P.T. Deutermann0.0 Winner of the 2023 W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military A gripping tale of anti-submarine warfare in the World War II Pacific Theater, by a master of military adventure fiction.
The Last Paladin by P.T. Deutermann is based on the true story of the USS Holland (DE-24), a World War II Atlantic Fleet destroyer escort which has spent the past two years in the unforgiving battle for survival against the German U-boats of the North Atlantic.
Summoned to relieve destroyers that are bogged down by escort duty in the escalating Pacific Theater, the Holland is met with a rather cold reception. In the eyes of Pacific Fleet sailors, North Atlantic convoy duty pales in comparison to the bloody, carrier-sinking battles of Savo Island and Guadalcanal. However, Atlantic Fleet ships have had to specialize in one anti-submarine warfare.
The Holland is sent off into remote South Pacific operating areas with orders to find and destroy Japanese submarines―but with little expectation of success. Her commanders take the mission literally; using radio intercepts that are being ignored at higher levels, they determine that the Japanese have set up a 1000-mile-long picket line of six submarines, an entire squadron's worth, to act as a moveable barrier against the expected American advance into the next set of islands. These submarines are poised to sink every American aircraft carrier and destroyer and to change the course of the war.
What happens next is one of the legendary stories of the US Navy. The Last Paladin is high stakes naval warfare at its best, told with utter authenticity and a former ship captain's understanding of dramatic, intense combat. P. T. Deutermann continues his acclaimed series of WWII thrillers in this unforgettable novel.
Джефф Шаара0.0 NATIONAL BESTSELLER - In a "riveting" (Booklist) tale that picks up where To Wake the Giant left off, Jeff Shaara transports us to the Battle of Midway in another masterpiece of military historical fiction.
Spring 1942. The United States is reeling from the blow the Japanese inflicted at Pearl Harbor. But the Americans are determined to turn the tide. The key comes from Commander Joe Rochefort, a little known "code breaker" who cracks the Japanese military encryption. With Rochefort's astonishing discovery, Admiral Chester Nimitz will know precisely what the Japanese are planning.
But the battle to counter those plans must still be fought.
From the American side, the shocking conflict is seen through the eyes of Rochefort and Admiral Nimitz, as well as fighter pilot Lieutenant Percy "Perk" Baker and Marine Gunnery Sergeant Doug Ackroyd.
On the Japanese side, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is the mastermind. His key subordinates are Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, aging and infirm, and Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, a firebrand who has no patience for Nagumo's hesitation. Together, these two men must play out the chess game designed by Yamamoto, without any idea that the Americans are anticipating their every move on the sea and in the air.
Jeff Shaara recounts in electrifying detail what happens when these two sides finally meet, in what will be known ever after as one of the most definitive and heroic examples of combat ever seen. In The Eagle's Claw, he recounts, with his trademark you-are-there immediacy and signature depth of research, one single battle that changed not only the outcome of a war but the course of our entire global history.
The story of Midway has been told many times, but never before like this.
Mark Treanor0.0 Sometimes it takes years for a combat vet to understand what war did to him when he was nineteen. With the perception and reflection of a man on the cusp of retirement from a career teaching high school kids, Marty McClure recalls the relentless intensity of prolonged combat as a teenaged Marine machine gunner facing booby traps and battles in a war with few boundaries. Family and friends know Marty as a kind, peaceful man. They aren't aware that when he was young, he plumbed the depths of terror, hatred, and despair with no assurance he'd ever surface again.
Now he needs to reveal what happened in Vietnam and how, with the help of Patti, his wife, Corrie Corrigan, a disabled vet, and Doc Matheson, a corpsman turned trauma surgeon, he works to become a good husband, father, and teacher while he fights to bury the war. Only if he accepts help from his wife and his friends will he find real peace.
Ralph Peters0.0 Ralph Peters' Darkness at Chancellorsville is a novel of one of the most dramatic battles in American history, from the New York Times bestselling, three-time Boyd Award-winning author of the Battle Hymn Cycle.
Centered upon one of the most surprising and dramatic battles in American history, Darkness at Chancellorsville recreates what began as a brilliant, triumphant campaign for the Union--only to end in disaster for the North. Famed Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson bring off an against-all-odds surprise victory, humiliating a Yankee force three times the size of their own, while the Northern army is torn by rivalries, anti-immigrant prejudice and selfish ambition.
This historically accurate epic captures the high drama, human complexity and existential threat that nearly tore the United States in two, featuring a broad range of fascinating--and real--characters, in blue and gray, who sum to an untold story about a battle that has attained mythic proportions. And, in the end, the Confederate triumph proved a Pyrrhic victory, since it lured Lee to embark on what would become the war's turning point--the Gettysburg Campaign (featured in Cain At Gettysburg).
Ray McPadden0.0 Four-tour combat veteran Ray McPadden offers a vivid portrayal of American soldiers facing an unseen enemy and death in the Mountains of Afghanistan.
Sergeant Nick Burch has returned to the crags of tribal Afghanistan seeking vengeance. Burch's platoon has one goal: to capture or kill an elusive insurgent, known as the Egyptian, a leader who is as much myth as he is man, highly revered and guarded by ferocious guerrillas. The soldiers of Burch's platoon look to him for leadership, but as the Egyptian slips farther out of reach, so too does Burch's battle-worn grasp on reality.
Private Danny Shane, the youngest soldier in the platoon, is learning how to survive. For Shane, hunting the Egyptian is secondary. First he must adapt to the savage conditions of the battlefield: crippling heat, ravenous sand fleas, winds thick with moondust, and a vast mountain range that holds many secrets. Shane is soon chiseled by combat, shackled by loyalty, and unflinchingly marching toward a battle from which there is no return. A new enemy has emerged, one who has studied the American soldiers and adapted to their tactics. Known as Habibullah, a teenage son of the people, he stands in brazen defiance of the Ameriki who have come to destroy what his ancestors have built. The American soldiers may be tracking the Egyptian, but Habibullah is tracking them, and he knows these lands far better than they do.
With guns on full-auto, Shane and Burch trek into the deepest solitudes of the Himalayas. Under soaring peaks, dark instinct is laid bare. To survive, Shane and Burch must defeat not just Habibullah's militia but the beast inside themselves.
And the Whole Mountain Burned reveals, in stunning, ruthless detail, the horrors of war, the courage of soldiers, and the fact that no matter how many enemies we vanquish, there is always another just over the next ridge.
Джефф Шаара0.0 June 1950. The North Korean army invades South Korea, intent on uniting the country under Communist rule. In response, the United States mobilizes a force to defend the overmatched South Korean troops, and together they drive the North Koreans back to their border with China.
But several hundred thousand Chinese troops have entered Korea, laying massive traps for the Allies. In November 1950, the Chinese spring those traps. Allied forces, already battling stunningly cold weather, find themselves caught completely off guard as the Chinese advance around the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. A force that once stood on the precipice of victory now finds itself on the brink of annihilation. Assured by General Douglas MacArthur that they would be home by Christmas, the soldiers and Marines fight for their lives against the most brutal weather conditions imaginable—and an enemy that outnumbers them more than six to one.
The Frozen Hours tells the story of Frozen Chosin from multiple points of view: Oliver P. Smith, the commanding general of the American 1st Marine Division, who famously redefined retreat as “advancing in a different direction”; Marine Private Pete Riley, a World War II veteran who now faces the greatest fight of his life; and the Chinese commander Sung Shi-Lun, charged with destroying the Americans he has so completely surrounded, ever aware that above him, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung watches his every move.
Written with the propulsive force Jeff Shaara brings to all his novels of combat and courage, The Frozen Hours transports us to the critical moment in the history of America’s “Forgotten War,” when the fate of the Korean peninsula lay in the hands of a brave band of brothers battling both the elements and a determined, implacable foe.
J.M. Graham0.0 Arizona Moon describes a fictional no-name operation in Vietnam’s infamous Arizona Territory and Golf’s 1st platoon of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines operating west of the Tu Bon River in Quang Nam Province. The story centers on a squad leader, Corporal Raymond Strader, and a Apache Indian, L/Cpl Noche Gonshayee. Strader has only three days until his thirteen month tour of duty ends, and Gonshayee, whose tribal name is “Moon”, considers all anglos potential enemies. When Strader is sent from the field to begin processing out of the An Hoa combat base, Moon is accused of murdering two members of his squad on a night listening post, and Strader is pulled back into the field to escort the Indian, restrained and with a serious head injury, back to the base. The helicopter transporting them is shot down and the two Marines find themselves evading the NVA in the Ong Tu Mountains. An NVA unit, moving munitions toward Da Nang in anticipation of the TET Offensive – with orders to avoid contact with American troops – finds themselves butting heads with the platoon of Golf Company as they scramble across the face of the Ong Tu. Among the NVA are two students from a university in Hanoi, volunteers eager to carry supplies and weapons south. One is a student of literature and an avid reader of American pulp fiction, especially that of America’s wild west, and is enamored of the American Indian, sympathizing with their historical plight. The murders attributed to Moon were actually the work of the NVA, and in that contact, a spirit pouch is stolen from the Indian to become the prized possession of the student as his unit tries to run beyond the reach of the Marines. After surviving the helicopter crash, Strader and Moon find themselves in the path of the fleeing Vietnamese and, secreted on the mountainside, Moon sees his coveted spirit pouch pass by hanging from one the enemy weapon’s bearers. After separating himself from Strader, Moon goes after the NVA in hopes of retrieving the pouch he equates with his honor. Strader discovers he has been duped and pursues the Indian into the mountains. The platoon brings artillery, Phantom jets, and helicopters into play in an attempt to destroy the NVA unit, but only slow it enough for Moon to catch them and confront the student with his spirit pouch. Moon recovers his pouch, Strader finds Moon, and together they try fighting their way back to their platoon with the NVA hunting them. With no ammunition and the enemy closing in, the two Marines envision little chance of survival, but a squad from 1st platoon finds them, and together they lead the Vietnamese to where the platoon waits in ambush. Throughout Arizona Moon the characters exemplify the camaraderie, esprit de corps, and brotherhood of the United States Marine Corps.
Ralph Peters0.0 Winner of the 2015 Boyd Award for Literary Excellence in Military Fiction
In the Valley of the Shadow, they wrote their names in blood.
From a daring Confederate raid that nearly seized Washington, D.C., to a stunning reversal on the bloody fields of Cedar Creek, the summer and autumn of 1864 witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of our Civil War—in mighty battles now all but forgotten.
The desperate struggle for mastery of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, breadbasket of the Confederacy and the South's key invasion route into the North, pitted a remarkable cast of heroes in blue and gray against each other: runty, rough-hewn Phillip Sheridan, a Union general with an uncanny gift for inspiring soldiers, and Jubal Early, his Confederate counterpart, stubborn, raw-mouthed and deadly; the dashing Yankee boy-general, George Armstrong Custer, and the brilliant, courageous John Brown Gordon, a charismatic Georgian who lived one of the era's greatest love stories.
From hungry, hard-bitten Rebel privates to a pair of Union officers destined to become presidents, from a neglected hero who saved our nation's capital and went on to write one of his century's greatest novels, to doomed Confederate leaders of incomparable valor, Ralph Peters brings to life yesteryear's giants and their breathtaking battles with the same authenticity, skill and insight he offered readers in his prize-winning Civil War bestsellers, Cain at Gettysburg and Hell or Richmond.
Sharp as a bayonet and piercing as a bullet, Valley of the Shadow is a great novel of our grandest, most-tragic war.
Фил Клей3.8 'We shot dogs. Not by accident. We did it on purpose and we called it "Operation Scooby". I'm a dog person, so I thought about that a lot'
So begins this unprecedented book about the human cost of war by former marine captain and Iraq veteran, Phil Klay.
REDEPLOYMENT takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned.
Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. Written with a hard-eyed realism andstunning emotional depth, REDEPLOYMENT marks Phil Klay as one of the most talented new voices of his generation.
Ralph Peters0.0 Between May 5 and June 3, 1864, the Union and Confederate armies suffered 88,000 casualties. Twenty-nine thousand were killed, wounded or captured in the first two days of combat. The savagery shocked a young, divided nation.
Against this backdrop of the birth of modern warfare and the painful rebirth of the United States, New York Times bestselling novelist Ralph Peters has created a breathtaking narrative that surpasses the drama and intensity of his recent critically acclaimed novel, Cain at Gettysburg.
In Hell or Richmond, thirty days of ceaseless carnage are seen through the eyes of a compelling cast, from the Union’s Harvard-valedictorian “boy general,” Francis Channing Barlow, to the brawling “dirty boots” Rebel colonel, William C. Oates. From Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee to a simple laborer destined to win the Medal of Honor, Peters brings to life an enthralling array of leaders and simple soldiers from both North and South, fleshing out history with stunning, knowledgeable realism.
From the horrific collision of armies in the Wilderness, where neither side wanted to fight, to the shocking slaughter of the grand charge at Cold Harbor, this epic novel delivers a compelling, authentic, and suspenseful portrait of Civil War combat.
Commemorating the approaching 150th anniversary of this grim encounter between valiant Americans, Ralph Peters brings to bear the lessons of his own military career, his lifelong study of this war and the men who fought it, and his skills as a bestselling, prize-winning novelist to portray horrific battles and sublime heroism as no other author has done.
Ralph Peters0.0 Two mighty armies blunder toward each other, one led by confident, beloved Robert E. Lee and the other by dour George Meade. They'll meet in a Pennsylvania crossroads town where no one planned to fight.In this sweeping, savagely realistic novel, the greatest battle ever fought on American soil explodes into life at Gettysburg. As generals squabble, staffs err. Tragedy unfolds for immigrants in blue and barefoot Rebels alike. The fate of our nation will be decided in a few square miles of fields. Following a tough Confederate sergeant from the Blue Ridge, a bitter Irish survivor of the Great Famine, a German political refugee, and gun crews in blue and gray, "Cain at Gettysburg" is as grand in scale as its depictions of combat are unflinching. For three days, battle rages. Through it all, James Longstreet is haunted by a vision of war that leads to a fateful feud with Robert E. Lee. Scheming Dan Sickles nearly destroys his own army. Gallant John Reynolds and obstreperous Win Hancock, fiery William Barksdale and dashing James Johnston Pettigrew, gallop toward their fates.... There are no marble statues on this battlefield, only men of flesh and blood, imperfect and courageous. From "New York Times" bestselling author and former U.S. Army officer Ralph Peters, "Cain at Gettysburg" is bound to become a classic of men at war.
P.T. Deutermann0.0 A thrilling, multi-layered World War II adventure following two men and an unforgettable woman, from Pearl Harbor through the most dramatic air and sea battles of the war
Marsh, Mick, and Tommy were inseparable friends during their naval academy years, each man desperately in love with the beautiful, unattainable Glory Hawthorne. Graduation set them on separate paths into the military, but they were all forever changed during the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941.
Glory, now Tommy’s widow, is a tough Navy nurse still grieving her loss while trying to save lives. Marsh, a surface ship officer, finds himself in the thick of terrifying sea combat from Guadalcanal through Midway to a climactic showdown at Leyte Gulf. And Mick, a hotshot fighter pilot with a drinking problem and a chip on his shoulder, seeks redemption after a series of failures leaves him grounded.
Filled with wide-screen action, romance, and heroism tinged with the brutal reality of war, Pacific Glory is a dynamic new direction for an acclaimed thriller writer.
One of Library Journal's Best Historical Fiction Books of 2011
Karl Marlantes3.2 Matterhorn is a marvel--a living, breathing book with Lieutenant Waino Mellas and the men of Bravo Company at its raw and battered heart. Karl Marlantes doesn't introduce you to Vietnam in his brilliant war epic--he unceremoniously drops you into the jungle, disoriented and dripping with leeches, with only the newbie lieutenant as your guide. Mellas is a bundle of anxiety and ambition, a college kid who never imagined being part of a "war that none of his friends thought was worth fighting," who realized too late that "because of his desire to look good coming home from a war, he might never come home at all." A highly decorated Vietnam veteran himself, Marlantes brings the horrors and heroism of war to life with the finesse of a seasoned writer, exposing not just the things they carry, but the fears they bury, the friends they lose, and the men they follow. Matterhorn is as much about the development of Mellas from boy to man, from the kind of man you fight beside to the man you fight for, as it is about the war itself. Through his untrained eyes, readers gain a new perspective on the ravages of war, the politics and bureaucracy of the military, and the peculiar beauty of brotherhood.
John Hough Jr.0.0 John Hough’s superbly readable historical novel, the revealing coming-of-age story of two young brothers fighting in the civil War, evokes the hardships and camaraderie of ordinary soldiers and civilians set against the bloody drama of the battle of Gettysburg.
• Brilliant characters: raised by their abolitionist father on martha’s Vineyard, eighteen-year-old Luke and sixteenyear- old Thomas Chandler volunteer for the union. They join the Army of the Potomac in Virginia and take part in the long march north in June, 1863, to intercept General Lee. Luke writes home to rose, their black Cape Verdean housekeeper, with whom he shares a secret that Thomas discovers on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg. The truth enrages Thomas and causes a rift between the brothers. When the battle is over, only one will survive.
• A classic in the making: Seen the Glory re-creates the Civil War experience as vividly as the classic novel The Killer Angels. The soldiers of the storied 20th massachusetts regiment, the sullen Southerners they march past, the hopeful freedmen and worried slaves, the terrified residents of Gettysburg, the battle-hardened Confederate soldiers are all rendered with brilliant realism and historical accuracy.
Richard Bausch0.0 Italy, near Cassino, in the terrible winter of 1944. An icy rain, continuing unabated for days. Guided by a seventy-year-old Italian man in rope-soled shoes, three American soldiers are sent on a reconnaissance mission up the side of a steep hill that they discover, before very long, to be a mountain. As they climb, the old man's indeterminate loyalties only add to the terror and confusion that engulf them. Peace is a feat of storytelling from one of America's most acclaimed novelists: a powerful look at the corrosiveness of violence, the human cost of war, and the redemptive power of mercy.
Robert N. Macomber0.0 Winner of the W.Y Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction for 2008. It's 1879 and Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake, U.S.N., is on special assignment as the official American neutral naval observer to the War of the Pacific raging along the west coast of South America. Chile, having invaded Bolivia, has gone on to overrun Peru and controls the entire southeastern Pacific region. Washington, concerned over European involvement in the war and the French effort to build a canal through Panama, has sent Wake to observe local events. During Wake's dangerous mission--as naval observer, diplomat, and spy--he will witness history's first battle between ocean-going ironclads, ride the world's first deep-diving submarine, face his first machine guns in combat, advise the French trying to build the Panama Canal, and run for his life in the Catacombs of the Dead in Lima, Peru.
Robert J. Mrazek0.0 A richly woven page-turner follows a young American woman to war-torn England as she struggles to safeguard the Allies' most important intelligence secrets
When Second Lieutenant Elizabeth "Liza" Marantz's train pulls into London's Victoria Station, the city's fabled streets are aflame in the aftermath of a massive Luftwaffe bombing attack. In London to join the staff of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force), Liza is ready to keep D-Day plans away from the German forces-even if it means her life.
Paired with former New York homicide detective Major Sam Taggart distractions begin to pile up almost immediately when two of Liza's co-workers, both mistresses of high- ranking generals, suspiciously turn up dead. As Liza and Taggart trek from the blitzkrieg-ravaged London to vast, elegant country estates, it becomes clear that more than one conspiracy is afoot-and that the very success of the war may rest in their hands. Crackling with rich dialogue and white-knuckle suspense, The Deadly Embrace showcases Robert J. Mrazek's remarkable gift for storytelling and transports readers to a fascinating time in world history.
Ник Арвин0.0 George Tilson is an eighteen-year-old farm boy from Iowa. Enlisted in the army during WWII and arriving in Normandy just after D-Day, he is nicknamed Heck for his reluctance to swear. From summers of farm labour Heck is already strong. He knows how to except orders and how to work uncomplainingly. But in combat Heck witnesses a kind of brutality unlike anything he could have imagined. Fear consumes his every thought and Heck soon realises a terrible thing about himself: He is a coward. Possessed of this dark knowledge, Heck is then faced with an impossible task.
Nick Arvin draws the reader into the unimaginable fear, violence and chaos of the war zone. Like the very best war fiction - Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong - he shows how ordinary lives are transformed by extraordinary events.
Jeff Shaara0.0 Jeff Shaara has enthralled readers with his New York Times bestselling novels set during the Civil War and the American Revolution. Now the acclaimed author turns to World War I, bringing to life the sweeping, emotional story of the war that devastated a generation and established America as a world power.
Spring 1916: the horror of a stalemate on Europe’s western front. France and Great Britain are on one side of the barbed wire, a fierce German army is on the other. Shaara opens the window onto the otherworldly tableau of trench warfare as seen through the eyes of a typical British soldier who experiences the bizarre and the horrible–a “Tommy” whose innocent youth is cast into the hell of a terrifying war.
In the skies, meanwhile, technology has provided a devastating new tool, the aeroplane, and with it a different kind of hero emerges–the flying ace. Soaring high above the chaos on the ground, these solitary knights duel in the splendor and terror of the skies, their courage and steel tested with every flight.
As the conflict stretches into its third year, a neutral America is goaded into war, its reluctant president, Woodrow Wilson, finally accepting the repeated challenges to his stance of nonalignment. Yet the Americans are woefully unprepared and ill equipped to enter a war that has become worldwide in scope. The responsibility is placed on the shoulders of General John “Blackjack” Pershing, and by mid-1917 the first wave of the American Expeditionary Force arrives in Europe. Encouraged by the bold spirit and strength of the untested Americans, the world waits to see if the tide of war can finally be turned.
From Blackjack Pershing to the Marine in the trenches, from the Red Baron to the American pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille, To the Last Man is written with the moving vividness and accuracy that characterizes all of Shaara’s work. This spellbinding new novel carries readers–the way only Shaara can–to the heart of one of the greatest conflicts in human history, and puts them face-to-face with the characters who made a lasting impact on the world.
Джеймс Л. Нельсон0.0 Then call us Rebels if you will we glory in the name, for bending under unjust laws and swearing faith to an unjust cause, we count as greater shame. -- Richmond Daily Dispatch, May 12, 1862
April 12, 1861. With one jerk of a lanyard, one shell arching into the sky, years of tension explode into civil war. And for those men who do not know in which direction their loyalty calls them, it is a time for decisions. Such a one is Lieutenant Samuel Bowater, an officer of the U.S. Navy and a native of Charleston, South Carolina.
Hard-pressed to abandon the oath he swore to the United States, but unable to fight against his home state, Bowater accepts a commission in the nascent Confederate Navy, where captains who once strode the quarterdecks of the world's most powerful ships are now assuming command of paddle wheelers and towboats. Taking charge of the armed tugboat Cape Fear, and then the ironclad Yazoo River, Bowater and his men, against overwhelming odds, engage in the waterborne fight for Southern independence.
Half the world is at war and with the other half about to join in, a thousand U.S. Marines stand sentinel over the last days of an uneasy truce between ourselves and the Imperial Japanese Army in chaotic North China.
By November 27, FDR is convinced Japan is about to launch a military action. Washington doesn't know where, isn't sure precisely when. But the Cabinet is sufficiently alarmed that War Secretary Henry Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox are authorized to send an immediate and coded "warning of war" to American bases and units in harm's way.
In Shanghai two cruise ships are chartered and 800 armed American Marines of the Fourth Regiment (serving in China since the Boxer Rebellion) are marched through the great port city with enormous pomp and circumstance and embarked for Manila.
Another 200 Marines, unable to reach Shanghai, and serving in small garrisons and posts from Peking to Mongolia and the Gobi Desert, are caught short by this "warning of war".
This is their story. Of how a detachment of American Marines marooned in North China as war erupts, set out on an epic march through hostile territory in an attempt to fight their way out of China and, somehow, rejoin their Corps for the war against Japan.
James Brady dazzles us once again with a stunning and unflinching look at America at war. Warning of War is a moving tribute to sheer courage, determination, and Marine Corps discipline, and is a wonderful celebration of America in one of its darkest but finest hours.
Owen West0.0 When Lieutenant Gavin Kelly's recon platoon swims ashore a Mogadishu beach under the glare of hundreds of news camera lights, it is an appropriately surreal beginning to Operation Restore Hope. This modern war is vastly different from the battles Kelly's father and grandfather fought and from the young lieutenant's own experience during Operation Desert Storm. Minutes after the Marines' celebrated landing, one of Kelly's men kills an armed Somali bodyguard. The circumstances of the killing are unclear and Kelly finds himself in the center of a maelstrom. He must act quickly to deflect a vociferous outcry from members of the international press corps, censure by his Marine superiors, and the possibility of losing the loyalty of his men -- particularly two enlisted leaders in the platoon who have vouched for the necessity of the kill. Thus begins "Sharkman Six," a stinging morality tale in which Kelly is torn between his men, his confusing mission, and the international rules of engagement he has sworn to uphold. As his platoon descends into the lawless, violent underbelly of Somalia, Lieutenant Kelly must determine his own values -- and allegiances -- in a country where murders are commonplace and constant.
With heart-pounding, intricate military detail, rapier wit, and stunning verisimilitude, "Sharkman Six" speaks to the violent urges lurking in us all and the lengths to which we will go to control them. In Gavin Kelly, West has created an authentic, sympathetic, and wholly compromised young officer of war who will put you in mind of the best of military heroes and antiheroes.
Edwin H. Simmons0.0 A decorated veteran of three wars, and author of two nonfiction classics—The Marines and The U.S. Marines: A History—Edwin Howard Simmons has written a novel of the Korean War that is earning unparalleled praise from both the military and literary communities. Emotionally moving and intensely authentic, it is the story of George Bayard, a Marine reserve captain who is recalled to active duty for a command-and a challenge-he never would have chosen.
John Mort0.0 John Mort's compelling first novel embodies both the Vietnam combat experience and the sad aftermath for those who underwent it.
James Patrick ("Irish") Donnelly flees the Missouri Ozarks with his life in shambles. His house has burned down, he's divorced, and he's estranged from his young son. On Florida's Gulf Coast, Irish joins a group of Vietnam veterans, one of whom reminds him of a soldier he knew in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
That soldier is Norman Sims, an awkward, naive young Oklahoman, who shoots himself in the foot and becomes an object of ridicule. And yet only a few weeks later he leaps upon a machine gun in the middle of battle and saves his entire company. Norman's doomed love for a Vietnamese woman and his heroic acts (there are several) are a kind of inspiration out of the distant past, and Irish pulls himself together and returns to Missouri, prepared for fatherhood and a new midlife romance.
The novel alternates between the "stateside" chapters after the war (containing Irish's past and present history) and the Vietnam chapters dramatizing the war, creating a tension back and forth in time as well as geography. We participate in the trauma of combat in crisp and authentic detail, and we witness the effect of that experience on Irish. Through his wry first person narrative we become acquainted with this bookish, reluctant soldier and his fellow infantrymen in the jungles and mountains of Vietnam and come to know him as the distanced, psychologically wounded narrator who slowly climbs back into a productive and satisfying life.
Transcending any "political" focus, Soldier in Paradise dramatically renders the alienation of Vietnam veterans, ordinary men who've had an extra burden to bear because of the protracted, brutish character of an unpopular war that never came to a satisfactory end. Though this is a war novel, it is also a story of love—romantic, paternal, fraternal—and of the power of memory and the healing power of putting one foot in front of the other to find a way to live in a seemingly meaningless world.
Donald Mccaig0.0 Duncan Gatewood, seventeen and heir to Gatewood Plantation, falls in love with Maggie, a mulatto slave, who conceives a son, Jacob. Maggie and Jacob are sold south, and Duncan is packed off to the Virginia Military Institute—he will eventually fight for Robert E. Lee. Another Gatewood slave, Jesse—whose love for Maggie is unrequited—escapes to find her. Jesse finds his freedom and enlists in Mr. Lincoln’s army; in time he will confront his former masters.
In his award-winning novel of the interlocked lives of masters and slaves, Donald McCaig conjures a passionate and richly textured story in the heart of America’s greatest war.
