Lit List Short Reviews Be A Successful Maverick Vol. 3 How Ordinary People Do It Different to Achieve Extraordinary Results Edited by Paul Finck, The Machine Murders Island Buoys The Manos Manu Series by C.J. Abazis, A Novel Crime: St. Marin's Cozy Mystery Series by ACF Bookens, Salvage Trouble: Black Ocean Galaxy Outlaws Mission One by J.S. Morin

 Lit List Short Reviews Be A Successful Maverick Vol. 3 How Ordinary People Do It Different to Achieve Extraordinary Results Edited by Paul Finck, The Machine Murders Island Buoys The Manos Manu Series by C.J. Abazis, A Novel Crime: St. Marin's Cozy Mystery Series by ACF Bookens, Salvage Trouble: Black Ocean Galaxy Outlaws Mission One  by J.S. Morin

Be a Successful Maverick Vol. 3: How Ordinary People Do It Different to Achieve Extraordinary Results Edited by Paul Finck

Be a Successful Maverick Vol.3 How Ordinary People Do It Different to Achieve Extraordinary Results is a brilliant anthology of various essays by entrepreneurs and other businesspeople to help others get through their difficulties and indecisiveness to become better in their personal and professional lives.

Maverick Millionaire, Paul Finck shares his own personal struggles and what it taught him. His wife Deborah had a tumor in her pulmonary artery. The surgery was successful and she recovered. Unfortunately, he was not permitted to visit Deborah on account of Covid restrictions and his professional life took a hit as 80% of his sales went down.

 Looking back on that experience taught Finck a lot about how to deal with stress and how people consider how they got in that situation. Finck recalled the human factors from what he dubbed the Ultimate Maverick Success including Intelligence Quotient, Social Quotient, Spiritual Quotient, Emotional Quotient, and Adversity Quotient. Finck realized that Deborah's health and troubled sales were testing his Adversity Quotient. He built new systems and attracted new customers and spent as much time as he could with his family as well as contacting his wife to remind her that he was there for her.

Some of the stories deal with personal struggles and what the author learned from them. Forbes Riley, CEO of SpinGym recalled a time when she took a test in college, got every question right, and still got a C. The professor told her that his A students went beyond the test answers. They did extra credit, additional reading, and projects at the bottom of the syllabus. They go beyond what is expected of them. This advice led her down her path of hosting infomercials, building a  state of the art TV studio, and greeting various guests like Deepak Chopra, Grant Cardone, Les Brown, Sharon Lector, Jack Canfield. She also co-hosted the original X Games and worked with Body By Jake to create a reality cable series called Fit-TV, resulting in her getting inducted into the National Fitness Hall of Fame. 

Riley learned a much harder lesson when Dexter, a boy that she helped raise, was shot by a gang member for wearing blue, a target color. The randomness of the shooting and the intense grief she felt after Dexter's death, led Riley to come to the conclusion that "Life happens for you, not to you." She misses Dexter but still continues to inspire and teach, gaining a stronger empathy from this difficult loss.

Some of the chapters aren't always personal stories. Others are words of advice and encouragement. Rae Ann Hall, author, speaker, facilitator, and podcast host of The Optimistic Choice offers a Call to Action with her essay, "The Resilient Warrior-How to Warrior Up in Life." Using all caps, exclamation points, and bold print, Hall motivates her Readers. She writes a process that includes "Know Yourself: STRONG," "Pain to Purpose: BRAVE," "Face it and Forge Ahead: EXPERIENCED," "Optimistic Outlook Does Influence Outcome: RESILIENT," "Action, Belief, and Consistency: DETERMINED," and "Act, Do Not React: PROACTIVE.

Technically, Be a Successful Maverick, isn't telling their Readers anything new. These words of advice can be found in many self help books but in times of great stress, when we need inspiration and encouragement the most, that's when a book like this comes along to provide that.

The Machine Murders Island Buoys The Manos Manu Series by C.J. Abazis

The Machine Murders, part of C.J. Abazis's Manos Manu series, tells a suspenseful mystery in a beautiful setting but also offers interesting conflicts between various law enforcement agencies over the different ways to catch criminals.

Manos is on the island of Mykonos, Greece to attend a friend's wedding. Unfortunately, a serial killer also happens to be working at the same time. The latest murder victim is Bill Casey, an Instagram influencer, is found dead with a chain running through his insides. Manu, a data analyst with Interpol, is naturally dragged from his vacation to get to work.

The suspense and setting work really well for the book. There are many tense chapters with characters chasing various leads before the killer finds his next target. There is a particularly creepy passage when a character is caught by the killer and struggles for their life while he attempts to drown and disfigure them.

The irony is that all of this set on a beautiful island during what should be during a happy time. The descriptions are filled with scenic beaches and clear water that is perfect for swimming. The attractive setting serves as a contrast to the dark actions of ome of the characters.

The most interesting aspects to The Machine Murders are the various approaches that characters take to crime solving and how they clash. There are people like Lena, a profiler, who prefer to analyze behavioral patterns and use psychological methods to learn the killer's identity. Then there are those like Manos who prefer the more technological approach like investigating social media accounts, hits, views, purchases and any information obtained on the Internet. Of course there is also the opinion of those like the Mykonos police department, just going around town, asking questions, and chasing suspects. All methods are used and none are seen as ridiculous even if the characters argue over which method is best. Eventually, they all come to the same conclusion: the identity of the killer.

Besides being suspenseful and beautiful, The Machine Murders shows us that law enforcement like, every other occupation, is in a stage of transition, one that has its flaws but its merits as well.

A Novel Crime: St. Marin's Cozy Mystery Series by ACF Bookens

A Novel Crime is a short but engaging cozy mystery in which a divorcee loses a husband but gains a new career and a penchant for amaterur crime solving.

Harvey divorces her husband, Trevor, the same day that she finds a dead body. Well the divorce is bad but not unexpected. They had been having problems for years and even when a terrified Harvey calls Trevor about the body, he takes several hours to show up.

The body fills her thoughts more. It is that of Juan Ortega Montague, a property dealer. Partly to block out painful associations with the divorce but also to satisfy her curiosity and imagination nurtured by reading many books, Harvey looks into the case herself butting heads with the police.

A Novel Crime covers all of the usual beats of a cozy mystery: violent but not too violent crime, protagonist with a career outside of law enforcement but a tendency to find themselves in dangerous situations, beautiful location with odd locals, in this case San Francisco, a loyal group of friends to help the protagonist, and an obvious murderer. It's very predictable. Even the killer's identity is easy to guess because of a conversation in which the killer followed the old "revealing too much about the case that only the killer would know" trick.

There are some interesting parts such as when Harvey gets glamorous and attends an upscale charity event with a pro athlete/potential love interest. It's also nice to read that even though the divorce hit Harvey emotionally she still makes plans to move on to New England and open her own bookstore.

While A Novel Crime is an average mystery, its main purpose is clearly to set up the situation where Harvey decides to move and open her bookshop, fulfilling a lifelong dream and finding more trouble. On that respect, it works.

Salvage Trouble Black Ocean Galaxy Outlaws Mission One by J.D. Morin

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J.D. Morin's novella, Salvage Trouble is for people who love watching space travel science fiction shows like Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Firefly. It's about a space crew fighting enemies and taking on new passengers as they learn to adjust to living and working together in space or as they refer to it, 'Black Ocean." It doesn't present anything new to the genre but it provides an interesting and combative crew who argue and bicker with each other as much as they fight with enemies.

Capt. Carl Ramsey of The Mobius travels outer space to look for salvage and transport passengers and cargo to different locations. It's not a glamorous job like exploring space for scientific discoveries or creating diplomatic relations with other worlds, but someone has to do it. He isn't alone. He has a loyal but also argumentative crew at his side. They include: Tanny, a sharp tongued former marine and Carl's ex wife, Mort, a spiritual minded "tech wizard", Chip, a likeable computer wiz, Roddy, a simian looking alien who is a strong fighter and big drinker, and Mriy, a quiet feline-like alien whose job is rather mysterious (but when she is called to fight or defend her crew, there isn't much of the enemy left). While on a salvage mission that ends badly especially for one of the crew members, Carl and Co pick up two new passengers: Adam, a mysterious precocious young boy who was part of a genetic experiment and Sister Theresa AKA Esper, a priestess/teacher who sought to free Adam from his guardian's rigorous and mind altering training.

Salvage Trouble is a delightful tribute to various science fiction movies and shows. The most obvious being Firefly with its sardonic but good hearted blue collar captain living on the outer edges of space and an immensely talented mysterious kid with their protective guardian. There are also some clever references to other sources. The alien characters could have fit in at the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars. The fact that the alien that is primate in appearance is named Roddy is clearly a tribute to Roddy McDowall, the star of Planet of the Apes. These references will interest science fiction lovers of various generations.

The plot is mostly a lot of fights with various characters with some interesting twists towards the end (more on that later). However, Morin gives us a fascinating crew to follow on this journey mostly because they behave like people who have to spend a long monotonous traveling time together. They aren't going to get along or always like each other but when outside forces threaten, they have each other's back.

I mean when one of the crew members is the Captain's ex spouse, personality conflicts are bound to happen. Besides the awkwardness between Carl and Tanny, there are also other clashes found within the novella's short length. Esper and Carl start to develop feelings for each other and Tanny is deep in grief over the loss of another crew member that is clearly beyond friendship. Esper and Mort get into some science vs. spirituality debates. Adam also has an intriguing back story that makes him a mystery to everyone including himself. 

The story moves along briskly with some twists. One twist in particular was upsetting for me  because I liked this character. However, reluctantly I will admit that it made sense and was brilliantly foreshadowed without being too obvious. 

Salvage Trouble is short but it definitely makes the Reader want to book another voyage with the Mobius crew across the Black Ocean.