SLIDING DELTA is my best work so far. I've been researching Delta blues music for the past five years, listening to the music, reading biographies ofSLIDING DELTA is my best work so far. I've been researching Delta blues music for the past five years, listening to the music, reading biographies of the old masters, and visiting the Delta. First, it's a coming of age story where a college boy leaves his white bread life of privilege and becomes immersed in Delta life at the apex of the Civil Rights struggle; 1965. Already a musician, his observations of how the living bluesmen of the day performed gets into some musical detail without being encyclopedic. He sees the range of kindness and bigotry as the Jim Crow South transitioned away from segregation, despite resistance from the Klan. Stories told on the porch of the rural store where he worked fill in history of the area and provide a rich background for the music. And then there's Addie Kinder; quick witted, beautiful, talented, and flawed. Oh, what a story!...more
This important addition to the history and lore of Viet Nam war comes from "Mo" Baker, an experienced, fighter pilot of theThe REST of the story!
This important addition to the history and lore of Viet Nam war comes from "Mo" Baker, an experienced, fighter pilot of the 1950's and '60s who was shot down over Hanoi in 1967. He gives us new details of the torture and interrogations, "Hanoi HIlton," tap code, the strategies the prisoners used to maintain morale and discipline, and the Jane Fonda visit. But, there is much more.
Baker was a front line fighter pilot for a decade before he was shot down and his experience as a Cold War interceptor pilot is fascinating. In 1960 Baker was piloting an F-106 Delta Dart, a supersonic, high altitude interceptor protecting the east coast from Soviet bombers. To reach bombers above their maximum altitude of 45,000 ft. these brave pilots would level off at 45,000 and go into full afterburner to reach supersonic speed, then snap-up to 60,000 feet to confront the bombers. Practicing this difficult and dangerous maneuver one day, Baker stalled his aircraft at 60,000 feet and fell straight down, reaching supersonic speed just falling, before regaining control at a lower altitude. He was right over the White House. The sonic boom woke President John F. Kennedy, who called the Pentagon hot line to find out what was happening.
The other valuable history here is the repatriation. Mostly married men with children, half of these pilots faced divorce when they returned; wives just wouldn't wait. Baker was one of these. He found Honey, a wife who had waited, for seven years, to learn she was a widow. Well, you'll want to read about that. ...more
Read this book to understand how our government works. Politicians will say one thing on television and then do just the opposite in private, andRead this book to understand how our government works. Politicians will say one thing on television and then do just the opposite in private, and sometimes that's a good thing. If we made it easy to go to war we'd be doing it all the time. Nobody wants that, so our elected officials cut the military budget, debate hotly any movement of our boys overseas, and then when something absolutely positively has to be done they hire a contractor. That's Blackwater.
The whole title of Prince's book is Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror. Prince is the founder and former CEO of the security contractor Blackwater that protected American diplomats and performed many other duties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. After doing exactly what they'd been paid to do Blackwater and Erik Prince were later vilified in the media and congressional hearings by the same people who hired them. Forced by contractual obligations to be silent about Blackwater's activities, Prince is now opening up with both barrels, and he's dishing some dirt.
I write international thriller fiction based on reality, and books like Civilian Warriors supplement my own experience in creating stories. I'm working on a geopolitical thriller now, The Fourth Domain, and there is a civilian contractor deeply involved....more
This is a well researched Civil War drama that responds to the question, "What if Stonewall had lived?" Civil War buffs like myself have discussedThis is a well researched Civil War drama that responds to the question, "What if Stonewall had lived?" Civil War buffs like myself have discussed this for generations. R.E. Thomas presents us with Stonewall, and more importantly, his cast of fellow generals, shorn of the positive patina many of them have in brief summaries of their careers. Here are all the defects; the petulant prima donnas, the braggarts, drunkards, and cowards exposed as only a real war can do. Stonewall is given command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee; fully half of the Confederate forces and the army opposing Sherman poised before Atlanta and the southern heartland. Teaming up with John Bell Hood and Nathan Bedford Forrest how could he lose? The Confederate first team (except for Lee) against the wily Sherman. Well, read the book. It's good....more
The Red Rooster is a bar in Paris and also a French gold coin, much to be desired in occupied Paris during World War II. Gabriela Reyes is a youngThe Red Rooster is a bar in Paris and also a French gold coin, much to be desired in occupied Paris during World War II. Gabriela Reyes is a young Spanish girl who came to Paris with her father, an artist, who has been imprisoned by the Gestapo. She vows to free him. She goes from poor to penniless, to homeless before coming to the Red Rooster where she becomes a hostess and then a whore. Enter Colonel Hoekman, a Gestapo colonel and Helmut von Cratz, a civilian industrialist and profiteer who both frequent the bar.
The plot revolves around Helmut Von Cratz' smuggling stolen French gold to the port of Marseille, for some purpose to be discovered, and Colonel Hoekman's malevolent snooping. There is lots of action toward the end. I enjoyed the setting of Paris occupied by the Germans and how the French were forced to accomodate. But, I think Wallace missed the ball on the financial plot. We are told Helmut is rich, and there are several situations where his money and power are used to advance the story, but no explanation of how he is so rich and has such useful connections. That should have been the story.
I read it to the finish and enjoyed the setting and the small characters and stories, which Wallace does well. I take stars off because he wrote a financial thriller with no finance. ...more
P.T. Deutermann is a Naval Academy grad who commanded a destroyer and has written several successful thriller novels, so when he writes of the surfaceP.T. Deutermann is a Naval Academy grad who commanded a destroyer and has written several successful thriller novels, so when he writes of the surface navy in the Pacific during World War II, you expect a lot. This is a thrilling story about three Annapolis grads from the Class of '32, and Glory, the navy nurse they all loved. That may sound like the setup for a romance novel, and there is some personal drama, but this is war as real as you can get from the printed page.
Told as a flashback by a retired officer to his stepson, the tale begins with the changing of the Officer of the Deck at the beginning of the midwatch on a heavy cruiser off Guadalcanal in August, 1942. If you know your history you get goosebumps right there. Within minutes that ship is sinking, and our primary protagonist, Lieutenant Marsh Vincent barely escapes going down with her. The details, from a personal perspective, as Japanese cruisers and destroyers clobber the ship, and the sights and sounds of her sinking remain with me yet.
One of the friends, husband of Glory, the navy nurse, has gone down with the Arizona before the story starts. The third friend is a dive bomber pilot; brash, fearless, and flawed, who sinks a Japanese carrier at Midway. We live through Guadalcanal, Midway, and the savage but little known naval battle at Samar. Marsh and McCarty are there when the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built, attacks a group of small escort carriers providing air support for the American landing in the Philippines.
The tale jumps between action in the Pacific and recovery back at Pearl Harbor. I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish the last 100 pages. You will too. ...more
his is a strong book. Written by an accomplished and experienced historian after exhaustive research of source material not available to previoushis is a strong book. Written by an accomplished and experienced historian after exhaustive research of source material not available to previous authors on World War II in the Pacific, Islands of Destiny is an entertaining read; if you like history. If you're looking for a summer beach book, this isn't it. I bought it for research for a historical novel I might write one day, and I wanted someone else to read the volumes of memoirs and histories published in English since WW II, then wade through the recently translated diaries and journals of the Imperial Japanese Navy and their sailors and airmen, screen through the inflated after action reports each side produced after battles to count how many planes and ships were actually lost, lay out in reasonably concise terms the perspective of the various combatants, and tie it all together with maps, technical analysis of ships, planes, radar, secret codes and Japanese and American doctrine. Here it is. Other reviewers have criticized author Prados as providing excessive detail and not enough personal drama; get a romance novel, I say! This is the best chance we arm chair admirals will have to understand how it all went down.
The Solomons form the eastern edge of the Coral Sea, which borders Australia. At the beginning of WW II the Japanese took Rabaul, in the Bismarck Archipelago, which is just to the north of the Coral Sea. When they landed on Guadalcanal and began building an airfield, they threatened to encircle Australia and cut her supply route to the US. In July, 1942 American Marines landed on Guadalcanal. Thus begins this story of two mighty nations locked in mortal combat at the end of their supply chains. It went on for a year.
Now for some quibbling. John Prados is positively toxic on the subject of General George Kenney and the Army Air Corps' contribution to the Solomons Campaign. True, the Solomons was a Navy show, and the Navy did the bulk of the fighting and dying there, but the Army Air Corps held the eastern flank while protecting Australia from imminent invasion through New Guinea, and they did it on a shoestring compared with the firepower the Navy could muster. There are a lot of Japanese names in this book and I couldn't keep them straight. The addition of their source material is critical to this document, but it made for some tough cross checking. Perhaps a graphic with the Japanese hierarchy could have been added.
Contrary to some reviewers, author Prados gives us many personal vignettes and human profiles drawn from diaries and published memoirs to personalize this tale. I don't fault him a bit for being too dry. Insights I gained from this story include how our cracking of the Japanese code affected virtually every battle. It wasn't just the strategic movements but the actual routes and timing of ship movements, and the fact that we maintained that secret until 1978! Both American and Japanese dive bomber pilots experienced 80% attrition during major battles; put yourself in that cockpit as the engine warms up.
This book, in its paper form for the maps, pictures, and reference materials, belongs in the library of all descendants, American and Japanese, of the brave men who fought The Solomons Campaign. They changed the world. ...more
Every fighter pilot after Robin Olds is a wannabe. The game is changed. America only has a thousand fighters in operation, and the new ones cost $200Every fighter pilot after Robin Olds is a wannabe. The game is changed. America only has a thousand fighters in operation, and the new ones cost $200 Million. They will fly themselves if the pilot asks them to. Olds came along when we lost more planes and pilots from mechanical failure, weather, or pilot error than combat.
Fighters are very hard to fly, and only a lucky SOB could have survived what Robin Olds survived. He bridged the gap from the World War II piston engine fighters through the jets of Viet Nam. His father was Lieutenant General Robert Olds, a WW I fighter pilot and friend of the greats of early aviation; Billy Mitchell, Hap Arnold, Tooey Spaatz, Ira Eaker, and Eddie Rickenbacker.
Robin Olds got some breaks. Family ties got him into West Point at the beginning of World War II, where his size and athletic ability allowed him to excel on the football field. His brash ways pissed off some people who would have derailed the average pilot into bombers or transports; contacts got him into fighters. He was a natural. He came into the European theater after most of the really tough German pilots were already gone. He became a double ace after the Normandy invasion. Olds was commander of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand during the early period of the Viet Nam war when Russian pilots flew the Migs protecting North Viet Nam. That was the last of the real dogfights; and Olds was the big dog. He was Commandant of the Air Force Academy; leaving a legacy that persists today.
The strength of this book is not Olds' exploits, which are extraordinary, but his passionate descriptions of the conflicts of the times. He's fighting something from his first application to West Point through his retirement, and it's a journey through history, military life and culture. If you're a fighter pilot wannabe, like me, or you're just curious what it's all about; this is the book.
This is a well written book, ostensibly written by his daughter Christina and a ghost writer, Ed Rasimus, but the narrator is Robin Olds; you can feel his passion. Christina gathered his memoirs and worked with Robin during his final months. He was adamant that he would tell his story, and he did.
Boyd Chailland evolved after his adventure in The Other Pilot. He took a beating in that tale, and he's wary. Yet, he needs action; more action thanBoyd Chailland evolved after his adventure in The Other Pilot. He took a beating in that tale, and he's wary. Yet, he needs action; more action than just flying high performance fighters and training to be in the first wave in the next war. When General Ferguson shows up at Boyd's wing commander's office with a Top Secret assignment, he takes it without asking what it is. It's an international thrill ride of bad actors and close calls.
Some people died on an isolated island in the Indian Ocean after developing a secret vaccine for the world's most deadly virus; Ebola. Boyd is the team leader to find out who and why. What a team it is; Colonel Joe Smith, shy army pathologist and world expert on Ebola, Raybon Clive and Davann Goodman, disabled vets flying smuggled booze into Muslim Mombasa in an old seaplane, Pamela Prescott, lawyer and FBI agent with a drinking problem, and MacDonnald Wilde, paroled felon and con man.
The trail of death, betrayal, and bad intentions leads from jihadists in Africa to diamond brokers in Europe, to bankers in South Carolina, and finally to the century old sailing yacht Chardonnay and her owner, the notorious European merchant banker Michelle Meilland. Supported by Strategic Command's Proliferation Security Initiative command center at Ft. Belvoir in suburban Washington, DC, Boyd is backed up by the authority and resources of the entire U.S. government, yet that's not enough and when the chips are down, it's just Boyd Chailland. The plot accelerates across the Atlantic in hurricane season as the forces of evil stay one jump ahead of America's slow moving response to an action packed climax in the Azores.
This story has many heroes and villains; all well meaning, all flawed. But, there's only one devil on Chardonnay.
If you have a schizophrenic family member, or one with bipolar illness, read this book. Your first impression will be, "yeah, they're like that." ThenIf you have a schizophrenic family member, or one with bipolar illness, read this book. Your first impression will be, "yeah, they're like that." Then you'll be fascinated as Elyn and her illness grapple. Elyn Saks is a successful law school professor who tells the story of her schizophrenia from her first hallucinations as a teenager through her education, multiple hospitalizations and eventual academic career. But, she's also a stubborn narcissist who insists on having things her way, and some of her tribulations were her own fault. Pharmaceuticals for schizophrenia improved since she was first medicated, but she fought them all the way. Finally, near the end of the book she admits that only with medication can a schizophrenic control their illness. We physicians have known that since the 1950's, but Elyn had to learn it for herself. Elyn, like most schizophrenics, doesn't feel herself when she's on medications, yet the hallucinations and paranoia off of meds makes her life miserable; so, her story is of life on and off meds.
We now know that an excess of the neurotransmitter dopamine is what causes all that unwanted brain activity. I've heard schizophrenics talk about "looking through that window" at another world; the schizophrenic's world. Elyn gives us a glimpse through the window. It's fascinating.
As a physician who treats schizophrenics, and a novelist looking for characters, I wondered if a genius schizophrenic could solve a highly complex problem. I brought the subject up at a psychiatric conference and the consensus was no, their organization skills are too impaired. Elyn Saks answered it in the affirmative, and demonstrated that a schizophrenic can organize and deal with highly complex problems.
There are flaws. Elyn comes from a wealthy family and was allowed to change physicians until she found one who wouldn't put her on medication. Her favorite was a French psychoanalyst who just let Elyn talk and took no action. Psychoanalysis doesn't work for schizophrenia, and it didn't work for Elyn, yet she gives the impression that doctor shopping is beneficial for the mentally ill. It isn't. Most of her psychiatric breakdowns were because she was off her meds. Still, it's the only book of its kind and I recommend it. ...more
It's long; 757 pages. But, 200 pages of that is bibliography and author's notes. It's scholarly; crafted from all the written documents that surviveIt's long; 757 pages. But, 200 pages of that is bibliography and author's notes. It's scholarly; crafted from all the written documents that survive from the era. Jon Meacham, the pulitzer prize winning author of the biography of Andrew Jackson, is a master at making those quotations, speeches, and publications come to life by giving us the bigger picture of what was happening at the time. Though there are some dry stretches, you won't be bored; I promise.
The most striking feature of this magnificent book is how politics haven't changed a bit since our nation was founded 236 years ago. Jefferson battled against the Federalists, who longed for the guiding hand of a monarch, or at least a strong central government. He was a Republican, who felt it best to let the people run their own country. He said this in a letter to his old friend and adversary Federalist John Adams near the end of his life. "Men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these opinions, from the first origin of societies; and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all time. Whether the power of the people, or that of the (best men; nobles) should prevail, were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions..."
I suggest reading the last chapter first; page 490-496. It's Jefferson's last days, surrounded by family at his beloved Monticello; old, infirm but lucid, it prepares you for the scope of an extraordinary man in extraordinary times. Then begin the book, which starts with his presidency and goes backward to his ancestors then forward again.
Words were Jefferson's strength. He was not a great public speaker, but excelled in private discourse. Only the wealthy could afford the education Jefferson had, and without the underpinnings of the best of science, philosophy and literature he could not have conceived the principles our nation is built upon and presented those in arguments his adversaries could not dispute. Meacham discusses how Jefferson built power by political maneuver, but it was the power of his words that carried the day.
The Sally Hemings issue is well discussed, but not dwelt upon. Jefferson gave a deathbed pledge to his dying wife Patty never to re-marry. She had had an evil step mother and didn't want her children to endure that. In the room was her half sister Sally; the spawn of her father's affair with a black slave. Sally bore Jefferson five children. Incredibly, they remained slaves until they were 18, when, by agreement with Sally, he freed them. His two sons looked so much like him they could have been mistaken for him if dressed in the kind of clothes he wore. He never publicly acknowledged them or Sally Hemings; and his legitimate family lived in close proximity as if they didn't know these people were their siblings. This from the man who wrote, "...self evident that all men are created equal." Strange times they lived in. Let he who is himself without weirdness cast the first stone.
So, read about the seeds of revolution, the writing of the Declaration of Independence, serving as governor of Virginia during the revolution, the creation and ratification of a new Constitution, going to France as the first Secretary of State, Vice-President to John Adams, President of the United States for two terms, creation of the University of Virginia, and 18 years of vigorous retirement. Whew. Buy this book; it's important. Make your children read it.
It's Elvis. It's fiction, and the protagonist is named Leroy Kirby; but it's Elvis. Mark Childress writes Southern Fiction and I wanted to see howIt's Elvis. It's fiction, and the protagonist is named Leroy Kirby; but it's Elvis. Mark Childress writes Southern Fiction and I wanted to see how good he is. I remember a lot about Elvis because I lived in Memphis in the 1960's when he lived at Graceland. So, it was a test.
Mark Childress is a talented writer and this is a good story. If you want to feel what Elvis felt, buy this book.
At first I thought Childress hit the details in "Leroy's" early family life too hard; such as being a surviving twin and the problems his family, back three generations, had in Tupelo. But, that detail was the foundation for building the Elvis character. With that early detail Childress made me understand what Elvis felt at each stage of his life. The half dozen times I saw Elvis at Graceland I thought he looked trapped, and he was. He'd be behind that fence sitting on a horse or a motorcycle with a pretty girl talking to the fans. He couldn't leave there unless he had a police escort or it was the middle of the night.
The best part of Tender is the musical history. I love that old Rhythm and Blues music and Childress hits the high points in naming the artists and the songs that underlay Elvis's early music. He also makes up some; probably so he didn't have to get permission and pay a royalty to put lyrics in the book. That's OK.
If you're curious about Elvis, buy this book.
Now, I've got to go read another Mark Childress book to see if he really is as good as I think he is.
Did you ever wonder what it would be like selling books door to door? How about in small towns in Mississippi in 1965 at the height of the civilDid you ever wonder what it would be like selling books door to door? How about in small towns in Mississippi in 1965 at the height of the civil rights struggle? This book, my first novel, has been in the Library of Congress since publication because a young man struggling with his own demons sees writhing social change in the Mid-South first hand. A lawyer at the LOC told me their selection criteria for long term inclusion in the collection lean heavily toward books that show a place and a time. That's Bookman.
I started Bookman in 1979, and it was published in trade paperback in 1990. The movie rights were purchased by Bruce Carlson, and it remains in development. It has just been re-released in Kindle format in December, 2012.
I give my own book four stars, deducting a star because the protagonist is a jerk. I thought the story should be told through the eyes of a typical bookman; someone who had failed at something and was successful on the rebound. Most people think Bookman is funny, but there is some serious stuff there. Read Bookman, and go back to Memphis, 1965....more
This is a sexual fantasy about a college girl becoming the sexual slave of a fabulously wealthy, ravishingly good looking man. I like dirty books asThis is a sexual fantasy about a college girl becoming the sexual slave of a fabulously wealthy, ravishingly good looking man. I like dirty books as much as the next guy, but this was pretty dull stuff. Somewhere in "Writing 101" it says something about building tension in a story; there is none in this story. I couldn't finish it.
If you want to read about bondage and discipline, read "9 1/2 Weeks". That was published about 25 years ago and it's a really short book, but captures the essence of B/D. They made a movie out of it. The book was better.
James Lee Burke writes genre fiction; a story with a predictable formula. I contend that's the new mainstream of American fiction; nobody readsJames Lee Burke writes genre fiction; a story with a predictable formula. I contend that's the new mainstream of American fiction; nobody reads literary fiction anymore. If it's mainstream, then Burke is our new Faulkner. Read this for the gothic, weird characters, such as Clete Purcell struggling through his Viet Nam demons and his hangovers, and Dave Robicheaux trying to stay out of his way because he has his own demons, but finally getting drawn in when someone dumps a dead whore in a block of ice into the bayou in his jurisdiction. No Duh Dolowitz and Ozone Eddie doing dirty tricks for the New Orleans mob, and the rich folks down the road with the strange scrapbook of human hair are just a few of the oddballs in this romp through south Louisiana.
Burke can fill a paragraph describing a sunset or how the bayou smells after a rain. The book is worth the price just for that.
Faulkner showed us dysfunctional people in a decaying post civil war southern society. Read his The Sound and the Fury and prepare to be bored. Burke shows us Louisiana today; and what a spicy mix it is.
I took off a star because his big shoot 'em climax sags a bit as he has characters stop shooting to make a speech. This is his latest book and it's better than a couple of the older ones I've read. ...more
The Other Pilot is a political action thriller with a military aviation background and a Southern Fiction style. It introduces Boyd Chailland, aThe Other Pilot is a political action thriller with a military aviation background and a Southern Fiction style. It introduces Boyd Chailland, a journeyman Air Force fighter pilot caught up in a national crisis when he's assigned to be the pilot member of an accident board after a four star general dies in a mysterious plane crash.
Boyd is not the scarred, jaded, been there done that action hero of most thrillers; he's everyman experiencing the crisis as it happens. But, when the ass kicking starts... well, he's the one still standing at the end.
Southern Fiction? That means long circuitous plot, odd gothic characters, southern locations, and a nostalgia for things past. But, I'm a student of white collar crime, and the villain in this story is brilliant, complex, and his scheme is so current it will be making headlines next year. Hot stuff! Get one. ...more
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