Book Reviews

  The Devil’s Throat by Joseph Theroux (Samoa 1975-78) Kilauea Publications 190 pages September 2017 $8.99 Paperback  $3.99 Kindle Reviewed by Richard Wiley (Korea 1967-69) • Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of reading Joseph Theroux’s The Devil’s Throat or Robert Louis Stevenson, Detective, a novel set in Hawaii in the late nineteenth century, starring, if you will, the great Scottish novelist himself, and narrated by his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. The conceit of the novel is that its author found a partially completed manuscript, written by the above named Osbourne, hidden in the false bottom of an antique chest he bought at auction “several years ago” in Hilo.  And maybe it’s true.  My abilities to detect artifacts from fact have waned over the years, so I can’t be sure.  But either way, it provides a great start to the mystery that the manuscript brings to light; namely that a locally . . .

  Hidden Places: A Journey from Kansas to Kilimanjaro (Peace Corps creative non-fiction) by James Heaton (Malawi [Nyasaland] 1962–64) Xlibris, 2016 May 2016 118 pages $19.95 (paperback), $29.99 (hardcover), $3.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Mary M. Flad (Thailand 1963–65) • James Heaton’s Hidden Places: a Journey from Kansas to Kilimanjaro is a beautifully written, and frequently hilarious, book. Heaton seems to have the gift of total recall of all of the details, and many of the misadventures, of his Peace Corps stint in Nyasaland in 1962 to 1964. Nyasaland was in transition to becoming the independent nation of Malawi. Heaton conjures up the mix of idealism, naiveté, escapism, and longing for adventure that characterized so many of us who entered service in “the Kennedy era.” His time in Africa was spent teaching science and English on the secondary-school level. In a little more than a hundred pages, he describes the memorable moments, . . .

  Show Me The Gold (mystery) by Carolyn Mulford (Ethiopia 1962-64) Gale Cengage Learning 304 pages December 2014 $9.90 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Sarah Elizabeth Porter (Republic of Macedonia 2005-07) • Staking out a country graveyard to catch vandals ex-spy Phoenix Smith and Acting Sheriff Annalynn Keyser respond to a neighboring county’s urgent call. The old friends block an exit from an abandoned farmhouse where four bank robbers were spotted. The women engage in a fatal shootout but two gang members escape. Achilles Phoenix’s K-9 dropout can’t sniff out a trail but smells a trap set to kill pursuers. The FBI takes over the case but fails to find the fugitives or the gold coins they stole. Agents suspect Phoenix knows where the gold is. So do the elusive robbers. Phoenix must adapt her tradecraft to protect herself and others and to follow threads leading to the gang and . . .

  Wild World (novel) by Peter S. Rush (Cameroon 1972–73) Prior Manor August 2017 288 pages $16.95 (paperback) Reviewed by D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador 1974–76, and Costa Rica 1976–77) • You can’t change an institution unless you are willing to become a part of it and work from the inside. That’s what Steve Logan decided to do. In the spring of 1970 he is a senior at Brown University, very much in love with his girlfriend Roxy, a pre-med student, and planning to go to law school in the fall. Then he hears about Kent State, four student demonstrators killed by the National Guard. Inspired by a campus appearance by a New York City police officer who is fighting corruption on the force, and unwilling to leave Roxy on her own as she has recently lost both her father and sister, Steve decides to join the local Providence police force and . . .

  Patchworks (mystery) by B.A. East (Malawi 1996-98) Moonshine Cove Press September 2017 259 pages $13.99 paperback, $6.99 Kindle Reviewed by Peter Van Deekle (Iran, 1968-70) • B.A. East brings to his latest and timely novel a refined skill for realistic dialog and a  first-hand experience of the federal bureaucracy. This reviewer received his copy of Patchworks on the morning after the Las Vegas massacre in October 2017 with the prophetic statement on its back cover: “America’s next gun massacre is inevitable …” The 20013 shootings at the Navy Yard facility in Washington, D.C. provide a credible context for this novel’s heightened anxiety over safety and security. Within that anxiety, East gives readers an engaging narrative centered on two of the novel’s central characters, Gabriel Dunne and Manny Teague.  Dunne’s internship in the fictitious Bureau of Government Intelligence and Execution involves him in an investigation of gun violence in America.  Gabriel’s academic . . .

  Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods: Early Humans and the Origins of Religion E. Fuller Torrey (Staff/MD Ethiopia 1964–66) Columbia University Press September 2017 312 pages $35.00 (hardcover), $33.25 (Kindle) By Patricia Taylor Edmisten (Peru 1962-64) • “The gods were born following a pregnancy lasting approximately two million years. It took that long for hominin brains to evolve structurally and functionally from being primate-like brains to being brains that possessed the cognitive faculties of modern Homo sapiens.” Thus begins E. Fuller Torrey’s masterful book on the evolution of religion. He has reviewed, compiled, and applied the pertinent fields of paleontology, anthropology, archaeology, anatomy, brain science, psycholinguistics, and social science that contribute to his theme. Torrey had been “looking for God,” since he was a child. As an undergraduate, he majored in religious studies; as a graduate student, in anthropology. He went on to become a physician and psychiatrist who has published . . .

  The Art of Coming Home by Craig  Storti (Morocco 1970-72, PC/W 1973-79) Nicholas Brealey, publisher 2001 (revised edition) 229 pages $22.95 (paperback), $12.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Bob Arias (Colombia 1963–64) • Culture Shock in Reverse Culture Shock, a noun . . . “the feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.” — Google   IF YOU HAVEN’T EXPERIENCED IT, returning home after spending months or years overseas in a different culture, with different standards and perhaps another language, can be a challenge. American Peace Corps Volunteers, Japanese Volunteers or United Nation Volunteers in Latin America bring back their experiences and new found memories that have changed their person. And it isn’t just volunteers who experience these changes, military families, students, missionaries, and business executives do as well. Coming home is a challenge with special benefits that remain with us. . . .

  White Moon in a Powder Blue Sky: A Primer in Healing from both Sides of the Veil in Memoir, Sonnets and Prose by Julie R. Dargis (Morocco 1984–87) Indie House Press July 2016 78 pages $9.50 (paperback) Reviewed by Taylor Barahona (Dominican Republic (2015–17) • With a bold and unique approach, Julie R. Dargis sets out to bring her readers on a spiritual journey through her book White Moon in a Powder Blue Sky: A Primer in Healing from both Sides of the Veil in Memoir, Sonnets and Prose. Dargis successfully captures a feeling that will surely resonate for any reader who dedicates themselves to serving the greater good and finds it difficult to step back and take care of themselves. Dargis writes, in her Author’s Note: I had been ready and willing to undertake anything that would have been asked of me. But what I was being told, in . . .