The Third Victim and Stranger in Paradise: Two Great, Fast Reads!

If you enjoy small town murders and mayhem, I’ve got two summer reads that will crowd your nights and fill up your morning coffee time.  These quick and easy reads glue themselves to your imagination, yet still leave room for yard work, grocery shopping, and all those impromptu social engagements that keep you busy from now through Thanksgiving.  How can you resist when the plots keep you guessing and turning pages? This book is filled with starkly interesting and clearly cut characters who walk both sides of the dusty, pockmarked streets. 

 

The first of these startlingly addictive books is The Third Victim, by Phillip Margolin, an author I’ve never had the pleasure of reading, but will again!  I know you’re busy baking cookies, digging in the garden and hastily showering and getting ready to meet Fred and Gloria for lunch, so I’ll as brief as I can, and still show you how excited I am about this book!

 

A small town cop is driving along a lonely road at night, when he catches something startling in the headlights.  A woman, bruised, bleeding, whose clothes are ripped, with a face that is clearly distraught, is in the road, waving frantically.  Of course, the cop stops.   

 

Now that Mr. Margolin has sucker punched you, prepare yourself for a host of villains, many of which might have a tendency toward rough sex, greed, or at least shady situations involving money in great quantities.  Trouble is, not all the characters are THAT bad. And mixed in with the villains are some upright citizens and protectors of the law, including cops and lawyers. At least I guess so.  To tell the truth, which I sometimes do, I couldn’t figure out who-done-it.  Guess that’s why I read this 300+ page book in three sittings, and apologized to Fred and Gloria for thinking they meant dinner, not lunch!  The Third Victim, by Phillip Margolin.

 

My next recommendation was like finding a treasure without a map. Stranger in Paradise, is a Jesse Stone novel by Robert Parker.  I thought I’d read all of his Jesse Stone novels.  I know I’ve read most of them, but this one popped up, starling me like a squirrel about to lose his nuts.  See, I’ve even stooped to reading, or I should say, tried to read some follow-on Jesse Stone novels by those who mistakenly thought they could just make friends with the ghost of Robert Parker and write on.  Doesn’t happen, boys and girls. Genuine is genuine. A Zircon isn’t a diamond just because it glitters.

 

So, admittedly I was beside myself with the joy only a Jesse Stone fan can know, when I found an original I hadn’t read.  Let the coffee get cold!  Who cares?  When I saw it was Fred is calling, I didn’t answer. I had to read this book!  Maybe, if it had been Gloria…

 

So what is the attraction?  I’m talking about the book again. Jesse Stone, for the benefit of the three people who haven’t seen the made for TV movies, starring Tom Selleck, is a small town sheriff with a couple of personal problems, a bottle of Scotch, and an ex-wife he’s still in love with.  Living in the small Massachusetts town of Paradise, he’s a man bound to his own set of rules for right and wrong.  Sometimes they match the law and sometimes they don’t, but are always the right thing to do.

 

If you grew up as a teenager in a small town in the 50s or 60s, you know what I mean. The sheriff, or a deputy didn’t toss you in jail for speeding through a red light, he (there were no shes back then) would stop you, and give you the chat. “What the heck did you think you were doing? Do it again and I’m going to tell your daddy!”  We can certainly have along discussion about what things were like back then, compared to now, but let’s keep talking about the book.

 

The people in Paradise are mostly good and the word ‘bad’ often carries the connotation of nothing more than snobby or slightly rude.  But, all that changes when a man called Crow, a handsome killer, comes into town, dragging some big city problems with him.  Added to the plot is a delinquent teenage girl, as far away from nice as mud is from pudding, and her daddy is a big time mobster from Miami.  Yes, it’s an omelet that Jesse and his deputies, Suit and Molly, have to unscramble before someone gets hurt.  Oh, it gets worse, and as usual it involves money and greed, mixed in with right and wrong and the law and Jesse’s code of ethics. 

 

What kept me reading? The extraordinarily compelling complex and complicated characters and a plot cut with a razor that keeps you guessing who’s going to bleed.

 

These are not books of great intellectual interest, the kind that appear on every high school and college reading list.  No need for Cliff Notes to get you through the course and no amphetamines to get you past the first paragraph.  Nope. None of that. These two are simply entertaining, exciting, with fast moving plots and characters that stick like Gorilla Tape to your rapidly fluttering fingers.

 

The Third Victim

               &

Stranger in Paradise

 

These two will turn anyone into a speed-reader!

Odds and Sods MK3, by Derek Robinson

 Odds and Sods MK3, by Derek Robinson

 

Yes, Derek Robinson has raked through the minutiae of war and life in general and dozens of other areas, to write another enticing book that captures you, even if you’re not in the mood to be captured.  You won’t be able to help it.

 

Here are a few tidbits. Who came up with a better way to land gliders?  Yes, it had a profound effect on the D-Day landings. Read all about it!

 

Is there something profoundly interesting in Jane Austin novels and the English Regency period?  And what the heck does that have to do with democracy?

 

There was an American television series in the 60s…at least I think it was the 60s….anyway, it was called The Desert Rats.  Actually, the real desert rats of World War II North Africa fame were English and, well, who came up with the idea of using small groups to do big things?  This story is also a wonderful lesson in how to snarl and stamp your foot in the doorway of unyielding bureaucracy.  Fascinating.

 

What does American football have to do with Rugby? You’ll get a kick out of this one.

 

Page to page, in vignettes, you’re find yourself plunging on and if you find yourself saying “I didn’t know that,” you’re on the right track to developing a very different view of the world, and people, and events.

 

Now, I do have one point to disagree with, not with the truth, but with the fiction, or the notion that human eyes do not flicker or sparkle.

 

Yes, I know. And neither do hearts pound like a drum, and I’ve never seen anyone gasp, except in the movies, or seeing a bill at a high-end restaurant.  And when it comes to love, you never actually fall, although you do sometimes get a headache and ask yourself, what in God’s name did I do?

 

But, eyes sparkling?  See, when a woman whispers, “Darling, your eyes sparkle like diamonds,” I’m not one to deny that happened.  She said the damn things sparkled and I’m going to take her word for it.  Nor am I going to back away from “Your breasts are luscious,” in favor of “Your breasts are kinda round, or maybe oval and one is a slightly different shape from the other one.”  Nope. I’m putting all my money on luscious, and I’m dying to find out where this well traveled road is leading.

 

“Damn right they sparkle and yours are really good at glittering.”

 

But, let’s digress back to the book, ODDS & SODS MK3.  This book is a fast read, or is it really?  Yes, page wise it is, but believe me, you will ponder what cowboys really did and how they lived.  And how about the numbering system for houses on a street?  And, in World War II, did the Germans really have some super weapons you don’t know about?  Ever thought of England as slave trading central?

 

Open you eyes, whether they sparkle or not. This is more than a book, it’s insight, and a spectacular one, of history and literature and even the human body.  You’re going to read these short stack of bits and pieces and find yourself saying….wait a minute…if that’s true…then what about…

 

Derek Robinson is a fantastic writer of World War I and II historical war novels, but just as powerful a writer when he’s searching out odds and sods that populate our world and our experiences that wedged their way into what we take for granted. 

 

And while you’re at it, pick up copies of the original ODDS & SODS and also MK2.  For goodness sakes, you deserve a treat! Also check out Never Mind the Facts.

 

Contact Derek Robinson at delrobster@gmail.com  But, please don’t mention my name.  He’s not going to like my opinion of sparkling eyes.

 

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2021/04/odds-sods-mk-2.html

 

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2020/05/never-mind-facts-new-book-by-derek.html

 

Willie Nelson: It’s a Long Story, by Willie Nelson and David Ritz

Willie Nelson: It’s a Long Story, by Willie Nelson and David Ritz

Who doesn’t know or hasn’t heard of Willie Nelson?  Just another guitar strumming, twangy-voiced country singer, right?  I shared you skepticism.  Never would have thought to pick up the book except that a close friend, who is known for his excellent taste in literature and country music, told me, “Ya gotta read this book!”  He followed up with, “I wish it had been longer and he would have shared even more stories.”

Started out as a courtesy read.  Then I couldn’t put it down. Found myself falling asleep at night with the book propped on my chest.

Yeah, but Willie Nelson?  You bet. The man has lived several lifetimes, been in and out of debt, is married to his fourth wife, with a whole string of children following in his footsteps, and who went from ‘can’t get a job’ to being an American institution.

We often think of performers simply waltzing into the spotlight of TV or suddenly and without warning strumming a few songs on the radio.  Overnight sensations.  With Willie Nelson, that’s not how the story goes.

He comes from a traditional or semi-traditional Texas childhood in the no-where town of Abbott, raised by his grandparents and taught to praise the Lord.  And how he got where he is today is a jagged, broken-glass trail of being true to himself and never giving up.

What does never giving up mean to you?  Retaking a driver’s test?  Maybe going out for the team again after being cut last year?  Willie puts a whole new spotlight on the phrase ‘don’t ever give up.’ For decades he struggled.  Often his wife and kids were a meal away from starvation, while he tried to sell his musical talents in honky-tonk bars and strip clubs across Texas and around the country.  Sometimes, when hope was but a fading memory, he found a pal who could hook him up as a disk jockey, or find him work doing odd jobs, or selling this and that door-to-door.  His then wife worked hard as a waitress while raising two kids nearly by herself. But, Willie’s music always stuck with him.  He wrote, he sang, he never gave up, even when the doors kept being slammed in his face, or smashing his foot.

He connected with people and as he did, he became enamored of different types of music, many of which he would go on to sing with such giants as Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles.  Country. Jazz. Blues. Pop.  The notes resounded within him.  Music was his Polaris and is to this day.

But, fame and success comes at a heavy price, so heavy that most of us are not willing to pay it.  Not willing to move around the country looking for work, or going through four marriages or becoming successful only to be hammered by the IRS.

Willie Nelson’s autobiography is a straight-forward adventure in living life your way, without compromise or loss of direction or spirit. Every page is a lesson in living, in sticking to your guns in true Texas style, and keeping hope and good humor alive in the midst of triumph and tragedy. The lessons are simple, but true.

Be confident, but not arrogant.

Appreciate those around you.

Take success and failure with the same gentle attitude.

Love your family.

Love your friends.

And most of all, be true to yourself.

A good book?  Hell, no, it’s far better than that. It’s a lesson in being strong and resilient, loving, kind, and faithful to what means the most to you.  I promise you, if you pick this book up, you won’t want to put it down.

The Bed of Procrustes - Don't read this book! It'll only upset you!

Who the hell is Procrustes and “Are you going to bore me with another book review?” 

Grow up and get wise!  Procrustes is a figure from Greek Mythology, or ancient religion, if you prefer.  Here’s the short version;

Procrustes was a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs.

A book about a weirdo?  Not exactly.  Nassim Taleb’s view of the modern world, as expressed in this book of aphorisms, is that humans are being modified to fit technology, reality being bent to fit economic models, diseases being invented to sell drugs, and the breadth of intelligence being limited to what can be tested in a classroom.

Taleb’s inventive and often humorously pithy remarks will wake you up, make you think, and make you laugh out loud.  Don't like to laugh?  Pick another book.

Sounds a bit too New Age, or maybe esoteric?  Check out this tidbit:

The best revenge on a liar is to convince him that you believe what he said.

Or how about this one:  If you want people to read a book, tell them it’s overrated.

Part psychology, part insightful, part surgeons knife slicing through marriage, economics, politics, and everyday life, you could read this book in an hour….but you won’t.  Your brain will catch on a phrase and stop your thoughts like a rowboat’s bow hitting a rocky shore.  Your mind will churn.  Often you’ll look around for someone to share these darts of logic, these reflective mirrors.  You’ll come across:  Nothing is more permanent than “temporary” arrangements, deficits, truces, relationships; and nothing is more temporary than permanent ones.

The book gets laid aside. Your attitude swings this way and that.  You mentally review and ponder.  Hours or days later, you once again grab the book by the throat and your rowboat floats free of the shoals.

Nassim Taleb’s books are like that.  They challenge, but at the same time entertain.  Have preconceptions?  They’re sure to be twisted and blurred.  Think your persuasions won’t be carved with Taleb’s scalpel?  Think again.

But, try as you might, you can’t forget this book and the sometimes obtuse approach that unravels things you’ve previously thought about and things you’ve never considered.

The Bed of Procrustes.  Pick it up once and you’ll pick it up again and again.

Checking In at the Hotel Iris

 

Want to do something different?  Read a Japanese novel.  No, I don’t mean in Japanese, in English.  Americans have enough trouble trying to figure out when to use I and when to use me.  ‘Couse I’m not putting my wily readers in THAT category.

Back to the question:  Why do most westerners avoid Japanese authors?  My suspicion is that any mention of Asia puts a whole new microscope on the word foreign.

“First I have to wear a robe, drink green tea, walk through a garden, and have my genitals shrivel when men dressed in black try to break me of the oxygen habit.”

We of European ancestry share little of Asian history and while everyone knows the French talk funny, dislike Americans, and make great wine, we don’t know quite how to put a finger on the Japanese.  The Japanese mind we see as a stone wall, only to be penetrated by weird Americans who sit like pretzels and meditate while humming.  I say it’s not the Japanese mind that’s so hard to understand, but the Japanese culture.  American ignorance dosen’t help.  When my son went to the U.S. from Japan, somebody asked him: so, you know a lot of Chinese people?   Yes, Confucius say man who claps with one hand is an idiot.

I admit, Japanese culture views life from a different perspective and it’s reflected elegantly in literature and in battle. I’m drawn to a quote by Field Marshal William Slim, World War II’s Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast India. “Everyone talks about fighting to the last man, but only the Japanese actually do it.” 

To us, the Japanese approach to living and dying, happiness and duty rests somewhere in that mystical Asian place between martial arts and sushi. We understand the words, but the direction and intent keeps us guessing. 

When it comes to literature, what we see as a happy ending might have the Japanese scratching their heads over the very meaning of what we call happiness.  In what we see as a tragedy, the Japanese might very well ask, what tragedy?  Everyone did their duty, fulfilled their obligation!  Oh, joy for the multitudes!

How about sexuality?  A Japanese friend wanted to know all about American dirty words.  I started by asking if he knew the F word.  He looked a little confused.  “We know it, but we don’t know why it’s dirty.”  My kind of culture. 

Enough talk about culture. Best of all, the Japanese novels can be a lot of fun.  Pick up the Japanese novel The Hotel Iris, by Yoko Ogawa, and you’ll glimpse what I’m talking about.  Puts you in a different world.  But, you have to think about it.  Differences don’t come in numbered sets, unlike what your chem teacher told you. 

A short book of just over 160 pages, Hotel Iris is something I call a one sitting read.  All the same, the characters stand so sharply drawn they’re almost alive.  And keen edges on the plot grab you and won’t let go.

Mari is seventeen years old, working as a maid in her mother’s hotel.  Hotel may be too charming a word.  The clientele are generally not the best, but even when they are, Mari’s mother is not one to waste emotions. No sentimentality and nothing for free. One night Mari’s mother is forced to expel a middle-aged man and a prostitute engaged in a shouting match of cyclonic proportions.  Oddly enough, a spark of intrigue unaccountably draws Mari.  Remember the female seventeen-year-old brain is still a wasteland.  Wish I’d known that earlier.  The man’s not handsome, but there’s something about him.  His voice resonates within her. Mari’s razor edged sense of human emotions leads her on, from fascination to an active and nearly explosive interaction of raw physical emotions.

Questions abound.  What’s the man’s background and what does he see in Mari?  Will he get her clothes off before my wife finds out what I’m reading?  Well-lubricated titillation, slides down every page, spiraling the reader toward the intersection of erotic imagination and self-preservation.

It’s a common enough plot that could come straight from our own lives, if we’ve very, very lucky.  How do we get what we want, or even know what we want?  And, when we find it, how do we hide ourselves so deeply in our mundane lives that our secret remains ours alone? 

What if we’re found out?  Do we plot excuses, plan how to cover our tracks, pass the blame?  File for divorce? What is love and what is infatuation?  Yoko Ogawa’s novel plunges into every aspect of a closely guarded, self-destructive soul.  But, it’s a Japanese soul, a soul whose rights and wrongs challenge us to observe, but not to judge.

How would we react? When and if a reckoning comes, are we regretful of our transgressions or only sorry for being caught?  Or, do we somehow slide away.  We think we know the American answers.  The Japanese answers make for a wonderful novel.  Check it out and check in:  The Hotel Iris

Under the Skin - will get under your skin

Anyone ever read any Michel Faber?  If you have you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say no two of his books are anything alike, well except for The Apple: The Crimson Petal Stories, which is a follow-up to The Crimson Petal and the White.  I’m the only one in my family who liked ‘Crimson and White’. Nothing new there.  I’m used to living in intellectual solitude.

No surprise either when you begin Under the Skin and have no idea where it’s leading, much like the start of a dinner conversation with your wife.  But, you press on, because in a marriage, silence is perilous, not golden.  So it is with Under the Skin.  You keep going, but not on faith alone.  Faber has a way of drawing you in, all the while twisting the plot, making you want to know just a little more.  Good novelists are like that.  They convince you right off the bat that the life they’re telling you about is one hell-of-a-lot more interesting than your own. 

What can I mention about Under the Skin without spilling too much, spoiling the surprise, ruining the plot?  How about I tease you with the first few lines?

“Isserley always drove straight past a hitch-hiker when she first saw him, to give herself time to size him up.  Puny, scrawny specimens were no use to her.”  So, you’re asking yourself, is this a serial killer?  A random story of wonderfully titillating illicit sex?  Yes and no to all of the above.

Isserley is a strange and astonishing character.  When she picks up her hitch-hikers, and takes them for a ride, they open up to her, exposing their feeling, and dreams, all the while giving you an in-depth glimpse into our modern lives.  You’re almost mysteriously swept into the meaning of what it means to be human.  Compassion?  Determination?  Faber explores our common instincts and values, with a scintillating plot that drives you deeper and deeper into terror, and justice, with an ending that leaves you gasping.

You might say Under the Skin is part science fiction, part mystery, and part life lessons.  Too cryptic?  That’s the problem with Faber, as I said, you never know where he’s going, what’s true and what’s an illusion.  But, wherever it is, the plot is so compelling he leaves you dying to follow.

No mistake.  This is a Disturbing book.  Capital D. It’s also an edge of the seat thriller.  Days and weeks afterwards, you’ll still be brooding about it.  If you’re unlucky, it will` haunt your daydreams and make you miss your wife’s helpful comments about every one of your truly insignificant shortcomings.  Ah, well, there are disadvantages to everything.

Under the Skin is available on Amazon, and yes, there is a kindle version.

From Flat Page to Flat Screen

Today, you hopeless TV addicts and myopic book lovers, let’s look at a couple of my favorite TV shows, Monk and Dexter, and their eponymous books.  Love those TV shows, even though Monk’s run is over.  But, if you’re a morbidly depressed Monk fan, don’t roll up those sleeves and open those pulsing veins just yet. It ain’t over ‘til the Inca is dry on the calendar.  The Monk books are keeping the very peculiar detective alive.

Monk and Dexter are not the only ones to crisscross media.  Lots of TV shows and movies have book connections.  Some are odd enough to twist your mind in knots.  The TV series Castle, for example.  The main character, Richard Castle is a writer, who writes about a fictional character, based on another fictional character.  Now there are a series of books about the second fictional character, purportedly written by Richard Castle, himself a fictional character.  See what I mean?  You need a flow chart and the mind of Rainman’s math teacher.  Also, the Castle books, in my ungrateful opinion, do not live up to the excitement and cutting edge characters on TV.  Hooked one book.  Threw it back.

The Monk and Dexter books, on the other hand, shine. They’re true to the personalities and follow the rhythm (if not the letter) of their TV partners.  There is a notable difference, however.  The Monk novels, written by Lee Goldberg, are based on the TV series.  The TV series came first. 

With Dexter, it was the other way around.  First the novels, by Jeff Lindsay, then the TV series.  As we all know, TV and movies, because of the time element, and because audiences’ concentration limits approach absolute zero, things compress and skip.  Since the Dexter books came first, the books and TV series get completely out of synch.  No matter.  I watch the TV in one universe and read the books in an alternate universe. My magical Jim Beam transporter allows me to do this.

I hate those instances when the character who lives in the happy mist of memory is not the character you see on the screen.  Is there anyone besides yours truly, and still young enough to feed himself, who has read the James Bond novels, by Ian Fleming?   If so, you know the James Bond of the books is cold blooded and ruthless, compared to the flicks, although lately the film Bond seems to have grown a couple. 

Oh, how I digress.  In the plots of TV Dexter and in the books, the character remains a fascinating psycho.  Ain’t it nice when an author so skillfully makes you root for the murderer? Dexter likes to kill and yours truly is grateful he only likes to kill truly bad people, instead of run-of-the-mill sinners.  Whew!  Close one!

Monk is also a steady performer on TV and in books.  He’s always the obsessive-compulsive guy you’d like to invite to clean your house, and who tracks down killers with a singularly twisted glance.

So, which books do I like best?  Dexter?  Monk?  Gotta be an invertebrate fence sitter on that question.  Love ‘em both.  I watch and I read.  The characters are real and true to themselves.  The plots are gripping on film and in print.  I call them potato chip books.  And I say, “Pass the bag, please.”

One of the Essential Books I Bet You’ve Never Read

            No, I’m not talking about “The Ethical Slut,” or “The Myth of Monogamy,” both fine books, I’m sure, and both available from Amazon.  Take care of all those details yourselves and let’s get serious for a sec.  “Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why,” by Laurence Gonzales is much more important to me and everyone else who desires a fightin’ chance.

            But, you say, I do not go deep in the woods, oh no, no, no.  I do not do the crazy things my friend Grunt does, like take flying leaps from airplanes, or my friend Eman does, such as climbing on the sides of terribly high cliffs in god-only-knows-which-backwater country. 

            You’re thinking, I only visit shopping centers, take a few commercial plane rides, do a little skiing.  One of the most poignant stories in the book begins with two teenage girls at a shopping center, who go for a nearby nature walk, without really knowing the nature of the walk.  Nope.  Not what you think.  No molesters or killers lurking.  Just the girls and Mother Nature, whom you soon find out, is about as forgiving as the wicked witch of the west with PMS.

            Or maybe you’re thinking, ah a book about how to build signaling blazes, roast tadpoles, splint limbs, or get water from dead leaves.  Deep Survival is not that kind of book.  Gonzales has been studying accidents and human behavior for decades.  Deep Survival is about what he has discovered, but most of all it’s about how what he has discovered can help you in the darkest of hours and the bleakest of circumstances.

            He doesn’t preach or list rules.  He weaves a web of stories.  There’s the kid in a plane crash who is the only human to make it home alive, and the skier who just does what he always does, and suddenly experiences vastly different results.  Nope.  Didn’t hit a tree and he was on a course he’d skied many times.

            The best part of the book is that, in addition to choices for survival, the author provides a rough blueprint for how to stay alive, period.  All of it told by a master storyteller.  You race through pages at novel reading speed, then reflect and go back to reread.

            Gonzales describes civilization as a bubble of sanity, replete with rules we understand and live by.  Inside the bubble, except for the occasional catastrophic event, nature is mostly contained and controlled.  Outside the bubble, there are no rules and often the bubble ends where we least expect it.

            All is not lost, however.  There are things you can do to protect yourself from getting in a survival situation to begin with.  But, if you find yourself as alone as a star in the heavens and as scared as the icy pee in your socks, you can help yourself and your family.

            If you decide to read this book, available on Amazon, I can guarantee two things:  You’re going to learn a lot, even if you’ve had a million years of survival training, and you’re going to be entertained with edge-of-the-seat excitement.

Goshawk Squadron - a novel of breakneck flying in WW I

SE5a

If you’re an aviation enthusiast, and especially if you’re a fighter pilot or wantta be, and if you’re drawn to the broken wood and torn fabric flying of World War I, you can’t do better than Derek Robinson’s magnificent novel, Goshawk Squadron.  Written in 1971, it’s a timeless tale of men fighting the un-fightable, smothering in the smell of cordite and castor oil, while being led by a man who is either going to kill them, or make them suffer and then kill them.

           As the author writes in another of his novels, “Up there the world is divided into bastards and suckers. Make your choice.”  The leader of Goshawk Squadron, Stanley Wooley, has made his.  He’s no beauty, and at twenty-three he’s an old timer in a war where the life expectancy of pilots is measured in weeks.  Hardbitten and older than his years, Wooley is determined to kick his squadron into good enough shape to keep them flying just one more day.  Often he’s unsuccessful.  How could he be anything else when youngsters arrive with sometimes eight or twelve hours of total flying time and never having seen an SE5a, let alone flown one.  A week later they’re in combat, trying to kill, but most likely trying only to survive.  They come with light hearts and high ideals.  Soon both are soiled forever by what they see and what they do.

             But, any fighter squadron is not without it’s lighter moments, even if they are almost unspeakably noir.  Some scenes made he laugh out loud.  Being in a fighter squadron is like that. Others made me ache to go back a few years, strap myself into a fighter and once again feel the magic exhilaration that only aviators know.

Goshawk Squadron is a quick read of a little over 200 pages, but it’s not the length of the book that makes it streak by like the bullets from a Folker DIII.  In Goshawk squadron you’re there.  Living in the mud.  Drinking to avoid the reality of knowing that you’re going to die, that it’s going to be wretched…and that it’s going to be soon.  And all for nothing, or so it seems.

Grab a copy of Goshawk Squadron, by Derek Robinson.  You’re in for the shrieking, whirling, terrifying ride of your life.  Available on Amazon.