SEPTEMBER HOPE: THE AMERICAN SIDE OF A BRIDGE TOO FAR by John C. McManus

Operation Market-Garden was one of the strangest battles of World War II. A bold stroke to win the war early engineered by a General for whom bold strokes were anathema, poorly planned, poorly executed, well fought by the men who had to try and win the battle for the glory-hound who planned it. It was, frankly, a mess, brought about because Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery did wanted to allow Lt. General George S. Patton the 'glory' of crossing the Rhine River before he did, a feat Patton would have achieved had he been given the supplies that Montgomery requisitioned for Market-Garden.

Montgomery was known for set-piece battles, not improvisational ones planned in a hurry, in other words he was not Patton, and so the Commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight Eisenhower, should have known better than to endorse Monty's plan. But Eisenhower made a number of crucial and historic mistakes during the war, and this was one of them.

The battle was memorialized in the outstanding war film 'A Bridge Too Far', but of necessity it concentrated on the British contribution, since it was a British operation and the British 6th Airborne Division was almost wiped out as a result. The American side of things has been neglected, but not now.

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September Hope

The American Side of a Bridge Too Far

John C. McManus - Author

Hardcover | $27.95 | add to cart | view cart

ISBN 9780451237064 | 512 pages | 05 Jun 2012 | NAL | 9.25 x 6.25in | 18 - AND UP

Reviews for September Hope An Excerpt from September Hope

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In September Hope, acclaimed historian John C. McManus explores World War II’s most ambitious invasion, an immense, daring offensive to defeat Nazi Germany before the end of 1944. Operation Market-Garden is one of the war’s most famous, but least understood, battles, and McManus tells the story of the American contribution to this crucial phase of the war in Europe.August 1944 saw the Allies achieve more significant victories than in any other month over the course of the war. Soviet armies annihilated more than twenty German divisions and pushed the hated enemy from Russia to deep inside Poland. General Eisenhower’s D-Day Invasion led to the liberation of France. Encouraged by these triumphs, British, Canadian and American armored columns plunged into Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. The Germans were in disarray, overwhelmed on all fronts, losing soldiers by the thousands as Allied bombers pulverized their cities. For the Third Reich it seemed the end was near. Rumors swirled that the war would soon be over and that everyone would be home for Christmas.Then came September, and Holland.On September 17, the largest airborne drop in military history commenced—including two entire American divisions, the 101st and the 82nd. Their mission was to secure key bridges at such places as Son, Eindhoven, Grave and Nijmegen until British armored forces could relieve them. The armor would slash northeast, breech the Rhine and go wild on the north German plains. However, the Germans were much stronger than the Allies anticipated. In eight days of ferocious combat, they mauled the airborne, stymied the tanks and prevented the Allies from crossing the Rhine. For the first time, using never-before-seen sources and countless personal interviews, September Hope reveals the American perspective on one of the most famous and decisive battles of World War II.

THE CHICAGO WAY by Michael Harvey

One of the better PI novels I've read, I wrote this review about 5 years ago but the book is still relevant.

THE CHICAGO WAY by Michael Harvey. Everything old is new again,

as the saying goes. But what if it was bad to begin with? Would it be better? That theme underlies the chaos of Michael Harvey’s first novel, but as for the novel itself it is, fortunately, a moot point.

Harvey uses just about every PI novel plot device you can think of, but he does two key things that make them work: first, he only borrows inspiration from the best, and second, he writes one wickedly good book. The Chicago Way starts about like you expect a book titled The Chicago Way to start, with protagonist PI Michael Kelly leaning back in his office chair, feet propped on his desk, having a drink; Raymond Chandler, anyone? Dashiel Hammett? Yes and no. Michael Kelly is drinking Earl Grey tea.

And who walks through his door? No, not a buxom blonde. Not yet, anyway. Instead, it’s his former partner on the Chicago PD, who is working on a case leftover from his days on the force and is seeking Kelly’s help. Before long the partner is dead and Kelly is the prime suspect. Sam Spade, anyone? And before Kelly’s bruises from the investigating Chicago homicide cops have really started turning purple, who drops by his office? Why, a blonde with a gun, of course.

But despite Harvey’s steeping in the lore of great crime fiction past, this is no mere knock-off of the all-time greats by a hack looking to sell a few fast books. From the opening sentence the astute reader can pick out the influences of other writers and not care less; the author is in command from the outset. Spare prose is a given, but nice turns of phrase and hidden surprises are not. Kelly reads Greek classics. For fun. And in the original Greek. He drinks, he smokes, he uses a computer. The style and construction are straight from the 40's, and the villian(s) could be the grandchildren of some of Raymond Chandler’s best bad guys, but the viewpoint is 21^st century bleak, with just a hint of optimism. Let’s call is 21^st Century noir.

Kelly soon finds himself chasing leads that turn bad, people die, and it’s his fault. Who can he really trust in the gathering maze, and who is his client? It’s a mess, a bloody mess, and the surprise ending has the same shock value as with all great crime novels. Sam Spade wouldn’t really turn over his girl-friend, would he? Yes, he would. And a first time writer like Michael Harvey couldn’t really write this good of a book, could he? Yes. He could. And he did.

DEAD SILENCE by Randy Wayne White

One of the five favorite crime fiction series is Randy Wayne White's 'Doc Ford' novels, and this book is indicative of why.

DEAD SILENCE by Randy Wayne White.

Marion Ford, aka ‘Doc’, had always led something of a schizophrenic life. That’s par for the course when your mainstream job, the one the outside world knows about, is that of a marine biologist, and your shadow job is that of a covert operative who is, more often than not, an assassin. Sometimes it can be hard to separate the two. And so it is in ‘Dead Silence.’

Doc is in New York City for a meeting with his covert boss and uses the occasion to see his new friend, with occasional benefits, the powerful and attractive Senator Barbara Hayes-Sorrento. Unfortunately, just as her limousine is pulling to the curb in front of the Explorer’s Club, where Doc is waiting, an ambush aimed at kidnapping the senator unfolds. Doc springs into action and saves her from the bad guys, but he can’t save the 14 year old boy who is her guest in the limousine, a displaced young Indian who won a writing contest (by cheating) and is taken instead of the Senator. It soon becomes apparent that the boy is to be buried alive unless the government forks over some documents taken from Cuba after Castro died. Of course, the bad guys don’t know it yet, but snatching the boy was the biggest mistake they ever made.

Will Chaser is no ordinary 14 year old, although that could be bad enough. Will knows how to do things, and Will gets mad. When Will gets mad, bad things happen. Still, he is only 14 and the kidnappers are very bad people. Doc feels responsible for his kidnapping and vows to get him back alive, and to make the bad guys pay. Don’t they always?

The 16th Doc Ford novel finds author White in comfortable overdrive mode. There is the usual solid plot, the insightful dialogue, the quirky but dangerous secondary characters and, not least, Tomlinson. Doc’s offbeat best friend plays a prominent part in this book, but in the end it’s all just an excuse to bring even more fascinating characters into Doc’s immediate circle. Despite the action, despite the dead-on descriptions, these books are at heart about the characters, their motivations and their stories. ‘Dead Silence’ is no different. Thank goodness.

Spade & Archer by Joe Gores - A Review

Here's my take on this prequel to The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett

SPADE & ARCHER by Joe Gores

The Maltese Falcon is surely the greatest noir movie ever made, if not the greatest PI flick of all time. And the book is even better, fleshing out some of the movie’s necessarily brief references. They were so good that admirers might find themselves wondering if they were dreaming. Dashiel Hammett knew his subjects, knew their history and their relationships. His audience, however, did not. We could sense it in both the book and the movie, but we could not actually see it. That is, until now. Joe Gores has given us Spade & Archer, the Prequel to The Maltese Falcon. The stuff dreams are made of.

Bad puns aside, this is one fine book. Before beginning, the reader needs to remember that the book of The Maltese Falcon was set in 1928, while the movie was in 1940. Gores’ prequel starts in 1921, with World War 1 veteran Spade back at his old job with Continental Detective Agency, a Continental Op, and dreaming of having his own office. Moving from Seattle to San Francisco he quickly settles in and, soon enough, we meet the faithful Effie Perine and the slick but grumpy lawyer, Sid Wise. Miles Archer is already in the cast, too, and it isn’t long before Sam gets chummy with Miles’ wife, Iva. For fans of the Falcon, the background stories, the tying up of loose ends and filling in the blanks, are almost as much fun as the actual story. And a good story it is, too.

The San Anselmo is just another freighter plying the long Pacific route from California to Australia, until a shipment of gold sovereigns is stolen from her safe. Sam happens to be first on the scene, which makes him suspicious to plodding police sergeant Dundy, promoted by the time of the Falcon to Lieutenant Dundy, and his loyal partner Tom Polhaus. (I dare you not to picture Ward Bond when you see Polhaus on the page.) But wise-cracking Spade won’t be pinned down so easily and he soon knows the master-mind behind the theft: a mysterious man named St. James McPhee, who has conveniently disappeared. And when three guys try to take him down late one night on the waterfront, Spade knows he’s on the right track. Spade, being Spade, escapes danger. Others do not. Whoever McPhee is, he’s a ruthless killer.

McPhee is a slippery character, though, and Spade loses the trail. Years pass, other cases come and go, the firm of Samuel Spade, Esq., prospers. But in the back of his mind Spade knows there is still a killer on the loose, and he’s going to find him.

Those reading Spade & Archer to nitpick and compare it to the original might be able to do so. There will probably be some such. But those who read it wanting fast, hard-boiled fun, will have a much better time. Gores even let’s us know that he has a sense of humor: late in the book Spade uses a pseudonym that will be familiar to all Hammett fans. And the last page is, well, the perfect tie-in to the Falcon.

PANZER-GUNNER by Bruno Friesen

PANZER GUNNER: FROM MY NATIVE CANADA TO THE GERMAN OSTFRONT AND BACK, IN ACTION WITH 25^THTH PANZER REGIMENT, 7 PANZER DIVISION 1944-45 by Bruno Friesen. Helion, 2008.

Imagine you were were a teenage boy in 1930's Canada, a vast land with a sparse population and a decidedly North American view of the world. Food is plentiful, jobs are good, natural resources are abundant...but then, one day, your dad moves back to his native land and you have no choice but to go with him.

To Germany.

Nazi Germany on the verge of going to war.

You are immediately enrolled in school, which is hard because you don't speak German. And Nazi Germany is not a free country like Canada, where you may go almost anywhere you wish, whenever you wish and do whatever you wish once you get there. In Nazi Germany you do what you are told.

So when war comes, when Nazi Germany attacks countries that did not threaten it, you suddenly find yourself learning how to aim weapons at people who have never done anything to you. Such is the situation Friesen found himself in during World War II.

This fascinating book is an inside look at life inside of a German AFV, Armored Fighting Vehicle, fighting the Russians on the Eastern Front. In his case, the AFV was first a Mark IV tank, then a tank-destroyer. For the hard-core buff there is a wealth of material here on how you actually aimed the main battery on an AFV, the algorithms involved and the targeting procedures; if you aren't a buff it tends to slow down the narrative a bit, but the action scenes are priceless.

There are very few books from the German side with the immediacy and poignancy of this book, and it is highly recommended for anyone who wants a closer look at life inside a panzer.

Book Description from the Publisher: There are few memoirs available of German Panzer crews that focus on the climactic last 12 months of the war on the Eastern Front, 1944-45. What makes Bruno Friesen's account virtually unique is his family background: his parents came from a German-speaking Mennonite community in Ukraine, and were to all intents and purposes culturally German. To make matters even more complex, in 1924 his parents left the Ukraine for Canada, where Bruno was born. In March 1939 he and his brother Oscar found themselves on a ship bound for Bremerhaven in Germany. He barely spoke German, and had never been to Germany, nevertheless his father envisaged that a better life awaited them in the Third Reich. Needless to say, Bruno became caught up in the Second World War, and in 1942 was drafted into the Wehrmacht. The author provides a full account of his family background, and how, through these unusual circumstances, he found himself a Canadian-born German soldier. The bulk of the book is a detailed account of the author's training, and his subsequent service with 25th Panzer Regiment, part of 7th Panzer Division. As the title suggests, Bruno Friesen served as a gunner aboard, initially, Panzer IVs, before crewing the lesser-known Jagdpanzer IV tank hunter. The author provides a fantastic amount of information about these two vehicles, and how the crews actually fought in battle with them. This kind of 'hands-on' detail has almost never been available before, particularly such extensive information concerning the characteristics and combat performance of the Jagdpanzer IV. Apart from providing a large fund of information about specific German tanks and their combat performance, the author writes in great detail about the combat the experienced on the Eastern Front, including tank battles in Rumania, spring 1944, Lithuania in the summer of 1944, and West Prussia during early 1945. If one wants to know how German tank crews fought the Soviets in the last year of the war, then this book provides an outstanding account, containing material simply not found elsewhere. The author closes his account by reflecting on his post-war efforts to return to Canada, which eventually succeeded in 1950, and his subsequent life there. This book is not just a critique of armored fighting vehicles and tank warfare, it is above all a very human story, told in a lively, conversational and fluid manner, and is a remarkable contribution to the literature of the Second World War.

Bye Bye Baby by Max Allan Collins

BYE BYE, BABY by Max Allan Collins.

There are few figures in Hollywood history more iconic than Marilyn Monroe, and few Hollywood deaths more mysterious than hers. Even the most casual reader of her death and its subsequent investigation has to come away thinking that the LAPD of 1962 was grossly incompetent, at best; at worst, there is reasonable cause to think that they covered up her murder.

Enter Private Investigator Extraordinaire Nate Heller, hero of multiple novels in Max Allan Collins’ long-running series and no stranger to world-famous historical figures and their mysterious fates. Collins has created nearly the perfect vehicle for writing fascinating non-fiction books without actually writing non-fiction. Heller began his career in the Chicago of the 1920s, frequently walking the tight-rope between befriending Chicago’s mobsters while not (completely) alienating the honest cops. Along the way he has been involved in everything from the Lindberg kidnapping to being a bodyguard for Amelia Earhart, has met everyone from the real-life Charlie Chan to Frank Sinatra. His life has been interesting, to say the least.

But what makes a new Nate Heller novel so compelling is the often ground-breaking research Collins does for his topic. When Nate became involved in the Black Dahlia case, Collins’ research was so thorough that 2 new non-fiction books on the case had to be delayed to incorporate his new findings, and it is precisely this verisimilitude that drives the Heller series from being merely entertaining to the level of must-reads.

And so, when Heller is hired by Marilyn Monroe and begins to move in circles that include Bobby and John Kennedy, Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford, the reader believes what he or she is reading, and so believes the incredible conclusion that Collins eventually reveals. This latest entry, 10 years in the waiting, is as good as any others in the series and comes highly recommended by this reviewer.