Book Review: Least Wanted by Debbi Mack

Least Wanted is the second book in this mystery series featuring lawyer Sam McRae. I’m not exactly sure why I started with this one instead of Identity Crisis. Maybe the description sounded more interesting, maybe I liked the cover better. In any case, this is the one I read first.

I fell in love with Mack’s writing from the very first page. The prose was clear, engaging, and vivid with just the right amount of wit. The author does a great job of introducing us to Shanae and Tina Jackson, two characters vital to the story.

In fact, I think Mack’s description of Tina in the first chapter should be studied by writers who want to make their characters come alive. Just the right mixture of metaphor, exposition, and dialogue, which, by the way, sounded pitch-perfect to my ear.

As soon as I reached the third chapter, however, the story changed directions completely. I was thrown off, and it took me a moment to understand Sam McRae was now taking on a different case. This was, I think, both the book’s greatest strength and greatest weakness. On the one hand, having Sam involved in three (maybe four?) different cases at the same time added a nice touch of realism. Real lawyers do in fact work on more than one case at a time. The juggling of these cases also provided for a nice glimpse into Sam’s personal life. On the other hand, trying to keep the cases and characters straight felt like more of a challenge than it should have been.

My other quibble with the story was with the ending. Without spoiling it, I felt that Sam should have had more of an active role in a climactic confrontation, and that this confrontation was over far too quickly to satisfy.

On the whole, though, Least Wanted had more than enough intrigue and detection to keep this mystery fan happy. I enjoyed the twists and plot developments, and I especially loved Sam’s snarky attitude. I look forward to future adventures with her, and won’t hesitate to buy the next one when it comes out.

Least Wanted Buy Links:

Amazon

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Smashwords

Cheating Teachers

In addition to writing mystery novels, I'm a full-time English teacher at a public high school. This weekend is the last weekend of the year before my students seek shelter from the sweltering Arizona heat and return, dutifully, to their desks on Monday morning. It's a hectic time, one full of promise and excitement for me as I think ahead to all the wonderful things we'll be exploring.

It's also a time of immense pressure and anxiety. Did I prepare enough? Do I really have to strength and stamina to control a room of 30 teenagers again? Why didn't I just go into something easier, like surgery?

But there's another pressure that all teachers feel, one that's been steadily increasing over the last decade or so: the pressure to perform.

I'm not talking about teacher evaluations, about the day-to-day in the classroom. I'm talking about standardized test scores. Through the No Child Left Behind Act, schools that don't make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) can have their funding cut, have their staff replaced, or even be shut down entirely.

My own school has done very well on these standardized tests (and other AYP measurements, like drop-out rates), but we still feel the effects of what I call the "data push," or the pressure for more and more data. Over the course of the year, our department devotes an entire month to standardized tests. That's 30 days of instruction gone to multiple-choice and essay tests.

Some of us deal with the pressure by prepping our students for the test as best we can, despite using up extra class time that could have been used for something more relevant to the kids. Others say the heck with the test, and trust that if we teach our students what they need to know, they'll do well on the tests anyway. (I personally cop a little of both attitudes.)

But some teachers take a different approach: they cheat.

Recently, it was discovered that "that more than 80 Atlanta teachers admitted to cheating on state standardized tests--with one group of elementary teachers even holding a 'party' after school to change their pupils' answers by hand" (link). A survey also showed that, in Michigan, where test scores are tied to teacher salaries, 30% of teachers feel the pressure to cheat, and 8% reported actually cheating on the test (link).

It's awful to think that teachers, who are supposed to model values, would do this. And while I don't agree with cheating, obviously, I can understand the pressure. In the same article reporting the Michigan statistics, I think professor Nelson Maylone said it best:

"Teachers and principals have not been told to raise student achievement levels; they've been told to raise test scores, and the two things are not the same."

I honestly don't know the solution to this one. I agree that there needs to be accountability, both for the teachers and the students, and standardized tests are the easiest and most cost-effective way to do that. At the same time, standardized tests don't show a complete picture of the student, and it's quite easy to "game" the system from both ends. For example, there are some tests that aren't high stakes for the students (they get to go on to the next grade regardless of whether they pass), but that still determine part of a teacher's evaluation. I've heard a number of stories where students didn't like their teacher and purposely did poorly in order to punish them.

What do you think? If you have kids, what have been some of your experiences with the new waves of testing? Are we doing it right? And, if not, how should we fix it?

In the end, it's all about the students. I want to do what's best for our kids. But sometimes, it's hard to know what that is.

Guest Blog on Scott Nicholson's Haunted Computer

The very-awesome Scott Nicholson was kind enough to host a guest blog of mine. It's my thoughts and musings about how we come to our genres, whether it be the ones we write or the ones we read. Check it out!

How to Land Your Kid in Therapy

A relative of mine sent this thought-provoking article my way: How to Land Your Kid in Therapy.

As a parent of a 14-month-old, the article's topic is one that's on my mind a lot. Am I doing enough for my son? Am I doing enough to stimulate his mind? Am I playing with him enough? Or am I doing too much?

The article was both encouraging and discouraging. While you don't have to be "a perfect [parent] to raise a well-adjusted kid," trying to prevent a child from having "low self-esteem," or shielding them from all discomfort as a child can actually make adulthood harder. "By trying so hard to provide the perfectly happy childhood," the author writes, "we’re just making it harder for our kids to actually grow up." Good to know that when I don't rush over to my son when he takes a spill, I'm actually doing him a favor!

Then, though, the article takes a turn that goes beyond parenting:

“Happiness as a byproduct of living your life is a great thing,” Barry Schwartz, a professor of social theory at Swarthmore College, told me. “But happiness as a goal is a recipe for disaster.”

That might be the biggest takeaway in the whole article, and it's something I've been thinking about for a while. Happiness, I'm beginning to think, is overrated. I actually find that I'm most happy when I'm not trying to be happy, like when I'm helping others or getting neck-deep in hard work.

So I've stopped looking for rewards, and, instead, started looking for rewarding challenges. I teach for two online colleges, in addition to my day job as a high school teacher. I'm writing more. This year, I'm on track to finish two novels. I'm also a bit of a poetry nut, so I'm submitting more to lit mags. I try to take my family out to the zoo, to the children's museum, and to the pool whenever possible.

I'm busier than ever. But you know what? I just might be happy, too.

Death Before Swine -- Ben Hart Mysteries #1

 
Small town high school chemistry teacher Ben Hart is just doing his job when he shows his students what happens when you mix together certain common substances: BOOM! But then someone uses that same chemical reaction to take down the statue of beloved football coach Simon Griffin. Ben's demonstration is blamed, and he loses his job.

Feeling guilty, Ben goes to apologize to his colleague Simon and discovers him murdered. The police think it's a home invasion robbery gone wrong, but Ben quickly figures out that Simon was murdered at the statue and moved. Simon's daughter wants the killer found and doesn't have faith in the police. Ben needs a job, so he takes the case. Now he's got to sort out lies from truth before the killer gets away--but the closer he gets, the more danger he's in.

"Death Before Swine" is a full-length novel: 65,000 words in length or about 260 pages.
Amazon
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Place in Fiction

I just returned from a wonderful vacation in Seattle. All that green reminded me so much of home--I grew up in the St. Louis area. My wife and I loved it, and we hope to come back in a few years.

As a writer, my brain's wheels kept turning as we went through all the landmarks: how could I use this setting in a story? A murder mystery in Pike Place Market? A romance that featured Defiance Point? An supernatural adventure on Mount Rainer?

I find that I do this whenever we go on vacation. Of course, I can't write fast enough to get every setting in that I want to. I also worry about the research necessary to really do the place justice. Will I remember it like it really was when I get back home, in front of the computer screen?

So, my questions are these:

1) For writers, do you find yourself doing what I do when you visit a new place? Also, how important is place in your writing? Do you like to use exotic settings, or do you stick to what you know?

2) For readers, do you prefer the setting in books to be in the forefront (like a character itself), or does it not matter, as long as the place seems real?

A Response to "5 Reasons Why E-Books Aren't There Yet"

Yesterday, this article popped up on Wired: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/ebooks-not-there-yet/

Go read it. Back yet? Okay.


So here's my response to the list.

1) An unfinished e-book isn’t a constant reminder to finish reading it.

Maybe not, but as I type, I have a few shelves full of dead tree books (DTBs) behind me that I haven't read, either. For me, it's the book that makes me want to finish it, not the format.

In fact, I've read more books since February, when my wife and I bought our Kindles, than I have in total over the last three years. I'm reading again thanks to eBooks.

2) You can't keep your books all in one place.

At first, I was scratching my head on this, because I do keep my books all in one place: on my Kindle. And, in an advantage over DTBs, I can send a copy of my books to my wife's Kindle or to her smart phone. Can't do that with a physical book, and besides, it's not like I keep my physical books all on one shelf either (some are scattered throughout the house, others are in storage).

But the focus of Abell's article is more about format incompatibility. To be fair, this might be an annoyance, but, personally, I shop exclusively from Amazon and haven't found any books unavailable there that are available on iBookstore or B&N. A question: how many of you out there actually utilize multiple online bookstores?

3) Notes in the margins help you think.

The Kindle allows you to make notes quite easily. In fact, it even makes an index file of your notes. No, you don't see your note actually in the margins, but I like that. If I annotate a DTB, there's no way to turn off my annotations. eBooks allow that.

4) E-books are positioned as disposable, but aren't priced that way.

eBook prices ignite a lot of controversy, that's for sure. It does seem ridiculous when the eBook price is the same as the paperback (I've even seen instances where the eBook is higher). This is where we're seeing a lot of success for indie authors, and why I don't plan on pricing any of my forthcoming titles higher than $5. This isn't a drawback of the format, though, but rather one of business practices by publishers.

5) E-books can't be used for interior design.

Okay... maybe not. Still, for me, that's a small price to pay for eliminating the massive amount of space that DTBs take up. Like I said earlier, I have boxes of books stacked in my garage, and a few nearly-full bookshelves in the house. And how often do I read an individual title? Once? Maybe twice? (Except for a few favorites, of course.) 

More to the point is that, with eBooks, I now feel free to buy books I'd be cautious, or even embarrassed, to lug around in public. And that just means that my reading world is more open than ever.

I do like that Abell acknowledges the strengths of the e-format, and that ebooks are here to stay (though, at this point, who could deny that?). However, it seems like three of the five items on the list are simply incorrect. I'll also concede that though two of the items don't apply to me, they might apply to others.

Am I wrong, here? Let me know in the comments.