Engaging accounts of dogs working in war zones and aiding their handlers despite the imminent dangers.
Stories of dogs and their human handlers on the front lines of war.
Frankel tells the stories of canines and their companions who have aided soldiers in the first and second world wars, Vietnam, and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the battlefields and off them, dogs bring an added level of security to highly unstable situations, since their ability to sniff out potential danger far outshines that of their human counterparts. For instance, in Iraq and Afghanistan, IEDs are used with increasing frequency and have become the “single biggest threat to U.S. troops on the ground.” As the author notes, "the role of military working dogs in these wars has almost exclusively been devoted to combating IEDs." In order to distinguish a plain pile of rocks from a pile with a bomb underneath, the dogs must be able to identify the different smells found in mortar shells, C-4, detonation cords and pressure plates, while their handlers must watch for anything out of the ordinary or anything that shows the tiniest sign of human interference. Together, the dog and handler form tight bonds that remain strong on and off the battlefield. Frankel chronicles her discussions with handlers and kennel masters who have worked with numerous dogs during their military careers, bringing to light the personal stories of love and devotion each feels toward the other. Although "canine training can be a rough-and-tumble business" with multiple scratches and bite marks as evidence, Frankel discovered that having dogs involved in combat situations brings a much-needed layer of understanding to the complex experience of war. For those not in the military, the author’s observations will aid them in gaining a deeper appreciation of what the troops on the ground and their dog companions endure.
Engaging accounts of dogs working in war zones and aiding their handlers despite the imminent dangers.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-137-27968-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A compellingly investigated, relentlessly gloomy report on the drug distribution industry.
Discouraging, unflinching dispatches from America’s enduring opiate-abuse epidemic.
Veteran freelance journalist Quinones (Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration, 2007, etc.) cogently captures the essence of the festering war on drugs throughout the 1990s. He focuses on the market for black tar heroin, a cheap, potent, semiprocessed drug smuggled into the United States from Nayarit, a state on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The author charts its dissemination throughout American heartland cities like Columbus and Portsmouth, Ohio, home to a huge, family-friendly swimming pool named Dreamland, which closed in 1993, after which opiates “made easy work of a landscape stripped of any communal girding.” Assembling history through varying locales and personal portraits, Quinones follows a palpable trail of heartbreak, misery and the eventual demise of seemingly harmless people “shape-shifted into lying, thieving slaves to an unseen molecule.” The author provides an insider’s glimpse into the drug trade machine, examining the evolution of medical narcotic destigmatization, the OxyContin-heroin correlation and the machinations of manipulative pharmaceutical companies. His profiles include a West Virginia father burying his overdosed son, a diabolically resourceful drug dealer dubbed “the Man,” and “Enrique,” a Mexican citizen who entered the drug trade as a dealer for his uncle at 14. Perhaps most intriguing is the author’s vivid dissection of the “cross-cultural heroin deal,” consisting of an interconnected, hive-minded “retail system” of telephone operators, dealers (popularly known as the “Xalisco Boys”) and customers; everything is efficiently and covertly marketed “like a pizza delivery service” and franchised nationwide with precision. The author’s text, the result of a five-year endeavor of remote research and in-person interviews, offers a sweeping vantage point of the nation’s ever expanding drug problem. Though initially disjointed, these frustrating and undeniably disheartening scenarios eventually dovetail into a disturbing tapestry of abuse, addiction and death. Thankfully, for a fortunate few, rebirth is possible.
A compellingly investigated, relentlessly gloomy report on the drug distribution industry.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1620402504
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Weintraub’s research on the prisoners’ experiences in the camps is remarkable as he narrates Judy and Frank’s heroic tale.
An unusual and moving story of a singular hero among fellow POWs of the Japanese during World War II: a loyal British pointer named Judy.
With bite and substance, Slate columnist Weintraub (The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Age, 2013, etc.) chronicles Judy’s incredible life. Two British soldiers initially adopted her as a mascot for the HMS Gnat, which patrolled the Yangtze River, and she went on to a highly dangerous and decorated career with her captured crew. As a puppy at the Shanghai Dog Kennels, Judy (adapted from her Chinese given name, Shudi, meaning “peaceful”) got kicked around by the invading Japanese sailors, so she learned early on aboard the Gnat who her friends were. The men adored her, and although she was not properly trained as a “gun dog,” pointing at game, she became invaluable for her early warnings of danger. In telling Judy’s adventures, as she was moved from Singapore to a stint in several miserable Japanese POW camps in the Dutch East Indies, Weintraub delineates the plight of the British sailors who took care of her and kept her safe. With the fall of Singapore in early 1942, a massive evacuation was undertaken in Keppel Harbor, from which many refugee boats took off but few survived the strafing by Japanese planes. Miraculously, Judy survived, but she was captured by the Japanese. In captivity, she met the man who would become her lifetime master, Londoner Frank Williams, formerly of the Merchant Navy, who was too tall to fly but worked in mechanics and radar. By mutual trust and aid, dog and man survived several brutal Japanese camps together, braving hunger, sadistic guards, snakes, and tigers.
Weintraub’s research on the prisoners’ experiences in the camps is remarkable as he narrates Judy and Frank’s heroic tale.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-33706-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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