John Holt | California Literary Review

Profile of John Holt

Bio:

John Holt and his wife, photographer Ginny Holt, are currently finishing up a pair of related books - "Yellowstone Drift: Floating the Past in Real Time" (to be published by AK Press in February 2009) and "Searching For Native Color - Fly Fishing for Cutthroat Trout." John's work has appeared in publications that include "Men's Journal," "Fly Fisherman," "Fly Rod and Reel," "The Angling Report," "American Angler," "The Denver Post," "Audubon," "Briarpatch," "counterpunch.org," "Travel and Leisure," "Art of Angling Journal," "E - The Environmental Magazine," "Field and Stream," "Outside," "Rolling Stone," "Gray's Sporting Journal" and "American Cowboy."

Books on Amazon:

Yellowstone Drift: Floating the Past in Real Time
Coyote Nowhere: In Search of America's Last Frontier
Arctic Aurora
Hunted: A Novel
Knee Deep in Montana's Trout Streams
Guide Wars
Chasing Fish Tales
Montana Fly Fishing Guide East: East of the Continental Divide
Montana Fly Fishing Guide West: West of the Continental Divide

Articles written for the California Literary Review:

Double Cross By James Patterson
Posted on 18 Mar 2008 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Mystery

I love John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series but always thought that his love scenes were clunkers to the point of being embarrassing. Compared to Patterson’s portrayals, MacDonald comes off like Arthur Miller.
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Posted on 07 Mar 2008 in Fiction Reviews, Military, Topics

Often written in a quiet, understated style that belies the madness and violence that seep through every aspect of life in this jungle country more than forty years ago, Tree of Smoke subtly hammers the reader with an unceasing rage that is the true nature of war’s insanity.
Fortune’s a River by Barry Gough
Posted on 05 Mar 2008 in Canada, History, Non-Fiction Reviews

By the closing years of the 18th century the stage was set for a major international confrontation over the Pacific Northwest Coast. Imperial Russia controlled the untamed Alaskan wilderness, Spain was expanding its holdings north from Mexico, Captain James Cook had claimed Northwest America for Great Britain and Captain Robert Gray had discovered the Columbia River, the historical basis for the United States’ claim to the river and the extensive watershed that extends eastward far into Montana.
The Tin Roof Blowdown By James Lee Burke
Posted on 03 Dec 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Mystery, Thrillers

Because he’s a damn good writer James Lee Burke knows how to keep a plot going from start to finish with no loose ends or out-of-the-blue surprises that amateurishly attempt to explain and finish off a narrative.
City of Fire By Robert Ellis
Posted on 19 Nov 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Mystery, Thrillers

There are red herrings aplenty, but once finished reading the novel I’m left with a sense of annoyance at these diversions, so often delightful necessities in other mysteries, but close to being filler in this one.
Trashed by Alison Gaylin
Posted on 08 Nov 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Mystery, Thrillers

These driven individuals scour celebrity garbage cans, pose as anyone but themselves, lie as though the truth was a concept to be scorned and in general have all of the journalistic ethics commonly associated with FOX News. Getting the goods on the rich and famous is all that matters in this weird league.
Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger
Posted on 11 Oct 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Mystery

The novel is set in the lake country of northern Minnesota and the wilds of bordering Ontario. Former sheriff Cork O’Connor has decided to take life easy with his wife and teenage daughter. He’ll fill in the slack times with a little private investigator action or at least that’s what he thinks. The short-lived halcyon period is broken when Objibwe medicine man Henry Meloux (as in “mellow”) asks Cork to find his son that he fathered more than a half-century ago in the Canadian boreal forest wild lands.
The Fighter by Craig Davidson
Posted on 02 Jul 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Sports

James Ellroy, Cormac McCarthy and William T. Vollmann have some new company hanging out on their dark, rough, violent block. He’s Craig Davidson and here’s how he tells what he feels and sees…
Tommy’s Honor by Kevin Cook
Posted on 11 Jun 2007 in Biography, Great Britain, Non-Fiction Reviews, Sports

Sheep wallows eventually became sand traps and the first greens were nothing more than somewhat level overgrazed patches of grass that were often covered with the residue of the feeding rabbits.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Posted on 10 Jun 2007 in Fiction Reviews

I read this book in one take late at night and immediately headed downstairs to kick up the fire and drink some bourbon. I was cold, chilled emotionally, stunned, awe-struck by McCarthy’s words. I mentioned The Road to a singer/songwriter friend and all he could say was “That one put me off my feed for a few days.”