William F. Brown

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Book Review

Book Review – Tallahatchie by Rick DeStefanis – Good Fiction!

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I have read and reviewed/ rated several of the author’s Vietnam novels and thought they were good fiction and rated right up there with Fields of Fire, A Rumor of War, or my favorite, The 13th Valley.  I was there, and he did a very good job of creating for the reader the sights, smells, and feel of that place and time, as well as

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drawing some very well-rounded characters. In Tallahatchie, I think he’s the one who did the rounding out as a very good writer. I’ve never spent much time in the Mississippi Delta (and I’m not sure I want to), but this book saves me the trip. It captures that region today, complete with run down factories,  small towns, diner food, waitresses, Delta blues, racism, rednecks, pick up trucks, and all the rest, with a cast of marvelously original characters, as the protagonist, Jack Hartman, leaves the modern world and heads to the Delta to ‘save’ a hopelessly run down factory. I spent two college summers working in a place just like that, and the author nails that too. His characters are the key. At its heart, good fiction (southern or any other kind) is about good characters, half fo whom you want to smack or laugh at, and all the action, feel, or setting won’t make up for weak ones. The author can call this ‘southern fiction’ if he wants, although I’m not sure what that means other than he absolutely nails a time and a region and it is a very well written story. I don’t want to give ti the ‘kiss-of-death’ label of ‘serious fiction,’ because it is simply a really good novel. Period!

William F. Brown is the author of eight suspense novels, including Burke’s Gamble, Burke’s War, and The Undertaker, exclusively available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited

‘Freedom’s Forge’ by Arthur Herman – How US Industry and WW II

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“Freedom’s Forge” is an excellent book and a must read for anyone interested in business history. It is the story of how US business ramped up from a dead start during the depression and produced all those tanks, airplanes, and ships that won WW II not only for the United States but for Great Britain and Russia as well. It is the story of many people, but primarily Bill Knudsen, the assembly line expert and President of GM who Roosevelt called in 1940 to organize war production, and of Henry Kaiser, master builder and the father of the Victory and Liberty Ships and the west coast shipyards. It is the

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story of B-17s, B-29s, tanks, guns, Rosie the Riveter, and mobilization of the US car companies. The weapons design, redesign, manufacturing plant layout, union problems, Washington politics, shortages of raw material, and every other problem you can think of is an amazing story of good triumphing over stupid. It is also the story of how determined businessmen like Knudsen fought interference from government bureaucracies, Congress, labor unions, and even the white house to get the job done to supply not only the US, but Great Britain and Russia as well. By the end of the war, GM alone outproduced Germany, Japan and Italy put together, and we can see in hindsight that Japanese Admiral Yamamoto was right. They had indeed awakened a ‘sleeping giant;’ and when Freedom’s Forge began producing arms, they did, they never stood a chance.

William F. Brown is the author of 5 suspense novels with over 300 Five-Star Reviews: The Undertaker, Amongst My Enemies, Thursday at Noon, Winner Take All, and now Aim True, My Brothers. They are all available on Kindle and now on Audible Audio Books. You read about them at billbrownwritesnovels.wordpress.com

Book Review – Dress Her in Indigo – John D. McDonald

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A book review by Bill Brown of John D McDonald’s Travis McGee mystery story,  “Dress Her in Indigo.”   I think I discovered John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee thriller novels when I was a senior in high school and devoured all 21 at least once. Travis McGee is the prototypical knight errant and John D MacDonald is the master of weaving a slow, easily told Florida mystery. At the time, they were breaths

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of fresh, exciting air from one of the prolific giants in the mystery-suspense field with over 78 books to his credit. His lead character, Travis McGee is an errant knight with a deep concern for the environment and a sense of fairness. He can’t abide brutality or wrongs that need righting, and he usually figures out a way to fix them. Unfortunately, MacDonald died in 1986. While the Travis McGee mystery series remained available in paperback, Amazon wasn’t able to bring out Kindle editions until earlier this year. Regrettably, they are prices at $9.99, which is a bit high. The stories remain good reads, but after a steady diet of Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Daniel Silva, David Baldacci, Dennis Lehane, Vince Flynn, and others, I found Dress Her in Indigo a bit dated and slow. In his day, he took the craft to a new level, but a lot of new writers have now passed him by. Still, without the Travis McGee mystery series, there would be no Jack Reacher; and John D. McDonald is always worth a read.”

William F. Brown is the author of 5 thriller novels with over 300 Five-Star Reviews: The Undertaker, Amongst My Enemies, Thursday at Noon, Winner Take All, and now Aim True, My Brothers. They are all available on Kindle and now on Audible Audio Books. You can read about his books and find more book review at billbrownwritesnovels.wordpress.com

The Colonel’s Mistake by Dan Mayland – Book Review

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The Colonel’s Mistake by Dan Mayland ,  is the first book in a three book series featuring Mark Sava, the aging, low key, former CIA Station Chief in Azerbaijan in former Soviet Central Asia. You can’t get much more backwater than that. Sava has stayed on as a consultant living in Baku, the country’s hot, dusty, corrupt capital. He gets dragged into a friend’s kidnapping, an attempted coup in Iran, and a proposed Chinese oil pipeline. Think George Smiley, not James Bond or Mitch Rapp. Like the rest of the countries in that area,

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Azerbaijan has become a pawn in the 21st Century version of “the Great Game” of oil, international politics, intrigue, corruption, and espionage between Russia, Iran, China, and the US. With twists, flips, and turns, that is the real life screen upon which Mayland’s The Colonel’s Mistake thriller novel project. I have no doubt that his complex, seamy, and corrupt picture of the region is spot on, as I have no doubt that our current State Department wizards don’t begin understand any of it. Too bad the wizards in Washington never read history or even Rudyard Kipling. Any of that could have kept us out of a number of recent wars from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Series books are very much in vogue these days. which makes a book review difficult. I usually dislike them, because I feel they all-too-often cheat the reader. To me, a story should be distinct and complete from cover to cover and not simply a teaser to get the reader to buy yet another book. I don’t know how the next books in Mayland’s series will work out, but after The Colonel’s Mistake, I intend to read more of them.

William F. Brown is the author of 5 suspense novels with over 300   Five-Star Reviews: The Undertaker, Amongst My Enemies, Thursday at Noon, Winner Take All, and now Aim True, My Brothers available on Kindle and Audible Audio Books. You can read about them and my book review of this and other books at billbrownwritesnovels.wordpress.com

Book Review – “First To Kill” by Peterson – Action Adventure

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“First to Kill” is the first book in what is now a four book series of action adventure thriller novels from Andrew Peterson featuring the lead character, Nathan McBride. He is a cerebral CIA Special Ops contractor and ex-Marine sniper who is still healing from an earlier mission that went badly wrong. McBride gets called out to help the FBI track down the grandson of a retired FBI director who has gone missing on an undercover assignment

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to penetrate a radical white supremacist, arms smuggling group. Series books are very much in vogue these days. I usually dislike them, because I feel they all-too-often cheat the reader. To me, a story should be distinct and complete from cover to cover and not simply a teaser to get the reader to buy yet another book. I don’t know how the next three books in this action adventure series will work out, but First to Kill is a crackling good action-adventure story. Peterson does a very good job on the two main criteria to achieve that ─ he has created a unique, compelling main character, and an excellent, twisting and turning story line. In Nathan McBride, we have a thoughtful, quiet, and very lethal ex-Marine who thinks before he acts. Four a change ─ unlike Mitch Rapp, Scot Horvath, or a long list of others ─ the bullets don’t bounce off this guy, or anyone else in the story. They get hit, they bleed, and the often die. First to Kill isn’t just another action adventure shoot-em up, it is good well-crafted fiction. I will read more of these, and so should you ─ great for the beach, pool, or long airplane ride.

William F. Brown is the author of 5 action adventure thriller novels of his own, with over 300 Five-Star Reviews: The Undertaker, Amongst My Enemies, Thursday at Noon, Winner Take All, and now Aim True, My Brothers. They are all available on Kindle and now on Audible Audio Books. You read about them at billbrownwritesnovels.wordpress.com