Author Archives: smellincoffee

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About smellincoffee

Citizen, librarian, reader with a boundless wonder for the world and a curiosity about all the beings inside it.

With Malice Toward None

Posted on February 20, 2026 by smellincoffee

As part of my US Presidents course of reading, and in combination with my obsessive 1840s – 1860s dive,  I’ve read two biographies of Abraham Lincoln this year –   one hailing him a saint, the other a brute. Both … Continue reading →

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Taking Religion Seriously

Posted on February 19, 2026 by smellincoffee

I should preface this review with a bit of biography; some who have been reading me for a while are already familiar with it, and others have gotten bits of it, because I’ve grown more comfortable sharing over the years. … Continue reading →

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A Lenten WWW Wednesday

Posted on February 18, 2026 by smellincoffee

WHAT have you finished reading recently? The Dark Sacred Night, Michael Connolly. A Bosch/Ballard novel in which his grumpy retired cop and his increasingly-annoyed-at-the-system novice cop join forces to drink black coffee, listen to jazz, and grouse about the system … Continue reading →

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Teaser Tuesday, Feb 17

Posted on February 17, 2026 by smellincoffee

From Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, by Walter J. Bornman: It has long been popular to paint James K. Polk as a dark horse, but the record does not square with that tradition. If he was … Continue reading →

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Paradise Valley

Posted on February 16, 2026 by smellincoffee

And so ends my chaotic run at the Cody Hoyt/Cassie Dewell series — right in the middle, when the serial killer known as The Lizard King is finally rendered extinct like his tyrannranous namesake. Here, Cassie is still a lead … Continue reading →

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Back of Beyond

Posted on February 16, 2026 by smellincoffee

Who’s up for a horror movie, western style? The story begins when an older man is found dead in his half-burned cabin, with a hole in his head and an empty bottle of liquor beside him. When Cody Hoyt arrives … Continue reading →

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Treasure State

Posted on February 14, 2026 by smellincoffee

Who watches the watchers? Or in this case, who investigates private investigators? Cassie Dewell is intrigued by an odd phone call she gets: a wealthy Florida patron had hired a P.I. to investigate a man who swindled her out of … Continue reading →

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Worth Reading: A Guide to Surviving the Great Forgetting

Posted on February 13, 2026 by smellincoffee

My substack subscriptions have an obvious cluster concerning humanity and the machine — or more specifically, how modern technology, particularly devices and the omnipresent digital world, warp or distort humanity. I was fortunate to encounter The Shallows and Neil Postman’s … Continue reading →

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The Highway

Posted on February 13, 2026 by smellincoffee

I am evidently reading the Cassie Dewell series in the most chaotic way possible, because I’m three books in and have only just finished #1. The Highway introduces Cassie Dewell, a sheriff’s inspector working in Montana who has been manipulated … Continue reading →

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The Bitterroots

Posted on February 11, 2026 by smellincoffee

Cassie Dewell, formerly of law enforcement, is now a private investigator. Exhausted by dealing with corrupt or obfuscating police bureaucracy, she’s put out her own shingle. Now, in service to a defense attorney with a horrible case in front of … Continue reading →

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