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This was my first Craig Johnson novel. This story is half mystery-half ghost story.

In the story, a policewoman receives radio signals from an officer. in distress from 30 years in the past. With her sanity in question, Walt Longmire investigates while keeping an open mind, and the radio signals seem related to missing money from the time of the distress signal.

The story involves well-developed characters that come to life in the story.

This books doesn’t seem up to his normal standards, but still is interesting and insightful. It isn’t so much about interacting with strangers but about the assumptions we make when dealing with strangers. It also delves into the damage such assumptions can cause when dealing with people are cultures we aren’t familiar with. It goes into many case studies about people in different situations where seemingly innocent assumptions lead to grave errors, some of these involve drunkenness and sexual assault.

The stories include some of national interest and how government organizations can be deceived through these same assumptions, some involving the FBI and CIA dealing with spying.

Malcolm Gladwell seems to wander at times and the book feels a bit disconnected. There are no suggestions for improvement, he offers no guidelines. Just warnings and stories. Still, the book is interesting and enjoyable.

This is my first Maigret novel and I found it enjoyable. Although there are a number of suggestions that I’m missing some elements of his character development. For one, he is working on a drinking problem. Further, the relationship with his wife suggests prior development.

In this novel, Maigret is investigating the. death of a nightclub owner. His was found two days after his death in a public place, someone killed him, kept the body and then moved it.

The deceased took an effort to remain above-board. He is clean to a whistle, family members are readily ruled out. Other related figures include other nightclub owners, a possible mob connection and his lawyer. The killer’s motive leads to Maigret losing his temper!

This is the first in a series by Martha Wells. The book has won numerous awards including a Hugo and Nebula.

Murderbot is a self-given name of a security robot. It is a hybrid of cloned organic and inorganic parts that include weapons, armor and communications equipment. He has no sexuality. And the story is told in first person from his point of view. His internal dialog feels alien.

This one had a problem with its control module and was able to bypass it, giving it a certain amount of autonomy.

The story involves a science team surveying the flora and fauna on a planet. When they discover parts of the maps of the world are blank, they investigate, to discover another team that was killed by their security bots.

The planet was home to a dead civilization, someone wants to keep that secret, profits provide the motive. Murderbot comes up with a plan to keep the scientists alive, who purchase his contract and give him his freedom.

The story is short, well-told, and not predictable. It makes the me look forward to the next book.

by Karl Wiegers, PhD

This is an excellent and humorous guide to design principles. It is filled with examples of both good and failed design in things we use every day. Karl presents almost 500 design practices with a good discussion and examples in products. He then provides 70 design lessons.

I’ve always thought Karl a very readable writer who makes lessons easy to understand and to remember. This should be a must-read for anyone in product design, whether technical or not.