This is the continuation of A Child Called It, the first memoir from Dave Pelzer. This book is tragic, in that it describes a kid bouncing from one home to another trying to find someone who will love him and adopt him. So many children face that same situation that are in foster care. It also shows that you can overcome your childhood to be an advocate for others and live a fulfilling life. 

 This book discusses a four ship fleet of crab boats, all beginning with A names, which were known as the A Boats. The boats (Americus, Altair, Alliance, & Alyeska) were constructed in the 1970's and belonged to Jeff Hendricks. The ships were scheduled to depart Dutch Harbor to fish for crabs on Valentine's Day 1983. The crew members were experienced and capable, the ships were essentially brand new. The weather was good at the time of departure. A few hours after departure, two of the ships were found a couple of miles from each other, both capsized, and with no sign of the crew. The waters were a bit over 4,000 feet deep, and the ships sank before being able to be recovered. I do not want to ruin the book for others who may be reading it, so I won't include any other details about the ships and crew here. I will say that this particular incident changed the way that things were done in several instances.

As anyone who follows me on here knows, I am have a huge interest in disaster books. It seems that lately I have managed to find plenty of books about shipping disasters, but this one I had not heard of. I have also never read anything by this author, but the reviews were good. I really appreciated the research that the author put into this book. It really gave you a sense of knowing the crew members, thanks to statements made by coworkers and family. The book gave a good amount of detail about shipping and the way these particular ships were built. It was also an engaging read, and I had a hard time putting it down to do other things because I wanted to know what happened to the crew and what caused the ships to capsize. I don't want to ruin the story, but there is a memorial to these two ships located in Anacortes. I would highly suggest this book. 

 This book was about a girl who became addicted to sex and attention. It was interesting to see how she found herself in those situations and seeing it from her perspective. To be honest, I had never heard of sex addiction until the whole thing with Tiger Woods was on the news. I picked this book up for pretty cheap at the local used bookstore. It was worth what I paid for it, and I felt that it was a good book overall. I was not very pleased with the ending. I felt like she glossed over her whole recovery process, and I would have liked to hear more about it. 

 This book tells the story of a platoon of eighteen men, under the command of a twenty year old man. I cannot imagine being a teenager in war, and I certainly cannot imagine being in command of a bunch of other people and being responsible for their lives. They were outnumbered, but wound up killing several hundred Germans before they ran out of ammunition and got taken as prisoners of war. War is such an ugly thing, and I cannot imagine being in this position, especially freezing to death in the winter. Alex Kershaw is a great writer, and I enjoy his books a lot. 

 Most of us are used to thinking of warfare in modern terms- with tanks, guns, computerized weapons systems, and grown adult combatants. However, there are still underage soldiers in the world, fighting in various conflicts. It is a cruel and disgusting thing to use children as soldiers, teaching them to kill and then expecting them to have no issues doing so or any issues mentally or emotionally afterwards. This account is something that everyone should read, to raise awareness for things that go on in the world outside of the one that we live in. I wish this book would have included a little more background about the war, but I realize it was a personal account of someone who was a child soldier. Personal accounts are so important to the historical record, and this one certainly fits into that category. I simply cannot imagine living through these things. 

 Marilyn Manson has been a controversial figure since he burst onto the music scene. I personally love his voice and music, which is why I bought this book to read. I always thought that the shocking things that he did were just theatrical to his musical persona...but I think he really has some disturbing behavior. I do not like the Nazi imagery at all, and the recent allegations that have been in the press from former girlfriends and wives are something that one cannot ignore. The one thing that people can say about Manson is that he has never really tried to hide what he was. He is always right out there for everyone to see, as weird and abusive as it may be. The book wasn't terribly well written, but delving into the personality of Marilyn Manson was an interesting experience. 

 Werner Henke was born in 1909 in Thorn. His family moved to Celle after Thorn became a part of Poland in 1920. He worked in the merchant marine for some time before joining the Reichsmarine in 1934. He attended the Naval Academy, and served aboard a cruiser called Admiral Scheer. In May 1939 he was assigned to the battleship Schleswig-Holstein, where he participated in the first shots of World War II in the Battle of Westerplatte. He had spent five years in the Reichsmarine, only having one week of instruction on a submarine before being sent to submarine school. He was supposed to receive six weeks of training, but was convicted of desertion and sent to a punishment unit. He was then sent to submarine commander's school in 1941. He assumed command of U-515 in 1942.

U-515 joined in training exercises after it was commissioned, such as torpedo firing tests. It began patrols in the fall of 1942. During the first patrol, nine ships were sunk and another ship was damaged. (Two of those were American ships, the Mae and the Antinous.) During the second patrol, the Ceramic was sunk, which would cause Henke problems. (He did, in fact, save the sapper of the Ceramic. The other lifeboats and survivors did not make it through the night in the stormy seas. British propaganda reported that he had the survivors shot, and Henke believed he would be tried as a war criminal even though he did not give any such orders.) After several repairs, U-515 went out on the sixth and final patrol. The submarine was attacked from the air, and also by four destroyers, including the USS Pope. Sixteen of the crew were killed, and forty four survived. U-515 ultimately sank 23 ships, damaged two ships badly enough that they later sank, and damaged two more ships.

Henke was taken prisoner and transferred over to the USS Guadalcanal. They used his fear of being tried as a war criminal by the British to coerce him to sign a document agreeing to cooperate with interrogators. They wanted to know about all the Naval operations, especially submarine warfare that he knew about in an effort to stop the Nazi war machine. His crew followed his lead and cooperated, though Henke was not nearly as cooperative as he said he would be. He was ultimately shot while attempting to escape the interrogation center in Virginia. He was buried in The Post Cemetery in Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. (There are other German prisoners of war buried there as well.) He was awarded several things throughout his career and was posthumously promoted.

I had never heard of this man before I read this book, and I picked it up simply because I did not know very much about submarine warfare during World War II. I really do not know much about the German submarine operations, so this was invaluable for that information. It was great to learn about someone with such an interesting story, and I would suggest picking this up. I left out a lot of really cool information in my little summary. I liked the research that was done in this book, and the experience of how one becomes involved in the Reichsmarine. 

 I read this book because I watched the movie, and I am so glad that I did. Learning about Navy Seal operations is always interesting, and inspiring. I could never do a fraction of the things that these men put themselves through. Marcus Luttrell has an amazing fortitude. I enjoy his podcast and the work he does with Team Never Quit is just as inspiring as this book, and his other book. I cannot imagine being in the situation that these guys were. The guys who tried to rescue them that lost their lives, the team itself being caught out and surrounded and fighting to the last bullet and last man. Reconciling all that loss with the fact that you were the only survivor and to endure what he endured, yet still being so positive and trying to help everyone else keep that mentality is just truly, truly admirable and inspiring. 

 SIGH.

We are back with the twenty sixth installment of the Kay Scarpetta series. This book released to some pretty great reviews, especially from some other best selling authors. I am not quite certain they have been reading the same series that I have. By the time I got halfway through, I was really prepared to come here and write an absolutely scathing review. I was irritated before I made it to the end of chapter one. We are dealing with some of the same (insert derogatory words) characters from the previous book, namely that horrible secretary and her cohort. I cannot stand those two, and to be a book series about murder, none of the people that SHOULD die ever do. We also have the same infuriating characters from the rest of the series, namely Dorothy and Lucy. Lucy used to be one of my absolute favorite characters, but halfway through the series...ick. She wasn't as intolerable in this particular book, thank goodness, because there were enough intolerable characters to go around in it. I have about had enough of her and her AI partner. That is unreasonable. We also have a few recurring themes that are particularly irritating when they are in every single book, but I won't mention what they were so that I do not spoil this for those who have yet to read it....but if you are a committed reader to the series, you can probably guess what I mean when I say TYPICAL KAY SHENANIGANS.

As far as the premise of the story, Scarpetta is still sifting through the mess left from previous medical examiners in the office. She is on the witness stand testifying about a case that she did not personally handle, when she gets word that another body was found...and it happens to be the sister of the judge presiding over the case she is handling. I will say that the author always does her research, and you can tell over the course of the series how much forensic science has evolved since the first book came out. I love the descriptions of the investigation, which is one reason I got into this series a long time ago. I saw a couple of other reviews that said they felt like the author was boasting about her research, and I do not feel like that is the case at all. I will say that some of the technology that she talks about, typically revolving around Lucy, is always so dramatic and seemingly far fetched that is is grating after a while. I also have to note that I appreciate that she is keeping up with the times, mentioning the pandemic and lockdown, but GOSH I am so sick of hearing about people screaming "fake news". (There are few things that I hate more than red lipstick, and fake news, snowflake, and libtard are three of those things. That crap gets screamed around by anyone trying to rub two brain cells together for warmth and it is SO TIRESOME seeing it all the time on social media and in the news that I do not really care to read it in my books.) There is clearly a leak in her office, and clearly corruption going on, and that is something that I am also reading and hearing daily in the news. People generally turn to fiction books to get away from this type of negativity and idiocy, but here we are. Still reading about the same nonsense that people are getting up to right out our front door. At any rate, the research was well done and the investigative process in the book as far as handling the dead bodies and figuring out all the pieces to the puzzle was interesting and entertaining. The continuity of the characters and the timeline is always spot on between the books, which I appreciate.

I found a lot of this book to be infuriating, though the parts that were good prompted me to not be as negative as I initially thought I was going to and to leave it a three star review instead of the generous two star that I had planned to leave when I was about halfway through the book. All material is subjective to the reader, and I suppose there are plenty of people who felt that this deserved a five star rating. Good for them, but I am not one. I do have to admit that the past few books have certainly been better than some of the ones that came before them, and I am slowly starting to not be as disappointed by this series as I have been. I have read all twenty six books up to current, and since I have spent the time and energy doing so, I will continue to read them and hope they continue to get back to where they were in the first half of the series. 

 I really like Harold Schechter's other work. I found this little collection in the Audible Plus Catalog to listen to for free. It was a little over an hour, so I listened to it while cleaning. The story was interesting. I had never heard of this family before. It goes to show that people were up to shenanigans everywhere, all the time. I would recommend giving this series a listen. I am about to start the Pirate one now.