Arizona Books

These two authors have taken much of the guess-work out of fly fishing new trout waters in Arizona. Their combined experience and knowledge have been put together to aid both beginner and experienced fly fishermen. Virtually every productive trout water in the state is covered, along with tips, techniques, directions, and tackle needed to be productive. The book is both fun and easy to read, plus extremely educational for the fly angler seeking to fish Arizona's trout waters. This is the much needed book that every fly fisherman/woman in Arizona has been waiting for. If you are even thinking about fishing in this state, read this book!

Reading Arizona Trout Streams, I thought my spots were being exposed. But as I got into the feel of the writers tone, I felt as if I were reading something written by a friend who was sharing his secrets. The book is punctuated by Arizona Fly Anglers names, friends of the authors who wrote the book. A nice touch. Certainly most people like to see their name in print, especially a book on our subject. Organized by geographics, the pages move from one stream to another in good form. Not all streams are listed, just the ones that are well known, and a few that aren't. One of my favorite streams is listed. The author gives it a poor rating, and for this I am happy. It seems that his idea of a small stream rating and mine do not closely match. That is ok by me, life is not black and white. There are some streams that I haven't even heard of. I know the area where they drain, but I haven't heard of them through my information channels or in my wanderings. I have a log, even one a little more in depth than I show you online. I check the insect hatches in my notes, and the hatches listed in Arizona Trout Streams is dead on. My knowledge of entomology is limited, but what I do know, I can say that it certainly matches the book. That my friends is a great feeling because I feel so lost when it comes to the Latin part of flye angling. I would have paid more for color pictures, but the black and white photographs are excellent. The pictures in the book look like ones that we have all taken. For instance, the Haigler Creek photograph is what I am talking about. A good look at what the stream really is. There is a section on Lee's Ferry that has been fully researched. The history of Trout strains at this tailwater are discussed along with flys and techniques used. I am impressed that I could have learned so much from a paperback book written on my subject. (my ego, has been deflated! just kidding.) Again, what a great book. Arizona Trout Streams is a must own for every Arizona Fly Angler and anyone who wants to know more about our Trout Streams. If you are thinking about coming to Arizona, go and purchase this book. It will make your knowledge of our streams match even some of us who have fished here our whole lives. Thank you Charles Meck and John Rohmer for making such a great book. I have been sweating it for a long time, and now I know that I am indeed learning many things, along with some new streams.

I would like to commend the authors for a great job on a book that has given the Arizona resident like myself a new outlook on fly-fishing. I am excited about using the plethera of information that I have, and cannot wait until I can put this information to work on my next outing. Thank you Charlie and John for a job well-done!!

This book is amazingly helpful and incredibly well written. I would recommend this book to people who want to know more about Arizona. Great book!

This book is helpful to find out about often overlooked small Arizona towns. The author toke lots of time and attention to detail to create a masterpiece such as this has become. It will forever be remembered as one of the great arizona books.

I like this book and I often find myself going back to it and rereading chapters. It's well written and the photos are great.

As a new resident, I had lots of questions about such a strange and beautiful land. Everywhere I turned for answers, I was pointed toward this book. So I bought it. The first night after it's arrival I opened it and didn't put it down until it was finished. It's not in my library, however. My wife and I refer to it so much we have to keep it closer.

This is a great book for anyone that wants to learn about this desert and the plants and animals that live in it. Unlike some of the other books about this topic that are written in an academic/textbook style, this book is written in a lively, question & answer format and is full of interesting and unusual facts. I've lived in this region for over 25 years and I learned quite a bit by reading this book.

I only saw this once in the bookstore, and just by flipping through it, I knew it had to be a part of my book-collection. Just moving to the desert southwest, I have been thirsty for more about my new eco-system and home........I may not have so many dilemmas now on critters and plants..........

C.C. Lockwood has done a remarkable presentation of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.It is obvious from the pictures and text presented that he is extremely knowledgable of one of the seven natural wonders of the world. There are views of the inner Canyon that have never before been published and his intimate portrayal of river running on some of the largest white water in North America exemplifies his professionalism as a photographer. For Canyon lovers and river runners alike, both past and future, I highly recommend Mr. Lockwood's achievement.

A beautiful glimpse into the heart of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. The photographs in this book have captured some of the magic that can only be found in the depths of the canyon. I have done two dory trips through the Grand Canyon and I can say that this book is the next best thing to actually being there.

I have been guiding river trips through the Grand Canyon for over thirty years and this is one of the best photo journalist volumes I have seen. There are thousands of books, concerning the Grand Canyon, I have collected over the years..."Beneath The Rim" has a special way of describing the intimate details of the life and spaces beneath the rim. One can tell by the unique photographs and inspiring text that C.C. Lockwood has a special relationship with the Grand Canyon. It is a must have for any Grand Canyon aficionado.

This volume is well designed to convey a huge amount of information in as painless a form as possible. It is a meticulous edition, with commentary, of two manuscripts by J.R.R. Tolkien, representing stages of his thought in the years before his British Academy lecture, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936; published 1937). That short work has been described as being, although not the beginning of "Beowulf" criticism, the beginning of all *modern* "Beowulf" criticism. It was a revised and condensed version of a longer work, which had already gone through two drafts, presented here as edited by Michael Drout, as the "A" and "B" Texts (designations apparently beloved by medievalists).

The 1936 lecture is the title piece in the 1984 collection of some of Tolkien's essays, with which this book should NOT be confused, and is found in several anthologies of "Beowulf" criticism. It is beautifully expressed, and vigorously argued, but, with its compressed references to old disputes, at times a little hard to follow in detail. I found that careful readings of R.W. Chambers' magisterial "Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem" (1921; third edition, 1953) and use of Fr. Klaeber's great edition (1922, 1928, 1936), both referred to by Tolkien, were very helpful, and worth the time (if not essential!) for any student of the poem anyway. But the critical (or uncritical) consensus Tolkien was attacking long ago faded from the scholarly mind. (It persists in third-hand opinions, often repeated by people who should know better.)

This presentation of the work-in-progress which produced "The Monsters and Critics" unfolds the reasoning process and critical disputes behind its crisp rhetoric, and reveals beyond any doubt that Tolkien's disclaimer of detailed knowledge of the secondary literature was the typical medieval-style "modesty trope" some of us suspected anyway. (More than suspected, really, since the 1983 publication of other Tolkien material on "Beowulf," edited by Alan Bliss as "Finn and Hengest.")

Among other issues, the resemblance of Tolkien's reading strategies for "Beowulf" to the then-emerging "New Criticism" is explored, and shown to be coincidental -- beyond sharing in the "spirit of the age," if one cares to take that approach. (I have actually seen a "history of criticism" which dismissed "Monsters and the Critics" as merely applying New Criticism to medieval literature, and offering nothing original -- which suggested, just as a matter of chronology, a lack of qualifications to write such a history.)

There is information, too, on the probable dates and present conditions of the manuscripts, on the emendations and original readings in the sometimes difficult-to-read handwritten pages, and similar matters. And this is tucked away where those who need the information can find it, and those who aren't interested can ignore it. (It might even serve as a student's introduction to physical descriptions of manuscripts, given that Tolkien's text is, mainly, in modern English, and the issues more immediately clear, than in, say, the case of the "Beowulf" manuscript itself, or of the two texts of Malory -- or the A, B, and C versions of "Piers Plowman.")

Annotations on the two versions supply identifications, translate quotations in a large number of languages, and generally clarify Tolkien's statements for non-professionals on the one hand, and for scholars seventy or eighty years removed from the intended readership on the other.

There are interesting sidelights. Some appear as Drout traces the origin of Tolkien's metaphors and allegories in the published lecture. The published version has a now-famous image of the poem as a Tower, made of more ancient stones which have attracted attention away from the view of the Sea at the top. The resemblance to passages in "Lord of the Rings" seemed to suggest he was borrowing an evocative image from his own developing mythology. Michael Drout shows that the passage started as a fable about a rock garden, and provides references to show that it was then the latest fashion in England. Who would have guessed it? Tolkien as landscape gardener, not Tolkien as secondary world-creator! And this doesn't stand alone, although it is the easiest example to describe.

Drout's editing, in my opinion, manages to meet the needs and expectations of two sets of readers -- scholars and students, and curious Tolkien fans -- quite well. A second reading has left me as convinced as the first time through. And I feel qualified to say this, although I am not the ideal reviewer for this book.

That ideal reviewer would be a professional scholar of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) language and literature, who is also fully at home in the history of "Beowulf" criticism, and at the same time a well-informed fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. In other words, someone very much like the actual editor. There are such people; I am hoping to hear from some of them in the academic journals, whether Medievalist, Germanist, or Tolkienian (!).

I am at best a rough approximation of this ideal reviewer. I had courses in Old English, including a "Beowulf" seminar, during which I translated a lot of the major poems (and have the notebooks to prove it), and read through much of the major (and some minor) English-language Beowulf studies through the 1970s. As a Tolkien fan, active mainly in the 1970s, I can point to a set of listings in the 1981 Revised Edition of Richard West's "Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist." In a fanzine I then edited, I sometimes managed to wear both hats simultaneously, as with a review of "Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition," by Howell D. Chickering, Jr. Although I haven't kept really current, I have worked my way through Michael Alexander's text edition, with facing-page glosses, for Penguin Classics (1995), and the bi-lingual version (2000) of Seamus Heaney's celebrated translation.

So, for me, getting to see Tolkien's thoughts on the poem in the process of formation was very exciting. And learning precisely which critic or critics he was responding to, was a well-guided tour through unexpected corners of old familiar places. The editor's observations on how Tolkien's thoughts on the work of the Beowulf-poet sometimes reflect his own experiences writing stories and poems that would not appear before the public for years appealed to the fan side. At least the sort of fan who enjoyed the successive volumes of "The History of Middle Earth," even while despairing of mastering the mass of new material.

JRR Tolkien's 1936 "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" is generally accorded to be a seminal study of the great Old English poem "Beowulf", focusing attention upon the work itself as a consciously crafted piece of literary creation rather than as merely something of historical or quaint antiquitarian interest. "Beowulf and the Critics" presents two extended lectures from the mid-1930's that were successive steps towards Tolkien's final essay. The greater length of these lectures, perhaps especially "Version B", may provide an easier path to appreciating Tolkien's views of the poems than the more dense "The Monsters and the Critics". Editor Michael Drout provides voluminous explanatory notes about every possibly obscure reference in Tolkien's lectures. In addition, lengthy textual notes are provided so that the interested scholar may trace the process of revision used by Tolkien in writing his lectures.

In his preface Drout mentions the likelihood that there are two natual audiences for this book: Those who read it because the name "Tolkien" is on the cover; and those who read it because "Beowulf" on the cover. (And Drout writes that "the most valued audience of all [is] those who read the book because it says both 'Tolkien' and 'Beowulf' on the cover" -- I'm pleased to count myself in that group.) To be candid, those Tolkien enthusiasts who pick up the volume expecting to find discussions of elves and hobbits will be disappointed. There are few direct references to Tolkien's better-know fictional works (although there is an interesting extended footnote discussing the relationship of Shakespeare's "King Lear" to certain aspects of "The Lord of the Rings.") However, if they press on to fathom Tolkien's concept of what Beowulf's poet was truly saying, then they will be rewarded, I believe, with a deepening of their own appreciation of the world later created by Tolkien. And, of course, they may come to appreciate "Beowulf" in itself.

Students of "Beowulf" will undoubtedly be more directly rewarded by this book that presents insights into the poem (and earlier criticism of that work) not so accessibly set forth in the later, more famous essay. If nothing else, this work presents an opportunity to once again consider the artistic intent of the Beowulf poet, speaking to us over a gulf of over a thousand years, yet illuminating a tradition of thought and conduct that still influences our modern world.

This book is a much longer, easier to read version of Tolkien's famous 1936
lecture of Beowulf, called "The Monsters and the Critics." I've read
"Monsters and the Critics," and liked it, but Beowulf and the Critics is
much better, not only because it is easier to follow, but because Tolkien
puts in a lot more interesting material, including two very good poems
about dragons. According to the editor, Tolkien started writing this book
for his students at Oxford, and it shows.

Tolkien argues that Beowulf is a great poem and that the monsters in it (a
troll named Grendel, Grendel's mother, and a dragon) are essential to the
poem's theme. I think he makes his case. He also provides a summary of
the study of Beowulf, from the discovery of the manuscript until he wrote
this book in the 1930's, which is actually much more interesting than it
sounds.

The editor has written a good, clear introduction that explains how all
this scholarly material relates to Tolkien's other work in Old English and
to his Middle-earth books. The notes are unbelievably extensive, and while
I didn't read straight through them all, the things I did look up were
explained very clearly.

While there aren't any Hobbits, dwarves or elves, I still strongly
recommend this book to anyone who really wants to know how Tolkien's mind
works.

A contemporary child gets help from an old story in this bright picture book set in a small desert village on the Papago reservation in southern Arizona near the Mexican border. Marta Enos' day is ruined when the wind blows her papers out the window and the dogs chew her homework into trash; then she trips and breaks her glasses. Grandmother comforts Marta Enos, repairs the glasses, bakes her some warm tortillas, and tells her a traditional tale about how to deal with a problem. Sometimes it is good to be a tree and look all ways at once; sometimes it is best to be a rock or a fierce mountain lion; but Marta Enos chooses to be an eagle, who can fly high and see how small the problem is. Strongbow's watercolor paintings set the story in wide desert landscapes as the sun sets and the full moon rises, and warm portraits show the loving bond across generations. (summary by Heather Roselle)

I really enjoyed this as a book to read with my 4 1/2 year old daughter. It has a neat story line, wonderful word pictures, lovely illustrations and is suitable for 4 years and up. It encourages kids to think about different ways of solving the problems that arise in life.

The story follows a young girl who, in a hurry to join her Indian grandmother making tortilla's, upsets her homework and eventualy breaks her glasses. The girl is devestated by the turn of events. The grandmonther gently restores her, giving her options on how to solve the problem while gently repairing the glasses. Is this a time to "be like a tree in the desert, standing tall and looking all ways at once" .... "a time to stay still like stone and wait for the problem to pass" .... or a time to fly high like and eagle looking far down to the problem which now seems so small and laugh at it..... As her glassess are mended and the homework reworked the girl can decide that the best option is to look at the big picture. To put the day in perspective and fly high like the eagle. The other options can be considered, thought about and keep hidden away for another day when maybe they will be the most approprite solution for life's problems.

I love this book! So does my 4 1/2 year old stepson, and his Dad has gotten a lot out of it too. The idea of choosing how you are going to respond to a problem rather than just throw a tantrum is something we are teaching the children, and constantly learning for ourselves too. This book is warm and loving, an excellent quiet time read for people of all ages.

What a great biking guide for the Grand Canyon!! The book is well written, organized and laid out clearly. The book has great photographs and information about places seldom seen by many. If you like to bike and see awesome places and views at the Grand Canyon this is the book for you!!

Andrea's been there and done that and tells all about it (and how you can do it too) in this snappily written, info-packed guidebook for biking the Grand Canyon. Though Andrea's a long-distance cyclist at heart, she's written this book for us regular folk. An intro includes tons of advice on biking in general and biking the Grand Canyon specifically, even including a history of biking in the area which is fascinating! Rides range from 1.2 miles on up and are rated for technical difficulty and family friendliness. She includes info for each ride on the type of terrain, the availability of water, elevation profiles, necc. permits, and the best season to bike it. The book is well illustrated with photos and maps and also includes anecdotes and local lore cyclists can enjoy over a campfire or when they're taking a breather. Andrea was a Grand Canyon National Park ranger for many years and her depth and bredth of knowledge about the place is incredible. For any level of mountain biker heading to the Grand Canyon, this book is as essential as your water bottle and a set of properly inflated tires.

Biking the Grand Canyon Area is more than a travel book. It is immediately apparent that Andrea Lankford knows what she is talking about with regards to great trails. This is the second book of hers that I have read. Her first book scored 5 on my list as well and is called Biking the Arizona Trail. Andrea was one of the best Park Rangers the National Park Service had. She passes on her knowledge of an area she called home for many years. You won't find a more detailed book! Go out and buy it and ride like the wind!

That's the best way to describe much of what Bowden writes here, since most of it comes from his time on the police desk at the Tucson Citizen. And it, and his nature essays, are in Abbey's vein without being in any way derivative.

Watch him recreate the treks the mojados take across the Sonoran Desert. Here him renarrate some of his crime story coverage. Let him shine a flashlight on a bit of Tucson.

I read this in a college class years ago. Since then the book has stayed with me. I grew up in Arizona and when I left it I found that this book was one of the things that guided my rememberences of it. When moved back to Arizona over a decade later I reread this book and found it to be even more engaging and relevent.

Most Arizonans are new to the state. They have no basis, no connection to it. They bring their values, their limited perspective. They buy a brand new home on the outskirts of Phoenix next to the desert but have no basis for appreciating and understanding their new home. This book provides that reference -- or at least it provides anchors. Those anchors may be dark at times but there's a lot here: guano, Ajo, suicides on tribal lands... Mostly though it is the desert that Bowden explains. "Much like a coal miner's canary, by the time the rest of us realize what he's talking about it may be too late."

Again, Bowden hands us a mirror, and what we see is ugly. Carving a swathe from Palm Springs to Ajo to Mexico, the author presses us along the eroding path of man and beast in the desert Southwest. Although doomed, a certain eloquence precedes their demise. The book's organization by chapter (Bats, Antelope, Black, Blue and so forth), although uncharacteristic, does nothing to dilute the sting and lingering ache of Bowden's biting exposition.

I met Jim Stiles years ago, when he was still rangering at Arches. I was one of those Abbey-seekers who had made a pilgrimage to Moab and Arches after reading Desert Solitaire ( this was September 1980, just before Reagan was elected and Everything changed ). I had found the site of Abbey's trailer, and his rusted septic tank and drainfield pipe. I had taken off my clothes and stood atop a rock to salute, as I recall, the spirit of everything Ed had written about. Ranger Jim came across this scene and said, understandably, "What the hell are you doing?". Well he was very civil and decent about it all. He confirmed I had found the sacred trailer site - heck, he even gave me a t-shirt with his infamous "Glen Canyon Damn" picture ( I still have it!).
Over the years I have enjoyed Jim's writings, and it is great to finally see him put it all in a book. Stiles definitely has the burr under his saddle that Abbey had, and it powers his prose better than most other "nature" writers in the 18 years we've been without Ed. I wish he'd write a novel, because I think he could bring the Monkey Wrench Gang into the 21st century, something we badly need.
I was in Moab, like I said, in 1980, and then again in 2003. Both times I ventured there in a VW Squareback ( Tradition!). I will admit that Moab was a LOT different 23 years later, though my teenage son and I still had a great visit. Christ it was hot! ( It was July, after all, with daytime temperatures as high as 116 degrees.) We explored Arches in the early-morning hours, swam and rafted in the hot afternoon ( and if that wasn't Pure Bliss I don't know what is ) and enjoyed good food and drink and an air-conditioned motel room in the evening. Moab is still a great place to visit, even if you are a low-impact non-biking non-jeeping old Abbey fan like me. Even on this second visit in 2003 I visited Ed's trailer site and easily found the septic tank and rusted pipe again, pretty much exactly as I had found it 23 years earlier. This time, however, I didn't take off my clothes, but instead read aloud the first chapter from Desert Solitaire to the land, to the place that inspired Ed to write his great book so long ago. No one was there ( in body at least ) but me. The timeless beauty and power of that place was - and, thankfully, still is - a real presence in the absolute quiet of that early morning.
Thanks for the great book, Jim. I hope it does well. Write on, brother. Write on.

Anyone who lives in a small, rural Western town, or anyone contemplating moving to, or, worse yet, just buying property in a small, rural Western town, definitely needs to read this book.

Stiles paints an unflinchingly accurate picture of how the tiny town of Moab became a crowded tourist town filled with fast-food joints and chain hotels. Longtime small business owners were forced out by the giant chain stores and T-shirt shops catering to out-of-town mountain bikers, Jeepers and ATVers. Alfalfa fields and orchards were sold to developers, who slapped up condos and luxury homes for mostly absentee owners, and conservative locals swamped by lycra-clad city dwellers. It's a sad and harsh reality, but Stiles manages quite a few laugh-out-loud moments: comedy is usually funny because it is so true.

The reason the book is important is that this phenomenon is repeating itself throughout the Western United States. Often local residents who may only make about $20,000 a year can no longer afford to live in the towns occupied by their families for generations. City dwellers take the equity from their city properties and invest it in rural land, driving prices out of sight, then bring their sharply different lifestyles to rural towns.

Most environmental groups have been completely silent on these issues, even as millions of new hikers trample the scenery into oblivion. Why? Perhaps because those same hikers and even some developers contribute hefty dollars to enviro groups. So while oil and gas companies contribute to the Bush administration, which then allows drilling on sensitive lands, environmental groups are running afoul of the same money trap--an ironic twist.

Of course the agent driving these ever-growing problems is our ever-expanding population, and Stiles is one of the few to tackle this problem publicly. Why can't our leaders even talk about this?

If you live in a small Western town, read this book, discuss it with your neighbors, and work with your local government to try and prevent this from happening to you.

If you are a city dweller contemplating a relocation or second-home purchase in a rural town, read this book and rethink your move. If you must move there, then stay there, work there, live there, don't build a giant mansion, be sensitive to the locals, try to get to know them. If you want their way of life, then LIVE IT, don't push your lifestyle onto them.

This is a GREAT book.

Tracing the growth of Moab, Jim Stiles has the huevos to take a long, cold look at what is happening in the Great American West. He has watched Moab (and, by extension, many other small Western towns) sucumb to carpet baggers, dirt pimps, speculators and, the cruelest irony of all, hoardes of nature-loving tourists encouraged by the "amenities economy".

Stiles takes on his friends as well as his enemies, and accuses enviromental groups of rolling over and playing dead while thousands of mountain bikers ride over their limp, unprotesting bodies on the way to Adventure Paradise. Stiles is neither a whiner nor a lamenter, and he shakes his fist at what he calls "enviropreneurs" out to make big bucks off public land. Commercialized nature theme parks are the future of the West, Stiles claims, reminding us of the debt we owe Edward Abbey when he coined the phrase "industrial tourism". Abbey was Stiles' mentor and friend.

Jim Stiles is a lively, accomplished writer, so this bitter pill is not too hard to swallow. Just be careful you don't choke while laughing out loud. Stiles is a very funny man and that's a good thing in these circumstances.

Arizona private detective Brinker doesn't want to go back to Mexico. When a pretty reporter asks for his help investigating a death and a story, Brinker turns her down. But when April Lennox becomes the next victim, Brinker feels personally involved. Unfortunately for him, everyone seems to be quiet and no one knows anything. The Mexican police think April's death is just another sex crime. The Arizona police have no reason to get involved--there is no obvious connection to the unidentified body on their side of the border. Which leaves Brinker with nothing but his instincts and an IOU he really hadn't wanted to call from Mexican drug-lords.

A reporter makes enemies. One of those enemies just might be an ex-boyfriend who got abusive when his girlfriends didn't cooperate. Possible, but Brinker thinks the truth is more complicated. Because April had been investigating a story that involved oppression and murder, Brinker thinks of the maquilas--border factories set up by companies fleeing the wages of the USA. His suspicions become more pointed when he learns that a number of murders seem to have maquila connections. April could have been investigating one of those--but would someone really kill an alternative press reporter just to cover up a bit of union-busting?

Author James C. Mitchell spins a delightful noire story. Brinker has problems with his women--April is murdered, his longtime girlfriend has left Arizona to move to New York, away from Brinker's dangerous life, and he can never quite connect with longtime best-friend Gabi. He ends up putting his trust in druglords who put even less value on human life than the maquila owners. Still, guilt and that strange private investigator honor keep Brinker on the job--until things get personal.

Mitchell's writing gave me a strong sense of place--of windswept LA, the deserts of Arizona, and the frenetic border towns of Mexico--where jobs, money, drugs, and sex create a vibrant but dangerous society. Once the story really got going, it dragged me in and kept me reading. Nicely done, Mr. Mitchell.

Once again Mr. Mitchell has given us an interesting, well-thought out and gripping novel involving his favorite gumshoe... Private Detective Brinker. When Brinker becomes privy to a man being shot following an NCAA Basketball final in his home town of Tucson, Arizona, he's surprised to get drawn into the murder the next day by a female news reporter who had been about to meet the dead man shortly before he was killed. Brinker is inclined to stay out of the whole thing but decides to ask a few questions and the answers lead to a plot that thickens as the story flips back and forth between the Southern US and Mexico until it reaches it's exceptional climax. Somewhat faster paced than Mitchell's first novel "Lover's Crossing", "Choke Point" still retains all of the interesting side-bar detail including more references to old 60's songs that remain with the reader when the narrative is on hold. There is no doubt that James C. Mitchell is going to be around for some time. He has already developed a style that gives promise of reaching that plateau where such authors as Tanenbaum, George, Lescroart and Turow dwell

Bryan Lord, Philippines

A riot broke out at a college football game leaving a Hispanic man dead. The next day April Lennox informs PI Brinker at his Tucson office that the victim was a whistleblower who contacted her about wrong doings in Nogales, Mexico. She asks him to accompany her on a visit to the deceased's mother to see if she can provide some light on what her son knew. Brink says no and not long afterward, April's sexually abused body is found in Nogales.

Brink feels guilty that he failed to talk her out of going and not accompanying her. As a former border patrol agent, he has contacts on both sides of the law and borders, which he uses to track April's movements. He learns she was killed in Nogales and her death and that of ten other victim ties to the Mexican factories using cheap labor. Brink's friend visits the mother and finds that her son was pressing for better working conditions at the Amistadt office. Brink feels an obligation to obtain justice for April by capturing a killer and his employer.

The protagonist uses a drug dealer and that man's associates in Nogales to assist him in his efforts to provide justice to the victims as Brink believes the end justifies the means. The law means nothing to his unknown enemy so Brink adapts the same game theory leading to quite a border thriller. James C. Mitchell takes his audience on quite an eye-opening borderlands' experience with the action-packed CHOKE POINT crime thriller.

Harriet Klausner