Review by CJ Verburg of Naomi Klein’s The Battle for Paradise

The Battle For ParadiseThe Battle For Paradise by Naomi Klein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Liked” is the wrong word for a Naomi Klein book. As usual, she does an awesome job of exposing a travesty of rich entitled capitalists exploiting a system they’ve rigged to strip assets and well-being from ordinary citizens — in this case, the storm-battered and serially colonized islands of Puerto Rico. I’d love to believe the small sustainable local infrastructure innovations of local residents can prevail, but it’s a Sisyphean battle. I wish Klein had more explicitly defined the epithet “neoliberal.”

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Review by CJ Verburg: Ellen Kirschman’s Burying Ben: A Dot Meyerhoff Mystery

Burying Ben (A Dot Meyerhoff Mystery)Burying Ben by Ellen Kirschman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A book that opens with the suicide of a sympathetic character is not a book I’d normally expect to like, or maybe even finish. Burying Ben caught me up fast and kept me turning pages straight through to the end. Unexpectedly, it’s an ideal read for this “perfect storm” season of coronavirus, wildfires and hurricanes, political deceit and treachery, when hugging a dear friend might kill you. Nobody (including the narrator) is quite who we think they are, or who they think they are. Kirschman is a deft, engaging writer with a unique advantage: she knows the real world of law enforcement up close, from both the roller-coaster level of cops joking over coffee and five minutes later risking their lives, and the expert-observer level of a clinical psychologist. So this is not a standard story of good guys trying to outwit bad guys and vice versa. The “mystery” doesn’t even really emerge until we understand how the characters’ depths, quirks, pasts, and the diverse pressures they work under became lethal for would-be Officer Ben Gomez. It’s a scary terrain–compelling because it’s authentic. And through the ups and downs Dr. Dot Meyerhoff perseveres, because what else can she do, with human lives and her own future at stake? Highly recommended!

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Spend Your Last Week of Summer on Cape Cod — FREE!

Have you missed those lazy summer afternoons splashing, surfing, and sunbathing at the beach? Long mellow evenings of seafood and tall frosty drinks? We’re here to help!

On Friday, August 28, Boom-Books is giving away CJ Verburg’s 5-star Zapped: an Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod Mystery on Google Play, Apple/iBooks, Kobo, Nook/Barnes&Noble, and Kindle/Amazon. (We’re giving it away, but check before you click — some e-book outlets may charge you a small fee.)

Read a sample of Zapped here.

To stretch out your stretch of summer sleuthing, rejoin Edgar, Lydia, Mudge, and friends in the seaside village of Quansett for Croaked: an Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod Mystery.

Happy end of summer!