March 29, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Shut Mouth Society' Brings Mystery of 'The Da Vinci Code' to Civil War Era History, Today's Events
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
One of the bad guys -- and there are plenty -- in James D. Best's "The Shut Mouth Society" (Wheatmark, 332 pages, $23.95) -- sneeringly calls Greg Evarts a "city policeman," making it clear that he thinks the Santa Barbara, CA police detective is an easily handled lightweight.
What a mistake! Evarts is a veteran of a top secret army unit, an expert in decoding ciphers and a good friend of multimillionaire Abraham Douglass, a descendant of black anti-slavery pioneer Frederick Douglass. Abraham Douglass is a collector of Lincoln and Civil War documents and wants Evarts and UCLA Lincoln expert Professor Patricia Baldwin to authenticate an Abraham Lincoln document in his possession.
Baldwin and Evarts meet at a restaurant near the UCLA campus in upscale Westwood and the two get off to a rocky start. Baldwin makes fun of Greg's rank of "commander," and Greg finds the attractive green-eyed academic a typical snobbish intellectual who looks with disdain on cops in general and Greg in particular.
You can surmise from this non-cute meet that they'll be friends and maybe more in the future. The document authentication becomes deadly serious after a grisly murder in the hills above Santa Barbara, leading Evarts and Baldwin on a cross-country expedition to get to the heart of a secret organization called The Shut Mouth Society which centers on Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War and elements of the Reconstruction era after the war.
At stake is nothing less than the balance of power in present-day North America. After the murder, Greg and Patricia travel the country, driving to New York City, Boston, Des Moines, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska where more violence reveals the impact of The Shut Mouth Society on present-day events. The plot reminds me of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," which has a similar pairing of an academic -- a male in Brown's novel -- and a female French police officer. The secret society in Brown's novel is matched by one that's even more brutal in "The Shut Mouth Society."
As events unfold and bodies pile up, it becomes apparent that the pairing of Evarts and Baldwin is not a random event: Both have ancestral ties to historical figures involved in the political events leading up to Lincoln's election in 1860 and the bloodiest war in American history.
"The Shut Mouth Society" is a fast-moving, well-written novel that is of particular interest in this bicentennial year of Abe Lincoln's birth.
Author's Web Site: jamesdbest.com
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Shut Mouth Society' Brings Mystery of 'The Da Vinci Code' to Civil War Era History, Today's Events
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
One of the bad guys -- and there are plenty -- in James D. Best's "The Shut Mouth Society" (Wheatmark, 332 pages, $23.95) -- sneeringly calls Greg Evarts a "city policeman," making it clear that he thinks the Santa Barbara, CA police detective is an easily handled lightweight.
What a mistake! Evarts is a veteran of a top secret army unit, an expert in decoding ciphers and a good friend of multimillionaire Abraham Douglass, a descendant of black anti-slavery pioneer Frederick Douglass. Abraham Douglass is a collector of Lincoln and Civil War documents and wants Evarts and UCLA Lincoln expert Professor Patricia Baldwin to authenticate an Abraham Lincoln document in his possession.
Baldwin and Evarts meet at a restaurant near the UCLA campus in upscale Westwood and the two get off to a rocky start. Baldwin makes fun of Greg's rank of "commander," and Greg finds the attractive green-eyed academic a typical snobbish intellectual who looks with disdain on cops in general and Greg in particular.
You can surmise from this non-cute meet that they'll be friends and maybe more in the future. The document authentication becomes deadly serious after a grisly murder in the hills above Santa Barbara, leading Evarts and Baldwin on a cross-country expedition to get to the heart of a secret organization called The Shut Mouth Society which centers on Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War and elements of the Reconstruction era after the war.
At stake is nothing less than the balance of power in present-day North America. After the murder, Greg and Patricia travel the country, driving to New York City, Boston, Des Moines, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska where more violence reveals the impact of The Shut Mouth Society on present-day events. The plot reminds me of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," which has a similar pairing of an academic -- a male in Brown's novel -- and a female French police officer. The secret society in Brown's novel is matched by one that's even more brutal in "The Shut Mouth Society."
As events unfold and bodies pile up, it becomes apparent that the pairing of Evarts and Baldwin is not a random event: Both have ancestral ties to historical figures involved in the political events leading up to Lincoln's election in 1860 and the bloodiest war in American history.
"The Shut Mouth Society" is a fast-moving, well-written novel that is of particular interest in this bicentennial year of Abe Lincoln's birth.
Author's Web Site: jamesdbest.com
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
