Spanning almost a decade of Paul's life, this second installment of Larew's trilogy follows Paul from newlywed to war veteran. Military buffs and romance lovers alike will find much to love in this 20th century historical fiction novel.
A covert CIA mission gone sideways, a harrowing post-WWI transatlantic flight, and a research facility with “remote viewing” capabilities: three seemingly separate stories woven across time and locations bring us to the brink of an attack that would annihilate North America in this entertaining and suspenseful novel titled "Raven’s Run."Mechanical techies will enjoy Raven’s Run’s detailing of weaponry and engine mechanics on airplanes and ships, in both military and private use. Trudel challenges some widely held positions on climate change, Islam, the JFK assassination, Vietnam, international incidents occurring between WWII and today.
"The Inheritors" by Judith Kirscht is a novel of one woman grappling to find her cultural and personal identity. Tolerance of others and the need for communication is required from each of us is an overriding theme in this latest work of Kirscht that explores the complexities of human nature and family bonds.
In the summer of 1941, a ship approaches Honolulu. Watching on deck is young Army Lt. Paul Van Vliet, a 1936 graduate of Cornell University who then joined the US Army Signal Corps, in which he was trained in radar and radio/wire communications. WWII is well underway in Europe, and Japan has begun its imperial foraging for new territory in the Far East, but where will it stop? Could Japan envision an assault on US territories—or even the United States itself? Stepping up preparedness in Hawaii is underway. Karl Larew's excellent work of historical fiction starts with Paul Van Vliet's introduction to life and military duty in Hawaii. Paul's sister Dottie, married to pineapple and sugar plantation owner Sam Lauterbaugh, is delighted to have her younger brother so close and soon invites him to a dinner party. Paul is immediately attracted to another guest, Betty Lundstrom, wife of the often absent Navy Lt. Eric Lundstrom. The somewhat melancholy Betty is equally attracted to Paul. However, neither has any intention of a relationship beyond friendship based on a common interest in music and Paul's offer to give ukulele lessons to six-year-old Rosalie Lundstrom. On the duty side, Paul meets his superior officers, Capt. Bascom, as loose with his language as he is with his liquor, and Col. Tothill, very much the diplomat. Paul begins his assigned work—an assessment of what the Army Signal Corps in Hawaii might need to support a war in the Pacific. In the months [...]
The novel cleverly documents the contradictory and conservative morals of the 1950s. Readers will experience a world where female college students have curfews and male students don’t, unmarried individuals are expected to know nothing about sex, and religious tension is often swept under the rug. This novel intelligently and authentically explores the true nature of humans against the standard of this era’s “traditional family values” that come on the heels of the two great wars.
“Nowhere Else to Go” is a tightly woven and insistently engaging novel about racial prejudice and the blackboard jungle of the 1960s.