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BUSTER

THE MILITARY DOG WHO SAVED A THOUSAND LIVES

A warmly written account of the impact of one hardworking dog on a man who has worked diligently to maintain a professional...

A look inside the work of a military dog.

As much as many of us believe our pets worthy of lengthy books detailing all of their glorious wonder, the love and gratitude we feel for them doesn’t always translate to the page. Not true with Buster, the springer spaniel at the center of British soldier Barrow’s tale. Serving multiple tours of duty together, Buster played an instrumental role on multiple occasions in saving the lives of soldiers in multiple theaters of war. In 2007, the author was approached with a new assignment: assume the responsibility of training a seasoned explosive search dog for a tour in Afghanistan. Barrow was experienced with dogs, and equal amounts of effort were placed into securing both him and an appropriately matched dog, one who not only had the necessary battle experience to do his job to near-perfection, but also the drive to deal with the excessive heat, difficult terrain, and chaotic circumstances. “A search dog without drive,” writes Barrow, “is about as useful as a car without an engine.” The difference between perfection and near-perfection can be dangerously large, however. Early in their tour together, Barrow’s unit came under fire, and he was told to throw a grenade to give them cover. As soon as he threw the grenade, he realized two things: that he may not have thrown it far enough and that Buster would think they were playing a game of fetch. Throughout the book, the author is self-deprecating, and Buster consistently displays his ability to strike a balance between saving lives and the adorable dog shenanigans that endeared him to the soldiers around him.

A warmly written account of the impact of one hardworking dog on a man who has worked diligently to maintain a professional remove with his companion, knowing full well the dog’s got his heart from the start.

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-250-07646-5

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

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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 Yorker staff 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

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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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