Steve Gross

The first post-John Rain thriller with a new protagonist, Ben Treven introduced in the last book. Pretty good story but filled with profanity.

Very much like the other books by Rollins in the Sigma series. If you like them, you'll like this one.

Bob Brier, author of one the best Teaching Company courses (on Ancient Egypt) writes an entertaining book on a new theory of how the Great Pyramid was built. The book could use some editing as it is a little repetitive and has too many exclamation marks. Pictures are terrible.

The author explains nine enigmas of physics, such as “Why is the sky dark at night?”. A little dense at times but generally clear.

The usually reliable Naomi Shaefer Riley presents a farrago of anecdotes, statistics and personal history to reveal pretty much nothing new about intermarriage in America.

Gates is an Urban Explorer - a person who bypasses the “No Entrance” signs to explore subway tunnels, tops of bridges and old sewers. This is interesting but it seems that more than half of the book is taken up by his personal history, thoughts and troubles. Could have used more exploration.

Very much like all the other Dan Brown novels. Not real puzzley.

Kind of strange. The protagonist is not an assassin but a “cleaner”, whose job it is to clean up crime sites for a mysterious agency. Yet things go crazy and he is forced to take matters in hand to stay alive. Shows promise.

Most boys go through an intense dinosaur phase; the author never got over it. If you were once interested in dinosaurs but have no idea what the current state of the art in paleontology is, you will enjoy this. By the way, I was sad to learn that there is no such thing as a brontosaurus.

Robert L. Ripley of “Believe It or Not” fame, was an interesting character. The writing is rather plain and a little repetitive.

Stewart is a boring writer. The equations were good.

Magnificent. Ellis interweaves two stories that occur simultaneously during the extended summer of 1776. One story is the Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence and the other story is Washington's first major battle, the Battle of New York, which he loses badly. Both stories depend on the other. Terrific writing.

6 in the John Rain series. I think this may be the last.

Wonderful book on the making of the John Ford/John Wayne film “The Searchers”. The first half is all about the true history behind the story; indian abduction of white children was the first American literary genre. The second half is about the actual movie. John Ford was a real SOB. Highly readable although the author should have omitted the epilogue.

This was one of the talkiest, boring, repetitive, talkiest, simpleminded books I have read. What a letdown.

Originally published as “The Last Assassin”. John Rain #5. Worthy addition to the series.

Fascinating take on Jewish eating and kashrut through the centuries. Kraemer is not afraid to over-read the sources. A wake-up for those who think “Judaism has always done that...”

Each poet gets a couple of paragraphs worth of notes, followed by their famous poem(s).

Various famous and not-so-famous mystery writers write two or three pages describing their favorite mystery. Many of the famous mystery writers write instead about themselves.

4 in the John Rain series. The writing continues to improve.

Well-written and easy to read. There are five main chapters. The first one describes the US's complicity in allowing and even pursuing Nazis to come to the United States. Everyone is dirty: FBI, CIA, DOJ, INS... the list goes on and on. It really, really makes one angry. The other four chapters cover the various trials of John Demjanjuk (may his name be erased).

Interesting concept for an epistolary novel - letters, skypes, texts, etc. It's a little to self-conscious that it's being cute.

Third book in the John Rain series. So far, a rare author who is actually improving with each book.

I picked this up because I like the author, who writes gambling-related mysteries. This one is different - it's about real psychics fighting evil. Not my cup of tea.

Meh. I was not impressed.