No Greater Love by John A. Siegfried and Kevin Ferris

The November 1968 Vietnam War battle for Nui Chom Mountain, in which PFC Michael Crescenz lost his life at age 19, lasted for a week. Midway through it, Crescenz’s Americal Division’s 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry company walked into an ambush and was pinned down. One G.I. was killed instantly and four wounded.

Chaos reigned until PFC Crescenz grabbed an M60 machinegun and advanced on the nearest machinegun bunker. He killed the men in it and disabled their weapon. He then attacked two more bunkers with the same result. Wounded in the thigh, Crescenz shielded a medic tending to a casualty under fire and said, “I got this, doc. No problem,” then advanced on a fourth bunker and was mortally wounded.

Military historian John A. Siegfried and former Philadelphia Inquirer editor and columnist Kevin Ferris tell the story of Michael Crescenz’s uncommon valor in No Greater Love: The Story of Michael Crescenz, Philadelphia’s Only Medal of Honor Recipient of the Vietnam War (Casemate, 190 pp. $26.86, hardcover; $20.95, Kindle).

Crescenz was the second of six brothers, all of whom grew up and attended the same Catholic schools in Philadelphia. The authors recreate the boys’ childhoods based on interviews with many of their neighbors. They flesh out Michael Crescenz’s two months in-country out with letters he sent home and interviews they did with his fellow soldiers.

While growing up, Michael and his brother Charles excelled in everything they tried. They were outstanding athletes, tough competitors, and protectors of the bullied. Their West Oak Lane neighborhood was the core of their world. After graduating from high school, Charles enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Vietnam; Michael later joined the Army. Their father had served in World War II and their grandfather in World War I.

In parallel with Michael Crescenz’s story, the authors include an informative history of the Medal of Honor. A chapter on a 1970 posthumous MOH presentation by President Nixon for the families of 21 Vietnam War recipients—including Michael Crescenz—highlights the power the medal bestows today.

In 1968, he was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, a six-minute drive from where he grew up. Later his brother Joe replaced Michael’s plain gravestone with a government-issued white marble marker.

That change was not enough for Joe Crescenz, though, after he visited Arlington National Cemetery where more than 400 Medal of Honor recipients are interred. So he enlisted his brothers in a campaign to move Michael’s body to Arlington.

Initially, the plan met strong opposition from federal administrators. But a Catholic bishop intervened and made all the arrangements, from exhumation to reburial.

After more than a week of ceremonies that included motorcades and convoys, old comrades lay Michael Crescenz to rest in Arlington National Cemetery in 2008. The authors recreate these events with deeply moving recollections from the men involved.

Since then, many organizations have honored Michael Crescenz. Most notably, in 2014, the VA hospital in Philadelphia was renamed the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. A larger-than-life statue of Michael in full combat gear holding an M60 stands guard at the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The book’s array of excellent color photographs adds additional distinction to Michael’s short life.

—Henry Zeybel

Girl from the Racetrack by Robert Brundrett

Robert Brundrett enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1969. He was sent to South Vietnam, where he served as an adviser to the South Vietnamese Navy. He spent time at river and coastal-support bases and worked for the Navy Construction Bureau in Saigon.

Those experiences inspired his novel, Girl from the Racetrack (Orange Frazier Press, 254 pp. $22.95, paper).Joe Savage, who roomed with main character Charlie Strickland in college, tells the story of his buddy’s romance with a South Vietnamese woman after the men are reunited in South Vietnam in 1972.

Charlie, whose job is working with the South Vietnamese Navy on a design for a swift river craft, grew up with a love for horses, especially race horses. In Saigon, he goes to Phu Tho Race Track to take in the action. That’s where he meets a jockey named Kim and her trainer and father, Binh.

Charlie is invited to visit the family on their horse farm. Romance is in the air immediately, but first the bond must winds up being forged in adversity as Charlie and Kim get a friend out of jail and barely survive a mortar attack. Later, they hide in a barn during the NVA’s Easter Offensive. Their escape involves horses, naturally. The romance proceeds fairly smoothly, but there are snags below the calm surface. After all, this is a fictional romance.

Part of the intrigue is Kim’s brother Bao, who may be a Viet Cong operative, and Charlie may be spying on him. There’s also Charlie questioning what we are doing in Vietnam and wondering if South Vietnam wouldn’t be better off reunited. Although he doesn’t let his misgivings affect his relations with Kim’s family, an Ugly American character—Charlies’ racist superior—believes that the Vietnamese people are inferior and not worth the effort.

I assume this story of Charlie and Kim was either inspired by a romance that the author was involved in or that he knew the couple. Building on that, this is a rare time when I would have wished for a true story to be more enhanced for entertainment purposes.

I review a lot of war movies, some based on true stories. Usually, those movies are not good history lessons because they stray too far from their source material. In this case, I wish Brundrett had jazzed the story up a bit. The plot teases some espionage, but doesn’t deliver.

Aside from a couple of danger-filled moments, Charlie and Kim’s romance goes pretty smoothly. The greatest hurdle the couple have is navigating the red tape necessary to get Kim to America.

The war is on the periphery in this book; it seldom takes center stage. Charlie’s job is far from the jungle. Which makes Girl from the Racetrack an unchallenging story set in a war. But Brundrett is a competent writer, and if you are a romantic and don’t want death to seep into your novel reading, you might like this book.

–Kevin Hardy

Savage Pastures by John Partin

Savage Pastures: Poems of Strife and the Vietnam War (71 pp. $8.99, paper; $4.99, Kindle), by John Partin is a collection of poems about the war, bookended by verses about struggling to survive working in the red-dirt rural South. From 1966-72 Partin was a finance officer for a bank on contract with the Marine Corps. That work included duty as a financial liaison for U.S. Marines in South Vietnam and their families back home. That put Partin in contact with many of the men in-country, as well as families of those who didn’t make it home from the war.

In “A Train to Catch,” a young man has enlisted in the military and preparing to do his part in the Second World War:

As the world blackened in war,

A cancerous presence that so radically changed our lives.

And then:

Into the gathering darkness.

The time was here.

The train was coming.

Almost eerily, the trees changed into looming immobile spheres.

Long shadows draped Warren, a horrible enveloping foreboding.

Once we arrive in the Vietnam War, there is “Pastures to Lie In.”: Medics in helmets of white crosses/Screaming-pushing multiple compresses to/Land mined ghosts of legs

In “Homeless,” a Vietnam War veteran is wearing an Army green coat, faded, frayed/Sargent striped remembrance of life

All the while, he is living in An America grown silent/To men of war

In “War Death”:

And the go-go bars of Court Street in Jacksonville,/Where Vietnam comes back/In black light and pulsating probe,/Illuminating the dancers

In “Dragonfly”:

A dragonfly

Hovering in iridescent bluish splendor.

The flurry of wings

Etching a beating helicopter blade memory

Rooftop staccato rhythm to belching bullet casings

Blazing streams into Vietnam rice paddies

The mounted door gun a death appendage

Hunting peasants working, defecating in fields.

The first killing an ethereal horror

That evolved to lust.

In “Distant Thunder”:

War cannon lighted nights

Explosive chaos.

Fear.

And deserted prayer.

Prayer screamed in horror

Until the heart closed to faith.

Lost. Abandoned. Devoured.

By war.

In “Butterflies of Vietnam” we read these hauntingly beautiful lines:

Menacing cobra head in a bottle

On a half-broken shelf

Once in a brothel in Saigon,

The brothel a searching last hope of angel’s touch

To minds no longer able to feel

And eyes no longer able to see

The unseen coiled terror of days.

And now,

The chopper landed

And butterflies returned

Floating white to the field.

There is death in John Partin’s poems—in combat and in the rooms of a VA Medical Center. This is a short but solid collection that holds up well on rereading.

–Bill McCloud

We Had to Get Out of That Place by Steven Grzesik

“I was young and lived by impulsive decisions, Steven Grzesik admits midway through We Had to Get Out of That Place: A Memoir of Redemption and Betrayal in Vietnam (McFarland, 215 pp. $29.95, paper; $13.49, Kindle). Grzeski served two tours in the Vietnam War as a Light Weapon Infantryman at Dau Tieng, a Ranger with the 25^th Infantry Division at Cu Chi, and a helicopter door gunner at Chu Lai. The book reflects the torturing of human spirit as revelatory as any I have read.           

With the concentration of a clinical psychiatrist, Grzesik analyzes his youthful exposure to warfare. As a skinny and bullied New York City kid, he escaped tough guys, uncaring parents, and poverty by moving to Greenwich Village and joining the counterculture until he suffered a psychotic reaction to LSD. On being drafted in 1967 at age 20, he says, “I was rescued by the Army. The rigors of basic training hardened me mentally and physically.” Outshining his draftee peers instilled him with confidence.        

Grzesik challenged many of his officers and NCOs. With an outsider’s mentality, he says, “I just was never in well enough to be buddies with any superior.” Nor was he subtle about displaying his feelings. He once aimed his M16 at a sergeant who treated him unfairly and pointed an unsheathed machete at another sergeant who physically threatened him. Later, Grzesik punched a lieutenant who insisted on making him obey a regulation overlooked by virtually everybody else. In lieu of a court-martial, he accepted a second tour of duty in Vietnam.

Despite the conflicts that Grzesik instigated, he was a conscientious soldier. He hated officers and NCOs because of the way they treated new personnel, particularly in Vietnam War field operations. He despised the FNG label. He felt that officers had the rank, but enlisted men did the work. He believed that superior rank provided no excuse for taking advantage of lower-level soldiers and called it out.     

The sincerity with which We Had to Get Out of That Place looks back on the Vietnam War overwhelmed me. Grzesik wanted to be a good soldier, but found it difficult as he was trying to survive the war. In the book, he repeatedly emphasizes that he did not want to be killed in a war that had no meaning. He switched jobs in hopes of surviving the war but ended up performing more dangerous duties. At times, his actions ignored reason and resulted in near disaster.

25th Infantry troops in-country

Grzesik’s desire for fairness from sergeants led him to all-but-escape infantry duty on his first Vietnam War tour, but not on his second.Taking advantage of his previous in-country experiences, he joined the Rangers. When his unit disbanded, he found himself jobless and went on a pharmacological spree while whoring his way around Saigon.

His descriptions of the drug and prostitution scenes make compelling reading. Arrested and again facing a court-martial, he showed his warrior mentality by volunteering to be a Huey helicopter door gunner, which turned out to be a mind-boggling experience. At that point in the book, I could not put it down and read far into the night.

Grzesik provides heartfelt insights into his passage into adulthood. Of his time in the counterculture, for example, he says, “The Age of Aquarius was not coming. It was a lie.” Recalling the war, he says, “Vietnam was a National Geographic moment gone terribly wrong.” Walking on patrol, he thought, “I felt like a man new to prison.” After the fact, he writes, “I cried because the greatest effort in my life meant nothing.”

We Had to Get Out of That Place informed and entertained me in many ways as it resurrected memories of my own similar thoughts and behavior. Grzesik sums up much of his existence by telling his reader, “I was fifty-seven years old before I mellowed enough to be a great husband to anyone.”

—Henry Zeybel

Smallwar by Larry Kipp

Larry Kipp’s Smallwar: My Twenty-Seven Months as a Medic in Vietnam (Hellgate, 262 pp. $12.95, paperback; $5.99, Kindle) is a wonderfully written and crafted book. This memoir from the first-time author is informative, personal, and heartwarming.

Kipp enlisted in the U.S. Army in March 1967 because, he says, he “wanted to help people” and being a medic seemed to be the best way to go about doing that. After training, he went to Vietnam and became an airborne medic for more than two years with the 44^th Medical Brigade as part of a Dustoff helicopter crew.

The book’s 70 free-standing mini-chapters are presented in loose chronological order and resemble a long, informative conversation taking place over an extended period. Some are simply a few paragraphs on a single page; others are multiple pages in length. Some are informative; some are deeply personal; some are observational. The entry describing Doc Kipp’s R&R during which he met his Peace Corps-serving brother in Borneo was particularly well done.

Smallwar is a page turner that invites the reader go on to the next vignette—and the next one. Kipp—who earned a PhD in Biology and taught at several universities and colleges in the U.S. and Canada after the war—provides a close look at what his airborne war was all about. He tells of the daily grind of flights to retrieve the wounded and dead from the battlefield, but without angst and drama that so easily could have slowed down his story.

His “Afterthoughts” section alone is well worth the price of admission. In it, Kipp writes from the heart about the changes he went through as he served his country in the Vietnam War.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, even those only casually interested in the Vietnam War.

–Tom Werzyn

Vietnam: A Marine’s Chronicle of Change by Byron C. Mezick

Byron “Butch” Mezick was a troubled young man when he joined the Marine Corps. He had barely graduated from high school and was described as “arrogant, resentful of authority, and without direction.” He enlisted in 1963 because a friend joined and he had few options.  Before his four years were up, Mezick had transformed to a U.S. Marine with leadership skills. Vietnam: A Marine’s Chronicle of Change (310 pp., $24.99, hardcover; $16.99, paper; $6.99, Kindle) is his memoir of his time in Vietnam.

He starts the book with a description of an incident that happened when he was a corporal in charge of a squad and let his men drink beer on his first patrol in Vietnam. He was court-martialed. Mezick then flashes back to how he got to that moment.

Among other things, Mezick got drunk on the train to boot camp and wasn’t the world’s best trainee. The DIs called him a “scuzzy hog” who was “lower than whale shit.” You won’t bet on him finishing, but gradually his “neighborhood’s negative influences [faded] away like an early morning fog yielding to the rising sun,” and he made it out of boot camp.

However, there would be bumps in the road. Mezick got drunk and arrested after boot camp. He was court-martialed early in his Vietnam War tour with Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines. (He later served with Headquarters Company in 3rd Marines in the 3rd Marine Division.) That court-martial proved to be a deep hole to climb out of. 

Mezick’s first firefight came after his unit stumbled into an ambush. Soon after, his mentor was killed and Mezick transitioned into a cold-blooded killer. He then gradually learned to be a leader and was promoted accordingly. He became a squad leader of Combined Action Platoon working with the South Vietnamese Popular Forces in Loc Dien and Loc Bon villages. 

The CAP Marines lived in or near villages and were effective in countering local VC. Mezick took this Hearts and Minds job seriously. He tried to integrate Vietnamese culture into his experience. That included eating some meals that were almost harder to get though than being in a firefight. He became a seasoned and savvy NCO. When Mezick left Vietnam, his counterparts begged him to re-up, but he had a wife and baby waiting for him at home, and declined.

Mezick writes well and the book is neither too technical nor a collection of war stories. He did see action, but does not exaggerate to titillate. As he puts it: “War is noise, confusion, screaming, and fear.” He is matter of fact about his experiences and candid about mistakes he made.

Mezick

Life’s transitions are a theme in the book, as Mezick chronicles his remarkable transformation from high school loser to Vietnam War veteran. Another theme is leadership as Mezick uses the book to pass on leadership lessons he learned in country.

The book is not a critique of the war, although Butch Mezick’s experiences with the ARVN and the PF are not exactly examples of the efficacy of Nixon’s Vietnamization policy. He is not bitter toward the Marines Corps. In fact, he is proud of the man that it molded.  

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It combines a memoir of an interesting Vietnam War tour of duty with a tutorial on leadership in war.

–Kevin Hardy

An Army Firefighter in Vietnam ’70-’71 by Michael Kuk

Michael Louis Kuk’s An Army Firefighter in Vietnam, ’70-’71 (Christian Faith Publishing, 278 pp. $30.95, paper; $9.99, Kindle) is an unexpected offering. Fires in a war zone are expected as acts of war and byproducts of fighting. Fighting and containing fires in-country, on the other hand, is a relatively little-known part of war, unless they occurred in rear areas.  

Kuk’s memoir tell the story of his 1970-71 Vietnam War tour of duty as an E-4 who was the Station Chief of the U. S. Army Firefighters’ USARV Detachment at Long Binh Post. He and his 21 soldier-firefighters reported to Pacific Architects and Engineers, a shadowy government services contractor that ran large-post engineering units throughout the war theater in a convoluted command structure in a convoluted war.

The book reads like a long interview or a series of conversations over a longer time period. Kuk—the retired Fire Chief at the Joint Readiness Training Center and U.S. Army Garrison at Fort Polk—tells his wr story using more than 80 “headings” and “topics” that range from a mere two or three  paragraphs to four-to-five pages.   

He devotes the first 50 or so pages of the book to describing the types of fire-fighting equipment on the base, including old French fire trucks and self-constructed pieces that were custom made for use in a war zone. Scavenging and trading was a way of military life and a way to get the parts needed to build the custom fire-fighting rigs.

Kuk includes lots of interesting vignettes from a man in a singular location on a singular mission fighting a singular war. He use his own reminiscences without identifying many people, places or things, including fellow fire-fighters.

The book includes about sixty pages of evocative color photos Kuk took during his year in Vietnam that provide deeper insight into his story.

In all, this is an interesting book—a work from the heart about an unsung part of the Vietnam War.

Kuk’s website is combatfirefighter.com

–Tom Werzyn

A Day in Hell on the DMZ by Lou Pepi

Lou Pepi served in the Vietnam War in 1969 with Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion of the 61st Infantry Regiment in the Army’s 5th Infantry Division. He displays life-long allegiance to that group with A Day in Hell on the DMZ: The Rocket Attack on Firebase Charlie 2 in Vietnam, May 21, 1971 (McFarland, 213 pp. $33.94, paper; $13.49, Kindle).

The book is based Pepi’s interviews with 20 men from Alpha Company. He recreates their actions prior to and following the May 21, 1971, event that killed 30 and wounded 33 when a 122-mm rocket caved in the roof of a recreational bunker. Eighteen of the dead came from Alpha Company. Firebase Charlie 2 was in Northern I Corps close to the Demilitarized Zone and easily within range of North Vietnamese Army artillery.

As a reporter, Pepi flawlessly did his homework. He follows the overall course of Alpha’s actions and includes interviewees’ comments at appropriate moments for each event, rather than record their recollections separately. Pepi shows the men in combat and the ways they developed as warriors. His account of an Alpha patrol trapped in an unmapped Con Thien minefield illuminates a nightmare of misguided intentions and disastrous results.       

Even though it was late in the war, Alpha and the 5th Infantry Division endured height-of-the-war demands. Alpha spent 70 consecutive days in the field shortly before the events at Firebase Charlie 2. The Company played a major role in Operation Dewey Canyon II that literally paved the way (constructing 80 kilometers of new roads) for Operation Lam Son 719, the move into Laos that began in February 1971. Alpha’s job was to keep the road open throughout both operations.

Pepi does an excellent job incorporating expert opinions about the planning mistakes of Lam Son that doomed the South Vietnamese Army mission practically before it began.

A Day in Hell on the DMZ pays tribute to all of the men in Alpha Company, with special recognition for those killed in the rocket strike. As Pepi shows, their courage and dedication went above and beyond.

Company Commander Capt. Robert Dean was the driving force in Alpha until he suffered a horrendous injury and was shipped stateside for eight months of hospital care. Unhappily, multiple wounds shortened his first Vietnam War tour as well. His combat career totaled 20 months that resulted in 22 months in hospitals.

5th Infantry soldier on patrol with an M60 machine gun

Dean’s feats in battle, as reported by Pepi, set a standard that his men admired: He asked nothing of them beyond doing what he would do himself. Dean’s pragmatic approach and success in desperate situations overwhelmed me. Pepi gives him the final word in nearly every situation, which he earned and deserves. Robert Dean died in 2018. He deserved to live to 100. I came to idolize the guy.

The book contains many pages of communication logs, plus 14 pages of after action reports dealing with the events of May 21, 1971. Their hour-by-hour accounts provide material for hard-core history buffs.

This book is Pepi’s second about the Vietnam War. He previously wrote My Brothers Have My Back, which centers on a three-day engagement known as the “November Battle,” in which he participated in 1969. During his time with Alpha Company Pepi served as a machine gunner, APC driver, and squad leader.  https://vvabooks.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/my-brothers-have-my-back-by-lou-pepi/

Episodes of counterinsurgency warfare fill A Day in Hell on the DMZ and give readers a treasure trove of facts over which to speculate what might have been, if only….

—Henry Zeybel

Fly By Knights Edited By Roger D. Graham

In Fly By Knights: Air Force A/B/RB-26 Air Commando Missions in the Vietnam War (McFarland, 290 pp. $39.95, paper; $17.99, Kindle) retired USAF Col. Roger Graham, with help from fellow Air Force flyers, has constructed a roller-coaster ride of stories about daring feats, successes and screw-ups, unimaginable events, close calls, and losses.

The book’s stories come from 35 Air Commandos (and three family members) in parallel with Graham’s account of the aircraft’s evolution from B-26B to A-26A. He interviewed pilots, navigator/copilots, maintenance and armament personnel, and civilian contractors. The men all expressed positive attitudes about the war and their role in it.

The Air Commandos took part in three Vietnam War operations: Farm Gate at Bien Hoa Air Base in South Vietnam from 1961-64, and Big Eagle and Nimrod (Hunter) at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Base, 1966-1969. From 1964-66 Operation Farm Gate’s B-26s proved to be too old for their task.

The B-26 had excelled in World War II and Korea, and its availability led planners to use those light bombers for close air support and interdiction missions for the “Secret War” in Laos. After 1963-64 incidents in which three B-26Bs lost a wing during low-level pull-ups, headquarters grounded the plane.

Long before that happened, the aircraft had problems. It lacked up-to-date instrumentation. Systems frequently failed. Repairs depended on cannibalization because spare parts seldom were available.

The ancient war plane’s unpredictability grew almost humorous. As an old armorer put it: “The B Model was a maintenance nightmare. It would be just sitting on the ramp with no one around and suddenly decide to start dropping bombs on the ramp.”

Many Air Force units had flown the planes in many different roles and no two planes were alike. Some, for example, had been flown in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu. Despite those handicaps, B-26 crewmen rightfully exuded pride in flying them.

Convinced it was still the best machine for the task, the Air Force corrected the aircraft’s wing spar failures by having On Mark Engineering Company convert 40 B-26s to B-26Ks. Innovative technical and aerodynamic designs brought the airplane up to modern standards. 

With the new B-26Ks, the Commandos eagerly deployed to Nakhon Phanom in 1966. Focused on interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail, they destroyed or damaged more trucks than anyone else. They operated under the Nimrod call sign, but the plane’s designation was changed to A-26 for political purposes. Those flyers, too, found exceptional satisfaction in their mission and unit camaraderie. Increasingly intense and accurate North Vietnamese Army antiaircraft artillery eventually drove the A-26s from Laos.

Fly By Knights contains unit rosters, squadron history documents, and heart-touching reflections on war by members of flyers’ families. The well-written history documents provide insights on truck interdiction tactics.

Roger D. Graham is a 1963 U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, and served on active duty as a navigator-bombardier and a judge advocate. As an editor, he definitely gets the most from other people’s stories.

—Henry Zeybel

El Pistolero by Marvin Wolf

El Pistolero: A Chelmin and Spaulding CID Mystery (249 pp. $13.95, paper; $4.259, Kindle), by Marvin J. Wolf is an action-filled mystery thriller. Wolf is a Vietnam War veteran, having served many years in the Army. He is the author of more than twenty books, including ones he co-wrote with famed Vietnam War correspondent Joe Galloway and former South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky.

In the book, Army Criminal Investigation Division agents, Rudy Chelmin and Will Spaulding, get involved in a desertion case that goes back to the Vietnam War in 1971 and may also include murder. The men worked a few special cases together, but it’s been awhile. Spaulding went on to become a helicopter pilot but was temporarily grounded because of a health issue, which led to the two men renewing their partnership.

When asked by a civilian what CID means, Spaulding quips, “Like the Navy’s NCIS, except we’re Army. And we don’t have a TV series.”

During this detective procedural the two men find themselves working, usually on a friendly basis, with local police departments as well as the LAPD, FBI, and the DEA. The FBI believes the deserter may have become a hired killer who is a master of disguises and is likely responsible for murdering dozens of people. Most of the victims had ties to organized crime.

Spaulding is a millionaire as a result of a big lawsuit settlement. That plays sort of a wish-fulfillment role because the two men frequently eat lavish meals and Spaulding can pay cash for a new car whenever he wants one and write a large check to help the family of a law officer killed in the line of duty. Spaulding continues to fly for the Army because he loves it.

As the story rolls along, we encounter fake cops, the Mexican Mafia, burner phones, street gangs, cops in the pocket of the gangs, thugs with shotguns, prison gangs, bomb squads, heroin smuggling, gunfights, and international intrigue.

Through it all these two guys are constantly in motion, which propels the story along at a rapid rate with lots of running, flying, and driving fast down highways.

If you like a lot of exciting, fast-moving action, this is the book for you.

Marvin Wolf’s website is marvinjwolf.com

–Bill McCloud