Blown by the Same Wind

Name: Blown by the Same Wind
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: John Straley
ISBN: 9781705075449

Author: John Straley

Series: Cold Storage #4

Narrator: T. Ryder Smith

Unabridged: 6 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 12/06/2022

Categories: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Historical Fiction, Small Town & Rural, Visionary & Metaphysical

Synopsis

Things in the sleepy fishing town of Cold Storage, Alaska, are changing. It’s the summer of 1968; the men are wearing their hair long, the Vietnam War is at its height, and multiple assassinations have gripped the country. But some things remain the same. Ellie’s
bar is still the place to catch up on the town gossip, and there’s a lot to talk about, from the boys who have returned from the war (and the ones who haven’t), to the robberies that are plaguing the locals, to the new guy in town: a famous monk from Kentucky.

Ellie, herself a fugitive of sorts, is curious about this “Brother Louis” and worries about his motives, but he seems harmless enough. However, when a handful of other outsiders arrive to town and start poking around the bar and asking
questions, she begins to have reservations. Have they followed this mysterious monk, rumored to be the famous author Thomas Merton, to Cold Storage? And what is it that they want, particularly the inept FBI agent with the strange name:
Boston Corbett?

Inspired by assassination conspiracy theories, the life of Thomas Merton, and the changing tide of the ’60s, Blown by the Same Wind is a coming-of-age story for the town of Cold Storage itself.

About John Straley

John Straley was
born in 1953, the youngest of five children. He received a BA in English and a
certificate of completion in horseshoeing. He enjoys jokes and a wide variety
of literature and music. He is the Shamus Award–winning author of The
Curious Eat Themselves and The Woman Who Married a Bear and
was appointed the Writer Laureate of Alaska in 2006. Straley lives with his
wife, Jan, a prominent whale biologist, in a bright green house on the beach in
Sitka, Alaska, where he works as a criminal defense investigator by day and
sleeps, writes, and plays with his band, the Big Fat Babies, whenever he can.

Reviews

Goodreads review by James

After the disappointment of What is Time to a Pig? I am pleased to find Straley back on track. I’m not totally certain of his intent with Wind except to create the atmosphere of the Vietnam era and to introduce Thomas Merton to his readers who were previously unfamiliar with him. The characters of V......more

Goodreads review by Stephanross

“Blown By the Same Wind” by John Straley. I cannot describe this novel - enough to say that it includes Thomas Merton, a sixteen year old sprite named Venus, and a 100 pound dog named Dot, among a host of other equally unexpected and engaging characters. What I can do is insist that, if you are a so......more

Goodreads review by Tom

Alaska, like Hawaii, is a US state, but utterly unlike any other. Its isolation is both its attraction and its curse, and it retains the sense of being the Last Frontier, on the edge of civilization. In the 4th book of John Straley's Cold Storage series, the locals all know and depend on each other,......more

Goodreads review by Michele

I don’t really know what to make of this book, hence the three stars. The first few pages threw me off, and even after finishing the book, I feel like they were awkward and unnecessary. After that, it improved and I enjoyed learning about the characters which might be even better if I had read the p......more