Neither Snow Nor Rain and Shutter

NEITHER SNOW NOR RAIN: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE by Devin Leonard is read by LJ Ganser for Recorded Books. It details the entire history since the time of Franklin until 2016. It has been quite a ride. At one time the USPS was without peer, and indispensable. Letters were without envelopes and sorted without zip codes. Then, with the expansion of the country west, special efforts were required to reach San Francisco and the gold boom via stagecoach and horse. When UPS and Federal Express started cutting into funds, junk mail came into being to save it. But then came email. Who writes personal letters much, anymore? Well, they do on birthdays and holidays, but for years now the postal service has been shuttering offices and moving from hiring to automation and robots. This is in part from violence, also outlined in the book. Such as the shooting in Edmond, Oklahoma, when a man killed 14 and himself. He’d been chosen over 22 other people because he was a vet, even though he was on verge of being fired from a previous postal job. Many fingers were pointed between management and the unions, as other shootings occurred. My own novel Postmarked for Death was influenced by one in Royal Oak, Michigan. It’s a chilling account there, too. What happens next is anyone’s guess. But the shootings appear to have subsided, and moved into the general public. This book is a must hear for anyone with a stamp collection. 

SHUTTER by Ramona Emerson is read by Charley Flyte. It’s an odd novel, well written but more of a literary title than a thriller. It’s about a Navajo photographer named Rita who works for the Albuquerque NM police department. She sees some of the victims, and hopes to take their pictures but can’t. She doesn’t believe in God, but she believes in ghosts. The writing is superb, but can sidestep into personal matters since it’s written in the first person. She was discriminated against as a child, and learned to take photographs as an escape. Each chapter title is another brand of camera. She says at one point that she remembered upsetting her parents by never crying, just laying there staring upward, so they never knew when she was asleep or might be dead. She has an affinity to the dead, and one in particular is with her from beginning to end. Will it all be resolved in a followup novel? We shall see. Or rather hear. Charley Flyte is an excellent narrator, who captures the wordy images with a snap for each shot.