A well-documented and often suspenseful dramatization of American military engagement.
A historical military thriller that follows the eventful career of an American fighter pilot during dangerous geopolitical times.
Pete O’Neil has always wanted to fly fighter planes. His father tries to recruit him to work in the family’s lumber business, but instead Pete goes to college on a swimming scholarship. From there, he enlists in the Air Force, as do his two closest friends, Sam and George. They all become pilots, and Pete, while serving as a flight instructor, is offered a special assignment to fly U-2 spy planes in 1957; he turns it down and instead flies top-secret reconnaissance missions over Cuba. (Later, he even speaks on the phone with President John F. Kennedy himself.) Eventually, he’s tasked with flying an F-4 in Vietnam, where he finally gets a taste of combat; he’s shot down during a mission with Col. Al Hawthorne, but the two manage to evade capture. Pete’s friend George, though, goes missing for months after his own plane is shot down. Pete’s wife, Trixie, a military contractor and photographer (whom he married in 1965), shows him aerial photographs that indicate that George may be alive somewhere in northwestern Vietnam. Pete is committed to finding Sam, although he struggles to find someone to officially authorize the search. Meanwhile, he’s tasked by President Lyndon Johnson to fly a very special mission over Hanoi. Bauer (Wakulla Bones, 2013, etc.) packs this historical novel with plenty of vividly described action, and his extraordinary knowledge of military aviation is constantly on display. Pete’s adventures follow the tumultuous arc of the second half of the 20th century, and after his adventures in Southeast Asia, he’s sent to work with the Royal Air Force in England, and he also gets to speak personally with Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. It’s implausible that a fighter pilot would have direct contact with any president, let alone a string of them; as a result, these scenes seem campy, rather than dramatic. Also, as excitingly rendered as the combat scenes are, the storyline between them is slow and sometimes wandering. Bauer’s unpredictable plot twists will keep readers engaged, though, as he paints an inspiring portrait of martial valor.
A well-documented and often suspenseful dramatization of American military engagement.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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