‘A Firehose of Falsehood’ is a must read!

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By Ande Jacobson

A brilliant new book entitled A Firehose of Falsehood: The Story of Disinformation written by Teri Kanefield and illustrated by Pat Dorian is finally available to all (as of 13 February 2024). You can buy your copy at your favorite brick and mortar bookseller, order it online, or borrow it from your local library. In August 2023, I had the opportunity to review a pre-publication copy of this stunning work, and it packed a punch. I more recently received a pre-publication hardcover copy of the book which I was eager to see. Although it was the same material as the digital version I previously reviewed, it was even more gripping in hardcover. This is a must-read book for everyone. A Firehose of Falsehood is a graphic novel, and as such, the illustrations are an integral and powerful part of the story. Kanefield wrote the informative and entertaining prose, and Dorian’s breathtaking four-color illustrations make this book also a work of art. Continue reading →

The dangers behind the walls

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By Ande Jacobson

Keeping on her yearly schedule, Tess Gerritsen’s third book in the Rizzoli & Isles series, The Sinner, first appeared in August 2003. Gerritsen goes in a new direction this time digging deeper in the personal lives of Detective Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles. Maura’s ex-husband, Victor Banks, is also a doctor though not a medical examiner. Victor features prominently in this story, and their complicated history intrudes on Maura’s work this time. Of course there are murders to solve, the first one of a nun killed in Graystones Abbey, the home of a sequestered order. Two nuns were attacked, one died at the scene, the other was taken to the hospital, but the story doesn’t end there. There are some other seemingly disconnected murders across a surprisingly wide region. The story has tentacles that reach across states and across the world in surprising ways. Gerritsen is masterful in her storytelling, interweaving the professional and personal lives of her characters, and as always the details matter. Continue reading →

Warren Hoyt’s story continues …

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By Ande Jacobson

One year after the first book in the series was released, Tess Gerritsen’s second work in the Rizzoli & Isles series dropped in August 2002. The Apprentice picks up where The Surgeon left off with the same heart-stopping action and mind-bending puzzles that Gerritsen’s mystery/thrillers are known for. Gerritsen introduced Warren Hoyt, a skilled and pathological serial killer, in the first book. He’s in prison, but a new series of crimes that reek of his signature come to light. Detective Rizzoli and her team are immediately engaged, and so is Detective Vince Korsak in Newton, a Boston suburb and a different jurisdiction than Rizzoli’s territory. FBI Agent Gabriel Dean also appears for some unknown reason. Other parts of the federal government also kibitz later in the story causing additional confusion and misdirection. In this second book in the series, Medical Examiner Maura Isles is introduced, and she and Rizzoli begin their long-admired professional collaboration in crime fighting though their relationship doesn’t cross the boundary into level of personal friendship that they do in the television adaptation of the books. Dean and Korsak both have different prominence in the books than they did in the television series as well. Korsak is integral to the case in The Apprentice, although this is the only time he works professionally with Rizzoli and company despite his being a regular on TV. Continue reading →

2024 is going to be a long year

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By Ande Jacobson

Here we are almost a month into a new year, and it’s been eventful so far. 2024 is a consequential presidential election year with democracy on the line, something that’s fast becoming a mainstay of our political process. It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when the two major parties may have preferred different approaches to solving the nation’s problems, but they worked together to try to make things better for everyone. FDR’s New Deal and Eisenhower’s Middle Way were two sides of the same coin from a Democratic and a Republican president respectively. Both held that the government had a role in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, and aiding in making the U.S. a more fair and equal society. Continue reading →

Doctors make the scariest villains

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By Ande Jacobson

First released in hardback in August 2001, The Surgeon is the first book in Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli & Isles series even though Medical Examiner Maura Isles isn’t introduced until the second book. Making full use of her background as a practicing physician before retiring to write mysteries full time, in The Surgeon, Gerritsen creates a riveting mystery that draws the reader in and doesn’t let them go even when they get to the last page because they know there will be more. In another book. Even so, The Surgeon is at turns gripping and terrifying, and the resolution to this first book in the series is satisfying with a whiff of “happily ever after” for some of the characters. Continue reading →

Books matter

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By Ande Jacobson

Something unexpected happened recently.

Almost a year ago, I wrote an essay about a controversial post I made on Facebook with a simple thesis. Reading and listening are not the same thing. In the course of my background reading for that piece, I dug into some of the research surrounding the differences between reading and listening as it pertained to absorbing and processing written material. One interesting note came to light during that investigation, that being that there’s also a difference in comprehension and retention based on how you read printed material. There was some study evidence that reading an e-book isn’t quite as good for comprehension as reading a physical book. Given that wasn’t the focus of my previous essay, I noted it, mentioned it in passing in the essay, and set it aside. Continue reading →

2023 is finally ending

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By Ande Jacobson

So many things happened in 2023 that were unforgettable, many of them things that we wish weren’t happening. By the same token, there has also been some good to come out of 2023, though sometimes it seems harder to find the good given the preponderance of bad news filling the airwaves and the internet on a daily basis.

So what good has happened? Locally, the arts have been recovering and in some respects have just about reached their pre-pandemic levels. San Jose’s Saxophone Christmas had 190 saxophone players making lovely holiday music for those willing to venture out into the uncertain world despite the risks of infection swarming around us. Theater has also returned locally with many lively productions, and music is in the air all around even beyond the return of the saxophones to San Jose. Continue reading →

The 29th Annual San Jose SaXmas recap

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Dad’s sop sax

By Ande Jacobson

On Saturday, 16 December 2023, the 29th Annual San Jose Saxophone Christmas (or SaXmas for short) happened. Sax players of all levels got together as they do each year (except in 2020 for obvious reasons) and made holiday music together on saxes of all shapes and sizes. For some players, this is the only time they bring out their saxophones, while for others, it’s one of dozens (or possibly even hundreds) of gigs they play each year.

First, the ensemble rehearsed for a couple of hours down in South San Jose playing through this year’s concert selections. Then they broke for lunch and reconvened in downtown San Jose to play their first concert at Christmas in the Park. They then moseyed over to Eastridge Shopping Mall for their final concert of the day. Continue reading →

Can old spies ever truly retire?

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By Ande Jacobson

Released in November 2023, The Spy Coast is the first book in Tess Gerritsen’s The Martini Club series about a group of retired spies living in the (fictional) small coastal Maine village of Purity. The trouble is that even though they were trying to leave their former lives behind them, events often have far-reaching consequences they hadn’t considered. The main story begins in the present in the quaint Maine village and careens around the world to Thailand, the UK, Italy, Istanbul, Malta, and points in between bouncing between the past when a mission went horribly wrong triggering events in what was supposed to be a comfortable and incognito retirement. Continue reading →

Hearing in the light of day

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By Ande Jacobson

Teri Kanefield is many things. She’s a lawyer who spent the bulk of her time in practice as an appellate defense attorney. She’s a teacher having taught college level English and creative writing. She’s an award winning author of both fiction and nonfiction. Her educational credentials are impeccable including both her law degree and a master’s in English with an emphasis in fiction writing, something that no doubt came in handy in weaving compelling (but true) narratives in her legal briefs. Now retired from her law practice, she volunteers her time to support our democracy. She uses her writing to reach across boundaries and continue to educate and entertain. Ever the teacher, she provides political and legal analysis for major news organizations and on her own through her blog and social media to help untangle the complex landscape that we now inhabit. Her books continue to be something special. Even in her fiction, she includes salient details that come from her broad base of experience in numerous ways. Turn On the Light So I Can Hear is a novel that reads very personally. It’s not necessarily autobiographical, but the issues and social commentary are familiar to her. Continue reading →