To Catch A Spy

An Otto Penzler Book





















Written by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Copyright © 2002 by Stuart M. Kaminsky



In Stuart M. Kaminsky's To Catch A Spy,  private investigator to the movie stars Toby Peters takes on a case for actor Cary Grant which involves Nazi sympathizers secretly operating in Hollywood.

After the exciting opening scenes with Toby's client Grant - of which the scenes reminded me of the final scenes from the movie North By NorthWest - I was waiting for the scenes that lead up to that dramatic point of the story at the beginning of the book, since after the opening scenes the book goes back to how Toby got started on this case. Cary Grant is being blackmailed and goes and asks Toby to meet his blackmailer at a park - where the person Toby is supposed to meet gets shot. Now Toby must find the person mentioned in the dying man's words. Soon Toby's friends, inept dentist Shelly Minck, wrestler/poet Jerry Butler, and Swiss little person Gunther Wherthman discover a Nazi link to a University.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE... AND YOUNG

HARPERTOURCH
An Imprint of  HarperCollinsPublishers

Written by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway

Copyright © 1992 by Lt. General H.G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway



In November of 1965, 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Calvary fought at the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam against 2000 North Vietnamese soldiers in the first major large-unit American engagements of the Vietnam War.

The basis for the movie We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson, this non-fiction book is told from eyewitness accounts by the men - both American and Vietnamese - who fought in that war. Written by the commander of the battalion Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.,) and the reporter on the ground, journalist Joseph L. Galloway, this book is basically about two battles - as a sister battalion of the 1st Battalion was also cut to pieces a few days later in the Ia Drang Valley in the first conventional battles of the Vietnam War with heavy casualties on both sides.

What got to me the most about reading the book was reading the list of names of the people who gave their lives for their country in the beginning of the book - especially when I read the names of the people who were local to me. The experiences of the 'Lost Platoon' were sad for me as I was thinking, "what if that was me?" This battle was also basically the first use of the 1st Calvary Division (Airmobile) - the first use of helicopters as a major aerial combat force in Vietnam. While reading about the helicopters, I kept on thinking about the book Chickenhawk by Robert Mason and of Mason's experiences of being a Huey helicopter pilot. One thing I learned in the book We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, that I did not know about the Vietnam War era, was that in the beginning of the war the Army was not set up to do casualty notification - so in Columbus, Georgia, Western Union used taxi-cab drivers to deliver the casualty telegrams to the soldiers relatives homes. The people in Columbus dreaded seeing the taxi-cabs driving around as a result. I know I would have dreaded seeing them as well. The book never really got into how the cab drivers felt, except for one cab driver getting drunk, but I can imagine that it must have been heart-breaking and tearing the cab drivers up inside as the drivers went out and performed this sad duty that was not originally in their job description.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

STORMBREAKER

speak
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Written by Anthony Horowitz

Copyright © 2000 by Anthony Horowitz, All rights reserved




In Stormbreaker, written by Anthony Horowitz, the British banker uncle of teenager Alex Rider is killed. Alex soon discovers that his uncle was not just killed in a car accident - but was murdered. His uncle's boss, Alan Blunt, then has Alex brought into "The Firm" and recruits teenaged Alex for something completely unexpected - as being an agent for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service - MI6.

The first of the young adult Alex Rider series, Alex, with his talent as a martial artist, is blackmailed by Blunt into now completing the counter terrorism mission Alex's secret agent uncle was on - finding out why a philanthropist, who is distributing new computers to schools across the country, had his uncle killed.

Of course, Alex was completely in the dark about his uncle's true occupation as an agent and was totally in shock about all of this. Alan Blunt, as the Chief of MI6 Secret Intelligence Service, is ruthless in that he blackmails teenager Alex and Alex's skills as a martial artist into being an agent for MI6, when Alex really is just a kid. Blunt really does not care about Alex as he sees and only uses Alex as a tool to be used for Her Majesty's Government's national security and economic well-being. Making Alex as a tool does not necessariliy gaurentee him to be a good intelligence officer - although he is - but Blunt does not seem to care.  Blunt also does not seem to be aware of, or care of, the political fallout to him and the agency if the news of Blunt using a kid as an agent for MI6 ever gets out to the public. You want Alex to be so good at his mission and confront the man who had killed his uncle - so that at the end of all this adventure, Alex can be justified in telling Blunt off and to go shove it so that Alex can go home and live out his life in peace.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

TEMPLE

St. Martin's Paperbacks


Written by Matthew Reilly


Copyright © 1999 by Matthew Reilly
Excerpt from Area 7 copyright 2002 by Matthew Reilly



In Matthew Reilly's Temple, American university linguist Professor William Race is recruited by the U.S. Army and brought to the jungles of Peru to translate a centuries-old manuscript that will lead to an Incan idol made from a meteorite  - whose extra-terrestrial properties are powerful enough to build a doomsday bomb.

With several competing military factions searching for the idol, including the U.S. Navy, a lot of action happens in this book when the doomsday bomb program is stolen from DARPA, the military's research facility. Race is in dire straights as all of the factions aggressively go after his academic talents. The book changes point of view several times as Race translates the manuscript, with the manuscript translation done in first person. When reading from the manuscript, the point of view of the manuscript/book then is from a monk who had traveled to the land of the Incan Empire and then the manuscript talks of the monk's escape from the Spanish conquistadors as well as his quest with the idol.

The fact that there are legendary large mutant-like pumas guarding the idol may throw some people off, but the pumas creates a natural peril in this story - besides the military factions and the native tribe as Race's antagonists - which I liked.

The excerpt for Matthew Reilly's Area 7, a Shane Schofield novel, shows the assassination of a senator and the man responsible for his assination, thus setting things up for what the book really is about - controlling the President of the United States.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.