Book Reviews, Comments & Stories, Quotes, & Poetry & More
"Connections and Why They Matter"
Most of what happens in our life will spark a connection. Life connects with what has been found in books. Books connect with what happens in life. Use the connections to help you see more clearly. A love of reading and writing is what motivated the creation of this blog. Thank you for coming to the blog.
Maya Burkett is a combat veteran returned home from her deployment in the Middle East where her mission ended with the death of five innocent civilians. Whistle-blower Corey Rudzinski makes his living sensationalizing tragedy and he posted video footage of her airstrike on his website for all to see.
Maya plans an evening getaway from her memories and pressure with her husband Joe at a favorite spot in Central Park but they are surprised and her husband is shot by two masked muggers. She puts a Nanny Cam in her home to be able to see what the Nanny is doing while she is away on her job and is shocked when she sees her murdered husband on a picture. The Nanny, Isabella, claims she didn’t see anything when she is shown the picture but then she sprays pepper spray at Maya, takes the memory chip from the Nanny Cam and runs.
Maya’s sister Claire was previously killed in a home invasion while Maya was deployed in the Middle East and the same investigator, Roger Kierce, begins working on her husband’s murder and lets her know that the same gun was used to shoot both her husband and her sister.
Maya begins her own investigation even turning to Whistle-blower Rudzinsi to help and finds that both murders may be connected to the death more than 10 years ago of Joe’s brother Andrew.
The plot twists and you are left hanging and don’t know who did it until the very end. Well worth reading but not as good as “Run Away”
“Doctors kept stressing that mental disease was the same as physical disease. Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued. Maybe, to be more charitable, it was because you could hide a mental disease.”
“Things can always be said later, but things can never be unheard.”
“Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued.”
“War is never a meritocracy for the casualties.”
“When you can see the stakes, when you realize the true purpose of your mission, it motivates you. It makes you focus. It makes you push away the distractions. You gain clarity of purpose. You gain strength.”
“But life changes people. It smothers that kind of larger-than-life woman. Time quiets them down. That firecracker girl you knew in high school—where is she now? It didn’t happen to men as much. Those boys often grew up to be masters of the universe. The super successful girls? They seemed to die of slow societal suffocation. So”
“They say you never know how someone will react when the grenade is thrown.”
