Dave Takes-A-Chance

We have been participating in the Take-A-Chance Challenge at the library where I (Tami) work.  Below are Dave's wrap-ups of a couple of his challenge books.  The first one is from the "Random Book" challenge in which patrons draw a number corresponding to a specific shelf in the library and must read one book on that shelf.

First, I need to whine just a little bit about my Random Book location. I drew “General Fiction”, shelf 75. When I looked at my section I found 28 books on this shelf.  Twenty-two them were Victorian Romances; thanks, but no. I guess that’s the proverbial “luck of the draw”.  That left me with a selection of 6 books from which to pick.  Two of them looked as palatable as a Victorian Romance, so I narrowed it down to the final four.  Fortunately, the first two books of Jeffrey Lindsay’s Dexter series made this final cut so I selected the first of these, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, as my random location book.

 Dexter is an interesting character, described as an “enjoyable sociopath”.  He is.  Dexter is a "blood splatter specialist" with the Miami Police Dept and sees himself as something other than human because when the moon is full his “dark passenger” (the voice in his head) leads him to become a serial killer who tortures his victims. Fortunately, he kills only those who really deserve killing and he convinces the reader that he chooses his victims wisely.

Dexter is certainly not for everyone because of the subject matter and it gets a little graphic but I think I will read the second in this series just to see what he does next.

The next challenge was "Get The Facts" - participants must read the non-fiction book of their choice.  Dave heard this author speak at a men's retreat and was impressed enough to purchase a couple of his books.

I finally finished my first Challenge book. I read Blood Covenant, by Michael Franzese. It was a very interesting story about his life, first as a high-ranking member of La Cosa Nostra (the Mob) and later, his second blood covenant when he was baptized and began a new life of service to God. Most of the book was about the mafia and was very informative and interesting. Then he was able to draw some parallels between total commitment to the mob and total commitment to Christ. Blood Covenant will probably appeal more to men than women but it has some very good messages.

For more information on this author, visit www.michaelfranzese.com/