Entertaining World War II naval history by an old hand.
Swiftly moving tale of submarine fireworks in the Pacific.
Even non-military buffs will enjoy spending time with two U.S. Navy crews during World War II. Few elderly survivors remain, but prolific military historian Moore, author of Blood and Fury, The Battle for Hell’s Island, and other books of military history, makes good use of memoirs, oral histories, videos, interviews, articles, helpful family members and official documents to provide a nearly day-by-day account of often terrible events. Built and launched almost simultaneously in 1938, the Sculpin and Squalus were both the latest model Sargo-class submarines whose “steel pressure holes made them capable of a ‘test depth’ of two hundred fifty feet.” Squalus sank the following year after suffering a catastrophic leak, killing 26 men. Thoroughly overhauled after being recovered, it was renamed the Sailfish. “With a new lease on life and a new name,” writes Moore, “Sailfish was destined for great accomplishments in World War II.” Boats that sank were considered cursed, but as the author demonstrates as he recounts their patrols in the Pacific, the Sailfish enjoyed a more fortunate career than her companion. Delivering too many crew mini-biographies to remember, but emphasizing the captains and heroes, the author creates a gripping, extremely detailed account of submarines’ operation, personalities, and attacks—not always successful—on Japanese shipping. Sculpin was lost after an attack by a Japanese destroyer in 1943, so most of the action involves its sister ship. Readers will enjoy Moore’s expert descriptions of many encounters, highlighted by “the first known unassisted sinking of an enemy carrier by a submarine.” This isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds, because the ship was a flattop merchant vessel designed to transport planes, not a fighting carrier. Nonetheless, Moore’s capable history is fast-paced and gripping.
Entertaining World War II naval history by an old hand.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780593472873
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton Caliber
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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