The Innocent - by Harlan Coben

This is the story of Matt Hunter, a promising college student with a bright future.  His life is forever changed, however, when he gets in a fight at a party and unintentionally kills someone.  Years later, now an ex-con, and despite losing his father, while in prison, and his brother, shortly after getting out, he is putting his life together once again.  He is about to move back to his hometown, in New Jersey, with his pregnant wife, Olivia.  When she goes on a business trip and he receives a troubling picture and video on his phone, however, once again his life begins to fall apart.

If you are familiar with Harlan Coben stories, this novel features investigator Loren Muse and private detective Cingle Shaker.  I am a fan of his books, so I'm a little biased.  I found the pace of this book to match his typical gripping style.  Even though it was 503 pages, I got through it relatively quickly because I didn't want to put it down.  Some may find the plot, as ultimately revealed, a little too complex.  For me, personally, though, this is my kind of read.

The Design of Everyday Things - by Donald Norman

In this work, cognitive scientist and usability engineer, Donald Norman, presents many of the concepts that he believes underpin both good and bad "user-centered" product design. He walks the reader through examples of human interactions with everyday things (like doors, telephones, switches, cars, etc.) to illustrate the fundamental principles of functional design.

As this book was first published in 1988, even this "old" reader found the case studies it contains a little dated. Although the ideas presented are principally timeless, they are also largely common sense. Nonetheless, many of these easily understood points, in retrospect, may not be so obvious to the designer, whose viewpoint is biased by his/her inherent expertise with the thing he/she is designing. It can often be hard for this person to recognize cues that might provide the user a misguided conceptual model and, hence, result in difficult or improper usage.

When this book was first published in 1998, it was titled "The Psychology of Everyday Things." In the introduction to the 2002 edition (the version I read), the author explains that he changed the title to avoid the tendency for it to be marketed as a psychology, rather than design, book. From my perspective, though, the time he spends evaluating the psychology of how humans interact with the user interfaces of everyday things and devices was the most insightful.

Defending Jacob -- by William Landay

This novel tells its story in the context of the grand jury testimony of Andy Barber, a former Assistant District Attorney in upscale Newton, Massachusetts.  His testimony is interspersed throughout the more complete version of his story that he tells the reader. He begins his narration by telling about the tragic murder of a 14 year-old boy, Ben Rifkin, who was stabbed to death in the woods near the local school.  The reader sees the crime from both his viewpoint as the ADA trying to find and bring the killer to justice as well as a a member of the community and father of a 14-year-old boy who was a classmate of the murder victim.  When his son Jacob is arrested, he must expose the truth about his murderous ancestry and defend his son.


This book is the blend of a criminal thriller with the drama of a couple (Andy Barber and his wife Laurie) wrestling with thoughts of whether or not their son might be a monster who committed an unthinkable act.  I loved this book and couldn't recommend it more highly.  I can't remember ever before experiencing a page-turner such as this that simultaneously made me empathize with the narrator and ponder what I might do in such trying circumstances.

Micro - by Michael Crichton & Richard Preston

"Jurassic Park's" Michael Crichton wrote one-third of this techno-thriller before his death in 2008 and "The Hot Zone's" Richard Preston completed it.

Nanigen MicroTechnologies Corporation has somewhat secretly developed the technology to miniaturize people and objects. A group of talented young researchers from Cambridge, Massachusetts, accept an offer to learn more about promising and potentially lucrative opportunities with the successful upstart technology company that is headquartered in Hawaii. Unfortunately, their would-be employer is a money- and power-mad science entrepreneur named Vin Drake and, when they almost immediately get caught up in a scheme of deception and greed, he shrinks them to a height of about one-half inch. They are deserted in a tropical rainforest where they must face now giant ants, spiders, moths, bees, and wasps, as well as a variety of other plants, creatures, and insects. Meanwhile, from the full-size world, the evil Drake tries his best to stamp out the miniaturized scientists and Detective Dan Watanabe investigates a set of events that converge on Nanigen and Drake.

I am normally not a science fiction fan. "Micro," though, was good enough thriller to generally keep my interest. I also felt like I learned a little about the micro-biological world. While it is not a personal favorite, I enjoyed it and am glad that I read it.

Blood Feud - by Kathleen Sharp

This book exposes how money and profits drive Big Pharma's enormous influence on the medical industry and ultimately the health of its patients, as well as the pockets of taxpayers who subsidize it.  At the center of the story is an anti-anemia drug developed in the 1980's by a start-up named Amgen.  In a move to save the company, they licensed it to industry giant Johnson & Johnson.  The two companies, armed with a non-competitive marketing agreement, sold the miraculous "blood booster" drug under the names Procrit, Epogen, and Aranesp.  Fueled by sales tactics like biased marketing studies, off-invoice rebates, doctor payments, and off-label promotions, though, the drug was pitched for uses and dosages that led to billions in annual sales and turned it into a huge biotech blockbuster with some disregarded dangers.

It is also the human story of Mark Duxbury, who paid a huge price for his transformation from award winning Procrit salesman to whistleblower.  In the end, even with the help of his former colleague and good friend Dean McClellan, who provided a treasure trove of damning documents, I was somewhat surprised with the alarming outcome (or lack of one) in the end.

Shock Wave - by John Sandford

Shock Wave is the fifth novel by John Sandford starring Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension detective Virgil Flowers.   Mega-chain store, PyeMart is building one of their stores in small town Butternut Falls, Minnesota, and now bombs are going off.  The first was at PyeMart headquarters in Michigan, but then the explosions start to rock Butternut Falls.  Virgil is sent to help both local law enforcement and the Feds (ATF) track down the bomber and stop the related terror and tragedy.

While I have read several novels in Sandford's "Prey" series, I am certainly not as familiar with his books as many others.  Based on this story, however, I plan to read more.  Virgil Flowers is a top-notch investigator without being super-human.  He has long hair, wears classic rock t-shirts, is not a fighting machine with his arsenal always at the ready, drags a fishing boat around, has a string of ex-wives, and his current long-distance relationship seems to be cooling.  In other words he is both very likable and very believable.  While this may be a poor comparison in many ways, Virgil's style almost reminds me of watching Lieutenant Columbo long ago.  He talks to lots of people and at first glance may not seem to be the sharpest and most insightful of detectives.  Somehow, however, he listens and relates to others and his powers of observation and deduction pull the truth out of substantial noise and diversion.

That Used To Be Us - by Thomas L. Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum

In That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back, Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times columnist) and Michael Mandelbaum (professor and foreign policy expert) collaborate as friends and patriotic citizens on a book they intend as a wake-up and call to action for Americans.  As a nation, the authors claim that adapting to globalization, adjusting to the information revolution, coping with budget deficits, and managing energy consumption and climate change are the key hurdles requiring the type of collective response that Americans have employed in our past to achieve greatness.

Your like or dislike of this book may depend upon your political viewpoints.  Friedman and Mandelbaum take the position that both major parties have become increasingly polarized, making our political system ineffective. Instead, they endorse the "radical center" that more accurately portrays the more moderate values and viewpoints of the majority.  They argue that Democrats will have to cooperate on hard decisions to cut spending on government programs that are important and/or affect a lot of people.  Likewise, they assert that Republicans will have relent on their refusal to raise taxes.  They believe that government must invest in education, infrastructure, and research and development, as well as open our society more widely to talented immigrants and fix the regulations that govern our economy.  In the end, however, they claim that there is no magic potion for returning to greatness, no easy answers. “Americans will have to save more, consume less, study longer, and work harder than they have become accustomed to doing in recent decades.”  They point out, however, that America, in spite of its current problems, is still in the best position to spur innovation and success.  As we have in the past, they encourage us to embrace our uniquely American formula for greatness to adapt and succeed in the face of our current challenges.