William L Sullivan: Oregon’s Greatest Natural Disasters

Guest Review by Kit Bradley
August 2, 2008

The Cascadia subduction zone lies a few miles off the Oregon coast. Every three to six hundred years the Pacific Plate and Juan de Fuca Plate slide, and Oregon gets a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami. The last event was in 1700, so we’re due any time now for the next. Unfortunately, those beautiful 1930’s coast river bridges I mentioned in an earlier review are not likely to survive. Advice for Oregonians: Don’t live in a brick building, and on the coast don’t live farther than a ten-minute walk to high ground.

I chatted with Bill Sullivan at the Maude Kerns Art and the Vineyard festival a few weeks ago, where I was helping my wife, Sue, sell things at her fused glass art booth. After he told me the story above, I couldn’t resist buying the book.

Oregon’s Greatest Natural Disasters is a little history, a little science, a little politics, and a little advice. It describes a whole spectrum of natural events starting with the ice age floods, and then on to tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, windstorms, landslides, and forest fires. To a non-Oregonian this would likely be dry reading. To an Oregonian it is pretty interesting, since we’ve all heard stories of the major natural events that occurred here—before our time, or when we were young, or even five years ago. There is no plot to keep us engaged, but Sullivan works in personal stories of people impacted by many of the disasters. He describes the events in some depth, giving us both a technical understanding of what happened and a personal sense of its impacts.

I was interested in learning about the Vanport flood of 1948, since we later bought a house that had been recovered from the flood. And the Columbus Day storm of 1962, since my wife has told me stories of living through it. And the ice age floods that possibly lapped at our farm in the hills at the south end of the Willamette Valley. And the Tillamook Burns in the 1930’s and 40’s, which was still evident when I moved to Oregon in 1971. And even the Biscuit Fire of 2002, which led to challenges to conventional wisdom on how to manage a forest after a major fire. “Post-wildfire logging hinders regeneration and increases fire risk.”

Each chapter includes some historical data, like the chart showing the history of eruptions of each of Oregon’s major peaks. And the chapters contain predictions for future events and suggestions for surviving them. Interestingly, after reading this book I don’t feel terribly threatened. But I don’t live at the coast, near a volcano, downhill from a clear-cut, or in a floodplain. I do live adjacent to a forest that is pretty dry in August.

The book includes some surprises about the impacts of the works of man on natural disasters. Damming all of Oregon’s major rivers was supposed to reduce flooding, but has it? In a 1975 survey of 245 landslides that occurred in one coastal forest district, 91% were in clear cuts or road cuts. Wow!

Harlan Coben: Hold Tight

I’ve been reading Harlan Coben since Just One Look. I love the turmoil he causes ordinary people through a simple incident.

In Hold Tight, Tia and Mike Baye install a spy program on their 16 year old son’s computer. Adam Baye has been acting strangely since a good friend, Spencer Hill killed himself. They find a message “It’s long over. Just stay quiet and all safe.” So what’s going on with Adam? What kind of danger is he in? What can his parents do to help?

But we have a lot going on besides Adam’s toubles. Mike Baye is a surgeon, and the boy next door, Lucas Loriman needs a kidney transplant. Betsy Hill has still not learned to live with her son’s suicide. Loren Muse is newly Chief of Investigations and his having trouble with one of her detectives. To make matters worse, a couple, Nash and Pietra, are killing people. We’re not sure why. And finally we have a school teacher who carelessly humiliated one of his students, and did not get the punishment the girl’s father though he deserved.

The plot is mainly driven by Adam Baye’s troubles, but all these issues weave together. We really don’t understand how until the end of the book.

Hold Tight does not disappoint. It’s another thriller from Coben full of twists and surprises.

William L Sullivan: The Case of Einstein’s Violin

Guest Review by Kit Bradley
July 31, 2008

Bill Sullivan is a Eugene author, best known for his 100 Hiking Trails In… genre of books. In recent years he has been expanding his repertoire with various travel books, some history, and now fiction. The Case of Einstein’s Violin is his second novel. I’d read his first novel, and it was interesting, but largely because of its Eugene and Oregon historical content. I wasn’t sure I’d like another novel by Sullivan, but he gave me such a convincing pitch (at last December’s Authors and Artists Fair, of course), that I decided to give it a try.

Wow, this is a fun story! It has it all—mystery, travel, adventure, romance, action, and good dialog. And comedy; I laughed a lot. (I wonder if that’s what Sullivan intended.) The story starts in Eugene, Oregon, and then travels to Greece, Italy, and Germany. The plot is interesting and complex enough to keep me fully engaged. Instead of my usual habit of reading in the evening until I get sleepy, this book put me into the opposite mode, read in the evening until enough exciting things have happened that I have to stop to let it settle in (and prolong the enjoyment of reading).

Ana Smyth and her friend Harmony, both young school teachers, are trying to raise enough money for Ana to travel to Europe. Years ago Ana’s great aunt left Ana all the stuff in the attic, and so they decide to sell some of it on eBay, including an old violin case that they think might have belonged to Einstein. This leads to a lot more interest than expected and an accelerated trip to Greece for Ana (and a planned trip to Italy for Harmony). In Greece Ana meets Gilberto, an Italian man sent to help her in a quest, and later meets Peter, a German who seems to have been spying on her since the eBay sale. The adventure leads Ana to Italy, where she doesn’t quite cross paths with Harmony, although Gilberto does. Things get a little exciting, Peter shows up again, and Ana and Peter have to run, this time to Germany. Several unsavory characters have been chasing the two women, but we can’t figure out just what they want…until the very last pages of the book.

I really enjoyed the blending of personalities and travels and mystery as the story unfolded. Sullivan does a great job of introducing unexplainable tidbits throughout the book, and letting them dangle until the last few pages, where everything finally makes sense. My only complaint is that the resolutions were too quick and not as deep as I had expected. I wanted to keep reading for another hundred pages!

I talked with Bill Sullivan recently at another fair (where I bought another book), and it sounds like he had as much fun writing The Case of Einstein’s Violin as I did reading it. He wrote much of the book while traveling with his wife, covering the same paths as described in the book, and writing chapters in his hotel room in the evenings. Oh, the life of a successful author!

I’m very impressed that this is just Sullivan’s second novel. I’m ready for the movie!

Kyle Mills: Rising Phoenix

Can we eliminate the drug problem in the US by poisoning the supply of illegal narcotics? That’s the central theme of Rising Phoenix a first novel by Kyle Mills. I recently re-read the book. And reminded myself of why I have bought several of his later books.

According to ex-DEA agent, John Hobart, poisoning the narcotics supply is the secret dream of many law-enforcement officers. It certainly seems that more traditional measures are not working. He convinces a “do-gooder” to fund the attempt, while maintaining his distance. It turns out that poisoning the drug supply is not a trivial matter. What poison will work, and not be noticed as drugs are distributed throughout their network? How can it be infiltrated high enough in the chain to make a significant difference? It turns out that John Hobart is about as cold and ruthless a character as we need to meet. He can solve these problems.

As the body counts start to rise, the FBI brings Mark Beamon back to Washington to head up the case. Although he is a top notch investigator, the Director of the FBI hates him. He may be more useful as a scapegoat if the FBI fails to stop the poisonings, than as a hero saving the day. The politics of the Federal Government trying to protect drug users is pretty interesting. Things get particularly dicey when the FBI gets a tip with details on an upcoming plan to poison a shipment in New York. Do they work with the Mafia Don to protect an illegal shipment?

If anyone wants to stop John Hobart more than the FBI, it’s Luis Colombar, a Columbian drug lord. The poisonings are seriously disrupting his profit margin. And he is every bit as ruthless as Hobart.

There is plenty of room for irony and strange bedfellows in Rising Phoenix. Drug use is down. Public support for poisoning is high enough to be politically challenging. So what’s a maverick FBI agent to do?

Joe R Blakely: Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud: Building the Oregon Coast Highway and Kidnapped…On Oregon’s Coast Highway

Guest Review by Kit Bradley
July 28, 2008

If you read my earlier reviews, you can guess where I met Joe Blakely… Yes, at the Authors and Artists fair last December, benefiting the Eugene Public Library. I am an easy mark for authors that I meet in person, and I bought quite a few books that day, including these two from Joe Blakely.

I was intrigued with Blakely’s two-book effort. First he researched the construction of the Oregon Coast Highway in the 1920’s and 1930’s and wrote Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud. And then he wrote Kidnapped…On Oregon’s Coast Highway, a novel that is set in the same timeframe, in which three people chase each other along the incomplete coast highway.

Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud starts with a description of the sorry state of coast roads in the 1910’s. There are few roads interconnecting coastal cities, and the roads that do exist are often deep mud in the rainy season. Coastal communities are just starting to band together to sell the idea of a north/south coast highway to the politicians in the state capital, Salem.

This one photograph moved me to buy the book. I couldn’t resist the expression on the man’s face as he dealt with the realities of coastal travel.

At the beginning of the narrative we were at war with Germany, and the Pacific Coast Defense League argued for a military highway stretching from Washington to California, which they named the Roosevelt Coast Military Highway. The idea was well received, but… How to pay for it? Oregon passed its first gas tax, a penny a gallon, making some funds available. But political interests in Portland and eastern Oregon pressured to spend the money on inland north/south roads. During the 1920’s some money made it to the coast, and short segments of the Roosevelt Highway were built each year.

By the early 1930’s, most of the roadway was complete, but there were still several big bridges to build, replacing the original, somewhat unreliable ferries in use across the coast rivers. The resulting bridges are the most stunning man-made structures on the coast, still fascinating to us travelers today.

Finally in 1936, seventeen years after the first funding, the highway was completed, 420 miles from Astoria to Crescent City, California. This short, 65-page book was easy to read, and provided interesting history. It did, however, get a little tiring reading the construction details for every segment of road and for every bridge. None-the-less, I am now well primed for…

Kidnapped… On Oregon’s Coast Highway, is a fun adventure that takes place in 1926, when the coast highway was only partly complete. Ben Cooper, a young reporter for The Oregonian, has been told to drive the entire Oregon Coast Highway from Crescent City to Astoria, and to report on what he sees. He’s looking forward to it—until his editor tells him to pick up Eva Barton, a young conservationist, who is to tag along and write about the destruction of old growth forests. That will probably lead to ideological conflicts, but nothing like the conflict with Tom Bigalow, Eva’s ex-fiancé. Tom can’t get over losing Eva, and he will do anything to get her back.

That’s the setting for a sometimes scenic, sometimes muddy, sometimes exciting drive up the coast, with Ben and Eva in the lead and Tom not far behind. Ben is modest but gallant and braver than he knew. Eva is sweet but relentless in her quest to save the old trees. And Tom is evil, shockingly so as the story unfolds.

The story is predictable, the relationships develop as you might guess, and the dialog is a little stiff. But the people they meet, the places they go, and the drama of the chase are all very captivating. I thoroughly enjoyed Blakely’s Kidnapped, especially after reading Lifting Oregon Out of the Mud.