 when he went on a domestic disturbance call between two male lovers where the Latino man wanted his boyfriend out of the house and the boyfriend in question was a large black man.  Both Horace and his partner felt the need to draw their guns on the guy when he didn't want to do what they asked him to do, but they didn't because he started to cry and he finally cooperated with them. But it was a testy situation for a few moments there when he didn't want to do what they were asking them to do.  Horace also realizes that the man wasn't being a threat and to draw his weapon would have escalated the situation and possibly made him a threat.  His size and race was not a weapon being used against them no matter how threatened they felt by it.

He examines many cities including Baltimore, Ferguson, New Orleans, and Chicago and how bad things have been in the past and are now and how someone is trying to change things. With each city, he talks about you can't imagine anything worse and then he writes about another city.  In Ferguson, they had a system of writing people up for tickets for anything and everything and sending people to jail if they couldn't pay, then fining them extra after that for going to jail.  One man, Fred Watson, who lived in St. Louis, came to Ferguson to play some basketball. He had just finished and was sitting in his car resting about to go home when a crooked cop spotted him and came up and gave him seven bogus tickets such as driving while license provoked even though his license was fine and he wasn't driving.  When he tried to get them dismissed he got two more added on the false declaration in that he identified himself as Fred when his ID says his name is Freddie and failure to comply which is something the cops lodge at black people who complain.  Watson had a job doing security work for the National Geospatial Agency.  He could not have an arrest on his record especially one that said that he didn't comply with the officers.  He got a lawyer and fought it, but lost every opportunity to get it dropped or moved to another venue.  26% of Ferguson's budget was made up of money from tickets and they didn't want to lose a dime of that money by moving it to another jurisdiction.  Watson lost his job and went through his savings for law school.  He had trouble finding another job.  He had just about given up on having the charges dropped when the investigation into the Michael Brown case shown a light onto these practices and things started to change.  The judge got arrested.  After about five years the charges were cleared.  But the damage has been done to his life, to his family.  Charges were brought against the cop, who had done this to so many people, but were ultimately dismissed, which so often happens.

In these cities, they are making great strides to make things better.  For some, this isn't the first time they've cleaned house such as in New Orleans.  But will these new leaders live up to their new ideas of policing by trying to be less racially biased and less forceful and more conflict resolution savvy?  In Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson had risen through the ranks to his current position but he wasn't going to let things remain the way they were.  And he proved it in late 2016 not long after getting his job when a bad police chase happened and ended with an unarmed dead black man in handcuffs, the medical examiner ruled it a homicide.  Five months later in 2017, another cop while off duty, had trouble with his neighbor and was known for harassing his neighbor.  One night he went up and shot and killed him.  Johnson stipped him of his police powers and then shortly after that he was charged with murder.  The people of Chicago are beginning to believe in the police again in part because of Eddie Johnson and the plans he has implemented and the way he has trained his officers to treat the public.

But the problem with crime is the lack of education and the lack of jobs.  Adolphus Pruitt, the head of the St. Louis chapter of the NAACP noticed something about the murder victims of St. Louis area. Not a single one of them had graduated high school and nearly all of the murderers had not graduated high school.  And to get a good job you need education.  You also need companies to invest in areas.
When people are out of work they will steal or sell drugs to feed their families. Give them a better opportunity and they will take it and then you'll have less violence on the streets from gangs.

This book describes some pretty horrific things that have happened across America to African Americans by cops. From simply being pulled over for no reason to being gunned down in the streets while unarmed for doing nothing at all.  This book is very thought provoking and offers answers to why blacks are getting killed in the first place by non-cops and by offering ways to fix it, because as he says those black lives matter too. It also shows how historically African Americans have been abused by cops over a century and how cops now seem to want to change that, though it is a growing experience filled with crooked cops that must be gotten rid of and cops that have no business being cops fired from the force.  And lots of training needs to happen continuously to help cops to help them to be able to handle situations before they escalate into a situation where someone ends up dead.  He also includes sections written by actual police officers who are white, black, gay, straight, female, male, who tell what they think of policing and their experiences on the force.  I think it provides a much needed other voice that that doesn't always agree with him.  Horace has written an excellent book that I believe is really worth reading.  It's a powerful book that hits you between the eyes no matter the race or sex of the reader.  He doesn't pull any punches and I like that about him.  This is an incredible book that I cannot recommend highly enough. I give it my highest rating five out of five stars.

Quotes

Violence has car keys. I suggest people get involved before it knocks on your door. Just like drugs. It’s coming to your door. It’s coming for your child.

-Matthew Horace and Ron Harris (The Black and The Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement p 202)

*In the book he remarks that black people are three times more likely to get killed by police.  He also takes a few pages to point out that the mentally ill are sixteen times more likely to get killed by police and that the police are in no way equipped to deal with the mentally ill and that they shouldn't be the ones handling them.  Seeing that bald number I'd have to agree.  Someone else needs to be dealing with them other than the cops. People with medical knowledge.  So why aren't they?  He doesn't go into details about this so my question gets no answer.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Black-Blue-Injustice-Americas-Enforcement/dp/0316440086/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546439145&sr=8-1&keywords=the+black+and+the+blue+by+matthew+horace