Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: L Wilson Hunt

  • Blood of the Reich by William Dietrich

    Blood of the Reich by William Dietrich

    Prepare yourself for grand adventure as William Dietrich deftly blends the fruits of a fertile imagination and well-researched historical facts into a tale so well-crafted that characters and images seem to jump from the page in wide-screen 3-D. I was only 12 pages into Blood of the Reich when I became apprehensive that this hypnotic thriller would eventually come to an end.

    From the golden, autumnal splendor of present day Washington State’s Skagit River Valley to the vivid color of prayer flags waving in contrast to the stark remoteness of Tibet, you’ll be there, deeply involved, wanting more. Blood, a major player in this complex mystery, will be as red as the trees of  the Pacific Northwest are green.

    Then find yourself in 1938 when a Nazi expedition journeys to the high Himalayas to determine if there is any truth to a myth that hints  of  an ancient city located there that cradles a source of immense power—power which could accelerate their plan of world domination. Close on their heels are the Americans, bent on decoding the satanic plan. Both parties are armed and dangerous.  However, the Nazis have the advantage: a very old vial of blood.

    In a saga that spans a turbulent seventy years of action, romance and intrigue, the historian-author maintains a high level of entertainment and page turning. Dietrich’s narrative is as informative and amusing as it is boldly exciting. Be prepared to fully surrender your sense of reality to a high velocity ride that crashes head-on with a sensational blood splattered finale.

    Blood of the Reich deftly blurs the line between science and the paranormal as it exposes the veins of a twisted relationship between the human race and our own, often terrifying, technologies.  With his memorable characters, dichotomy of  modern technology and ancient Buddhist Tibetan temples,  along with non-stop action, and thrilling plot, Dietrich delivers.

  • More and More unto the Perfect Day by Ray Harvey

    More and More unto the Perfect Day by Ray Harvey

    Bizarre things are beginning to happen to Joel Gasteneau. A  strange illness has left him feeling weak and haunted by vivid dreams, and he feels that he is being followed. Exhausted and fearful, he decides to abandon his life as a pensive drifter and focus on a long-neglected project: To find durable proof for the existence of God.

    This pursuit will run Joel through a gauntlet of self-discovery, one that will challenge the very limits of his mental and physical endurance.

    In a solid telling of a complex story of mystery and intrigue, author Ray Harvey assumes the role of  master illusionist.  Clues abound, but can Joel trust them? What is he really experiencing?  Viral fever flashbacks?  The eruption of long-buried memories?  Reality?  More questions than answers emerge as the reader is drawn into another world, where mysticism and philosophy tangle and clash across a stunningly-rendered, often other-worldly landscape.

    The novel is stocked with well-developed, fascinating entities. Joel’s father, Neil, a brilliant and deeply ascetic man, has a weakness for violence and his own definition for the word “blood.”  Has he killed in the past? And, if so, will he again, and soon? Another entity is a stranger that Joel encounters called Tom, a sort of  human/alien hybrid, who seems to know too much about Joel’s past. Along with these characters are oddly-shaped, silver clouds that seem to be keeping a watchful eye on Joel’s whereabouts.

    The story owns a unique lyricism; one of an eerily faint off-key melody constantly echoing through the richly orchestrated atmospherics. And there is a rhythm, a strong pulse, which propels the narrative to its startling and memorable ending.

    With its frequent references to philosophy and literature,  More and More Unto the Perfect Day can, at times, be a cerebral read.  However, it ultimately offers a rewarding, rather hypnotic and moving experience—memorable and sufficiently haunting to merit additional readings.

  • A Trip To The Stars by Nicholas Christopher

    A Trip To The Stars by Nicholas Christopher

    A Trip to the Stars will take you to exotic locales while introducing you to its realms of  magic, music, memory and time travel. You will become acquainted with this mesmerizing  story’s fascinating characters and their mysterious talents.  Some of these are characters with whom you will wish could become life-long friends. Other ones you will vehemently desire that they could  feel your wrath. And then there are those characters of whom you will  pray never cross your path. Nicholas Christopher deftly weaves these  threads to create this ensnaring mystical web of a story that crisscrosses the globe, the turbulent 60s and 70s, and the celestial sky.

    The story opens with the young Alma and her ten-year-old nephew Loren enjoying an afternoon planetarium show.  The drama starts when they are separated in a post-show tangle of exiting stargazers.  The ensuing plot, enormously complex yet tantalizing, documents the next fifteen years of our protagonists’ separate, but seemingly cosmically-linked adventures.  While under this book’s cosmic spell, you will be both educated and entertained as A Trip to the Stars sends you to the outer rings of love and destiny as this mystery unfolds.

    As Alma and Loren narrate alternating chapters of this 499 page opus, they become Mala and Enzo.  Name changes are only two of, what will be many, portents you will encounter on their esoteric journeys. Indeed, Christopher will connect many of his dots  with a colorful variety of such talismans, the majority of them touching on notions of stars and constellations, perhaps as a reminder that subtle, yet influential, energies are at play.

    Christopher, an accomplished poet, rendered in Mala and Enzo characters a vulnerability and an openness that propels them into captivating situations throughout their separate lives.  Christopher’s direct and sure-handed prose is made from words so carefully selected and assembled that you may at times be tempted to pause your reading to relish in the fluent lyricism of a recently read poetic phrase.

    As you share with Alma and Loren in their struggles toward growth and fulfillment, you will come to care about them deeply, and to hope for them that the biggest and brightest star in the cosmos will light the way to the convergence of their destinies.

    This is a novel to be enjoyed again and again as each reading discovers new layers of intricacy and revelations. Warning: If you loan out your copy of A Trip to the Stars, you may never get it back.  I am on my fourth copy of this treasure.