BOOK REPORTS—

Escape from the Deep by Alex Kershaw

By October 1944 the US Navy submarine Tang already was legendary. It had sunk more enemy ships, rescued more downed airmen and pulled off more daring surface attacks than any other allied submarine in the Pacific Theater of WW II. Then on her 5th patrol, one of her own torpedoes malfunctioned with a “circular run” and sunk her—leaving only 9 survivors. This is their amazing story of survival.


From Sea to Shining Sea by James A. Thom

An exhaustive but hugely informative 931 pages set in Virginia in the mid 1700s on the Clark family. Son George Rogers Clark led the army that took all the land from the Allegheny Mountains to the Mississippi River from the British. Younger son William later joins Meriwether Lewis in leading the expedition that bore their names and claimed all the territory to the Pacific Ocean for their new country. Another of Thom’s meticulously researched historical novels.


Nightwalkers by P. T. Deutermann

In this guy’s earlier works story lines were quite fresh and the kind of reads you did not want to put down. While he did not achieve the popularity of Tom Clancy; just like Clancy, Deutermann ran out of gas. This one was ho hum at best.


Out of Captivity by Gary Brozek

This book chronicles one of the longest civilian hostage crises in US history. Civilian employees in the country’s war on drugs were held by terrorists for 1,967 days in the Colombian jungle. That’s just short of 5 and ½ years. Their spotter plane crashed in February 2003 and they were prisoners of Marxist rebels until their rescue by the Colombian Army.