Book reviews

“Last of the Few,” by Max Arthur — 5 Stars!

May 27, 2017 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

If you like military history, and the Battle of Britain, this is a very remarkable book. It is not a narrative history. From cover to cover, it consists of long and short 1st person quotes from RAF pilots recounting missions they flew during the 4-5 month long Battle of Britain. It puts you in the cockpit with them, day after day as they take off and fight wave after wave of German fighters and bombers. To say it is riveting is putting it mildly. With typically dry British humor, they describe the chaos and confusion of fast dogfights, victories, defeats, and getting shot down by enemy planes they didn’t even see. Through it, you see their fears, not so much of dying, but of being badly wounded or perhaps badly burned or maimed. Pressure? Tension? Nothing less than the survival of Britain and ultimately the war itself was on their shoulders. Yet they somehow hung on, kept going up, and won the battle by holding off the German onslaught and not losing. Interestingly, Arthur was also able to get quotes from the Luftwaffe aces they were facing, and we get a nice picture of the problems they faced as well. It is a remarkable book.

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Never Go Back, a Jack Reacher Thriller by Lee Child Book Review

September 30, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

Everybody likes the Jack Reacher series. He is the no-nonsense hero of 17 of Lee Child’s action-adventure novels, two of which, including this one, Never Go Back, have been made into movies starring Tom Cruise. Cruise is an improbable pick to play Reacher, but the movies are very good, as are the books. I liked this one better than the last few. The story really pulls you in and the action is non-stop. Reacher, the ex-MP major hitches all the way from South Dakota to visit Major Susan Turner, the new CO of his old unit, the 110^th MPs in DC, only to discover that she’s in jail and some very dark

characters have taken over. Rather than go back out the way he came in and disappear again, (as Reacher would never do) he sticks around, breaks himself and her out of the stockade, and sets off with no money and no resources, not even shoe laces, to take on the entire Pentagon establishment and the FBI. With Reacher, that isn’t a fair fight. He and Turner travel back and forth across the country to track down a large drug smuggling operation that has been going on right under the Army’s noses. As usual, the action is nonstop and the writing spartan and no nonsense. Lee Child has never seen an adjective he likes or uses. It is all straight nouns and verbs. The only thing that made a big thud with me was the ending. Hiss Boo! I won’t give away plot spoiler, but a big basher like Reacher deserves enemies that rise to his stature, and who he personally bests in the end, not those two guys.

William F. Brown is the author of 8 suspense thrillers with over 500 Five-Star Reviews: Burke’s War, Burke’s Gamble, The Undertaker, Amongst My Enemies, Thursday at Noon, Winner Take All, and Aim True, My Brothers, and The Cold War Trilogy. They are all available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and now on Audible Audio Books. You read about them and the author’s screenplays and other writing at billbrownwritesnovels.wordpress.com

Foreign Influence, a Scott Harvath suspense thriller by Brad Thor

September 28, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

Brad Thor’s Scott Harvath series has become a must-read for action-adventure, suspense thriller fans looking for a good airplane or swimming pool book. His 16^th Scott Harvath book has just come out, and Foreign Influence is book #9 of the series. All of them are thick books, so he is banging them out. I’ve read most of them, and can attest that you don’t need to read them in order. I think one of the reasons this series sells well is that the main character,

Scott Harvath. He is the secret-secret agent, ex-Navy Seal, master of Black Ops who is working for The Carleton Group, a private company to whom the Defense Department has secretly “outsourced” the “go-kill-the-bad-guys” work they can’t legally do anymore budget. He’s the kind of agent we all hope this country would employ – one who goes out and hunts down the terrorists before they hurt us, and shoots first. Sadly, that’s exactly the kind we know it doesn’t employ, and probably shouldn’t. I think that’s Brad Thor’s view too, and, like Daniel Silva and a few others, he pulls no punches in his scathing commentary regarding US foreign and defense policy in the Middle East and how it lets the terrorist states push us around. Whether you subscribe to that view or not, the books are good reads. In addition to the non-stop action, there is a lot of violence, particularly directed at the bad guys, always on full-automatic. And there is torture, but usually of the “bomb is about to go off” type. He has created some unique minor characters, like “The Dwarf” and his big dogs, among others. Great literature? Hardly. But if you are sick or need a good suspense thriller swimming pool book, they are great. Just don’t over-think them.

Book Review – The Valhalla Exchange by Jack Higgins – suspense novels

September 24, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

“Jack Higgins” is the pseudonym of British writer Harry Patterson who lives on one of the Channel Islands, is 87 years old, and has and has now published a phenomenal 84 suspense novels. He is an experienced professional and prodigious writer who keeps banging them, but obviously, some are better than others. The all-time best is The Eagle Has Landed. Most of them center on WW II, Ireland,

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or an assassination, and they are all light and readable. Having read a decent number of his books, The Valhalla Exchange lies somewhere in the middle of the deck. Many of his stories use a literary device like of an old man telling a story in flashback, or a tombstone in a graveyard, as a way of transporting the reader back in time. This one takes up the long-time mystery of what ever happened to Martin Bormann. History says he was killed on the Weidendammer Bridge in central Berlin after escaping from the Bunker after Hitler killed himself. That story has many holes in it and there have been many reports of Bormann in South America long afterward. Higgins’ story has a disguised Bormann escaping south into Bavaria where he runs afoul of an American Army squad and a castle full of elderly political prisoners and generals. Well, the plot is a bit strange, but if you ignore that and like suspense novels, it makes a good airplane or read.

“Deadly Stillwater” suspense fiction by Roger Stelljes – Book Review

September 23, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

Roger Stelljes has now written six police procedural, suspense novels featuring Mac McRyan and his friends from the St. Paul Police Department. Deadly Stillwater is the third book in that series, series of action-adventure, suspense fiction set in St. Paul, Minnesota. No doubt, there will be more to come. Although series books are very much in vogue these days; I usually dislike them, because they all-too-often cheat the reader. I feel 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. By and large, Roger Stelljes’ excellent suspense fiction featuring

‘Mac’ McRyan and a cast of quirky St. Paul homicide detectives don’t do that. They are self-contained stories and you really don’t need to read them in sequence. While they are nominally cop stories, like Deadly Stillwater, Roger Stelljes they are much more action-adventure than police procedurals and fun reads. Think Mitch Rapp with a badge, shooting first and asking questions later. Because this series is set in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, they will always draw comparison to John Sandford’s highly successful “Prey” thriller novels. I think Stelljes’ books like “Deadly Stillwater” have considerably more action and running around (the characters are always running or racing somewhere), while Sandford’s have better suspense and character development, but both series are good reads. Roger Stelljes’ books are on Kindle, and you can frequently find them in the Kindle Countdown Sales. Pick one up, like “Deadly Stillwater.” They are great for the beach or a long airplane ride.

William F. Brown is the author of 5 suspense fiction 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 and my other book reviews at my web site Billbrownwritesnovels.wordpress.com

Book Review – The Valhalla Exchange suspense thriller by Jack Higgins

September 22, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

“Jack Higgins” is the pseudonym of very prolific British suspense novelist named Harry Patterson, who lives on one of the Channel Islands, is 87 years old, and has and has now published a phenomenal 84 spy novels. He is an experienced professional and prodigious writer who keeps banging them out, but obviously, some are better than others. His all-time best signature piece is The Eagle Has Landed, which was subsequently made into and equally good movie. Most of them center on WW II, Ireland, or an assassination, and they

are all light and readable, and not very complicated. Most of it is fairly straightforward good guys versus bad guys spy novels. Having read a decent number of his books, The Valhalla Exchange lies somewhere in the middle of the deck. Many of his stories use a literary device like of an old man telling a story in flashback, as he did here, or a tombstone in a graveyard, as a way of transporting the reader back in time. This one takes up the long-time mystery of what ever happened to Martin Bormann. History says Hitler’s secretive, but very powerful, Nazi Party Secretary was killed on the Weidendammer Bridge in central Berlin after escaping from the Bunker after Hitler killed himself. That story has many holes in it and there have been many reports of Bormann in South America long afterward. Higgins’ story has a disguised Bormann escaping south into Bavaria where he runs afoul of an American Army squad and a castle full of elderly political prisoners and generals. Well, the plot is a bit strange from that point, but if you ignore that, it makes a good spy novel to take on an airplane or to the swimming pool , nonetheless.

William F. Brown is the author of 8 spy novels with over 500 Five-Star Reviews: Burke’s War, Burke’s Gamble, The Undertaker, Amongst My Enemies, Thursday at Noon, Winner Take All, and Aim True, My Brothers, and The Cold War Trilogy. They are all available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and now on Audible Audio Books. You read about them and the author’s screenplays and other writing at billbrownwritesnovels.wordpress.com

Book Review – Tallahatchie by Rick DeStefanis – Good Fiction!

September 10, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

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

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

“Kane” by Steve Gannon – Book Review –

June 3, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

“Kane” – This police procedural novel is a very good blend of a police manhunt for a smart, vicious serial killer, who is every bit as nasty as Thomas Harris’s Francis Dolarhyde and Hannibal Lecter. That is juxtaposed by the extensive backstory of Kane, the LA Detective who is out to get him, and Kane’s family. Good suspense, and a good, reasonably unpredictable ending. I would also note that the cop part of the story is told in the 1st person, which adds a nice immediacy to the telling. Like virtually all police detective stories these days, the main protagonist must battle the idiots and politicos up the chain of command as much as he does with the perp.

If I have a quibble, it is that this has become terribly cliched, and the author paints quite a few of Kane’s LAPD supervisors as being too stupid, too incompetent, and too disruptive to be believable. In Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books, he also has enemies up the chain, but they are more subtle and devious, which adds to the challenges and the drama. I grew up with Chicago cops, and stupid just isn’t credible, even in LA. A second quibble is that if anything, the story spends a bit too much time on the backstory of the cop and his wife and kids. It’s well done and adds to the climax, but I would prefer more dogged, tough, nit-picking police work to break the case leading up to it. That said, Kane is a good book and a good read.

William F. Brown currently has eight international suspense novels of his own on Kindle, including the recent and popular Burke’s War and Burke’s Gamble the first two books in his Bob Burke series. You can read other reviews in the book review section on my website.

Book Review – Daniel Silva’s The English Spy – 5 Huge Stars!

May 28, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

The English Spy – Frankly, I did not find the last two or three of Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon novels to be up to his very high standard. However, whatever faults they had, The English Spy more than makes up for in spades. It’s is one of his very best — a complex, fast moving, character driven page-turner that

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continues and advances plot threads in a number of the recent books. As such, it brings back most of Allon’s old enemies, the Russians, the IRA, and the Iranians, as well as his old friends and allies. It also sweeps us back through familiar settings in London, the rocky coast of Cornwall, Belfast, “Bandit Country ” in Northern Ireland, Vienna, Lisbon, Corsica, Hamburg, and Israel, with lots of gunshots and bomb blasts in between. There’s enough story and real-world geopolitics in this book to provide four or five novels if he had wanted to structure it that way. Instead, Silva provides a roller coaster you really can’t miss, if you’re one of his big fans, which I am.

The author is obviously a strong supporter of Israel, and provides a very accurate picture of what’s happening in the Middle East today, particularly regarding Iran. It’s interesting to note that all of Allon’s closest allies are Brits. They are the story, as are the Russians in the Iranians. Nowhere in this mix, do we find a single American politician or spy, and Silva does not pull his punches about the current American administration, the mess it has created in the Middle East, and the simple fact that they have become both incompetent and irrelevant. That’s not fiction, and few people who have followed events over the last five years or so, could do anything but agree. But politics or not, The English Spy a great suspense novel. While Silva wraps up a number of plot threads, he leaves enough others alive and kicking to make us hope the next one be just as good as The English Spy.

William F Brown is the author of eight of his own action, suspense novels on Kindle, the latest of which are Burke’s War and Burke’s Gamble. See the book review tab on my website for more book reviews.

My Writing Blog – What to do with Pneumonia.

May 28, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

Thriller Book Reviews – I’ve been struggling with a bout of pneumonia for ten days and too tired to keep hacking away on the draft of my next novel; so, I set it aside and dove into my Kindle Fire, where I found Michael Connelly’s “The Crossing,”, Lee Child’s “A Wanted Man”, and Daniel Silva’s “The English Spy”… Harry Bosch, Jack Reacher, and Gabriel Allon… I wonder what I can contract next?

I have felt for many years that this triumvirate of mystery and suspense writers are the best in the business these days. The neat thing is that their styles could not be more different one from another. I love the Michael Connelly Harry Bosch books and watch his slow, careful, unwinding of the plot as Harry circles and traps the bad guys. In Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon, we watch a master chess player play 3-dimension international chess against terrorists, sweeping across borders from city to city to a conclusion where the bad guys usually end up dead. The dead part is equally true for Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, but he solves his conspiracies with a;; the subtlety of a sledge hammer. Al excellent, all great fun, the top three on my Beach Book thriller list… or the list of boosk to read when you get pneumonia.

The trick of course is to always have two or three of them downloaded on your Kindle Fire, or at least on your Kindle Wish List where you can immediately “break the glass” and grab one in the event of emergency, such as a rainy day, blizzard, or illness, without having to plow through the morning Kindle Daily Deals to find a good one.

Bill Brown is the author of eight mystery and suspense novels currently for sale on Kindle — Burke’s Gamble,” “Burke’s War,’ ‘The Undertaker,’ ‘Amongst My Enemies,’ ‘Thursday at Noon,’ “Aim True, My Brothers,’ ‘Winner Lose All,’ and ‘Cold War Trilogy.’ Enjoy! You can read my thriller book reviews at the Book Review tab on my website.

“A Wanted Man ” suspense thriller by Lee Child – Book Review

May 24, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

A Wanted Man – I’m not sure what Lee Child has against Nebraska and its surrounding states, but he has placed several recent novels in that setting. Not just Nebraska, but Nebraska in winter, with flat, cold, muddy, stubbly cornfields. This story, like a wanted man, is are dark, which fit precisely with the setting. It’s a little like that scene in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, where Cary Grant finds himself standing at that crossroads with absolutely nothing around him from horizon to empty horizon, except

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Child’s stories usually happen at night. Clearly, the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce needs to have a talk with him. Stylistically, Child seems to be writing stories that are as sparse and Spartan as the landscape — no character back-story, very few adjectives or adverbs, just straight action. After 18 books in the Jack Reacher series, no one needs any back story on him, but would be nice to better understand some of the other characters. Lee Child and Michael Connelly are my two favorite authors. That said, I do have two criticisms about this book. First, the back and forth car trips and plot moves about two thirds of the way through the book get pretty confusing. Secondly, as with several of his other recent books. We know absolutely nothing about the bad guys. In “A Wanted Man,” Reacher kills them all, but they have no face, and we never do get a clear picture of who they are or what they are doing, much less how Reacher figured it all out.

Book Review of Robert Tannenbaum’s “Tragic”

July 28, 2014 by William F. Brown

Book Review of Robert Tannenbaum’s “Tragic” by William F Brown. I used to love this series and read all of Tannenbaum’s excellent thriller novels and bought the new book as soon as it came out. Robert K. Tannenbaum has published 25 novels, perhaps a dozen of which feature crime busting New York City DA Butch Karp, his quirky, feisty, Italian wife Marlene Ciampi, their savant daughter, and there twin sons. The best of them were a fast-moving combination of detective story and courtroom drama, and they were all New York City. Invariably, Karp drove the story, taking the lead against one nasty bunch

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of bad guys after another, with his family providing fire support. True, the novels got a bit bloated and under edited in recent years; but book after book they were great reads as long as Tannenbaum stuck to the basic formula of great characters, lots of action, a nasty crime, and enough twists and turns to serve as a plot. It isn’t that “Tragic” doesn’t have some of that, it just doesn’t have enough of it. The family seems to take an extended vacation. And for some reason he has decided that “On the Waterfront” meets “MacBeth” can pass for a plot. I don’t mind the “On the Waterfront” part nearly as much as I mind the inexplicable allusions to “MacBeth,” complete with three witches standing around a fire. All of the good suspense writers seem to go through dry patches, and “Tragic” could well be one of them. That would be ‘tragic,’ but we loyal readers will continue to stick with the brand, hoping the Golden touch returns in the next one ─ up to a point.

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 can read this review and others at billbrownwritesnovels.wordpress.com