Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email [email protected].
“The New Breadline: Hunger and Hope in the Twenty-First Century,” by Jean-Martin Bauer (Profile Books, 2024)
Bauer uses his experiences as a World Food Programme officer to write case studies about food insecurity and hunger in his native Haiti, in Syria and in numerous countries or regions of Africa. He explores “how hunger is caused by inequalities and tensions specific to each society that suffers from it.” Just as food shortages can have so many different causes — global price rises, conflict, climate change, political instability, population growth, resource inequality, supply chain issues, and punitive tariffs or sanctions — there can be no one-size-fits-all solution. While the challenges are enormous, Bauer does offer some hope, largely in the form of new technologies or new approaches to delivering humanitarian aid. But it somehow feels like small potatoes in the face of gigantic disasters. — 2 1/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
“Three-Inch Teeth,” by C.J. Box (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2024)
“Tooth And Claw,” by Craig Johnson, (Viking, 2024)
C.J. Box and Craig Johnson are award-winning Wyoming authors with recent novels that have a common plotline: bears. Specifically, a rogue grizzly and fearless human-stalking polar. In “Thee-Inch Teeth,” a 25-year-old man stands knee-high, fly-fishing for trout in the Twelve Sleep River, 12 miles outside Saddlestring, Wyo. In his pocket is an engagement ring for Sheridan, the daughter of the local game warden, Joe Pickett. A few casts later, the jaws of a grizzly crunch his skull. About the same time, Dallas Cates, whom Joe helped lock up years ago, is released from the state penitentiary in Rawlins. Cates is seeking revenge on the people who sent him away and destroyed his family. Joe and his friend Nate Romanowski are two of six names tattooed on Cates’ hand. He methodically begins to check names off his list. Joe knows he’s fighting two kinds of raging beasts. This is another engrossing novel from an author known for his stories of life in rugged Wyoming.
In “Tooth and Claw,” Johnson states in the acknowledgments that polar bears are known to actively stalk human beings because they don’t fear them. In this thrilling tale, the bears live up to that reputation. Young Walt Longmire just released from fighting in Vietnam, working security for an oil company protecting U.S. Geological Survey researchers. The setting is the North Slope above the Arctic Circle, with a winter solstice of less than four hours of daylight. (Perhaps that is why Longmire never complains about Wyoming winters.) The team sets off to work at a remote site the day before the solstice in a vintage World War II Flying Boxcar. On the first day, an enormous polar bear kills and eats a member of the team. Then a blizzard overwhelms them, forcing the team to seek shelter in the plane. Strong winds eventually tear the plane from its moorings, sending it sliding upside down across the ice. The crew seeks refuge in an abandoned ghost ship only to discover that they have invaded the home of a polar bear. Plus, a few greedy members of the research team are up to no good, generating even more challenges for Walt. Readers will have trouble putting this action-packed book down. – Both novels get 4 stars (out of 4); Charlie Brown, Denver
(Note: Longmire fans should mark their calendars for a trip to Buffalo, Wyo., in mid-July, 2025 for Longmire Days. Guests can mingle with the author and many of the stars on the six-year television series that airs on A&E and Netflix.)
“The Trees,” by Percival Everett (Graywolf Press, 2021)
In modern-day Money, Miss., site of the 1955 Emmett Till lynching, Black agents with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations are sent to solve mutilations and murders perpetrated by dead men. Really. Percival Everett is not just a writer; he is also a magician, conjuring surprising deadpan humor amid hideous action. I was delighted by Everett’s voodoo. I exulted when bad guys were taken out, and pleased by the comeuppance meted out by characters I loved. It takes a magician indeed to evoke these reactions from readers. Not all the mysteries are resolved, but that’s a minor complaint for a genre-bending novel as forceful, thoughtful, and amazing as this. (Like Everett’s 2024 bestseller “James,” “The Trees” was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.) — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
