Render Harmless

MWSA Review

Marc Liebman shares a complicated and disturbing story. His storytelling in Render Harmless is a telescopic insight into the horrors of global terrorism before our lives were irrevocably changed by 9/11.

Although the book is historical fiction, its truth catapults the reader back into the Cold War that often feels bitterly frigid. Josh Haman, the heroic Navy pilot, will cause your heart to pound and your knees to shake, especially when the fuel hovers on empty on more than once occasions.

The story is fearful and sad. There are lost souls who truly believe they are better than others. The story offers an insight into the darkness of evil people, or at least the reasons for their continued diabolical hatred long after the treaties of World War II, Vietnam, and all wars for that matter. Liebman is not naïve to believe there is much more healing required of the victims and soldiers of war. He leads us gently into this quagmire of unfinished moral injury and much needed soul repair.

Fighting for freedoms we experience in America will cause many a sailor, soldier or dependent to experience a terrifying, but lovely aloneness.

“You know, John, this is the most alone I have ever been in a helicopter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. The safety net is gone. We can’t just call for help if something goes wrong. In Vietnam if the shit hit the fan, we could call someone on the radio and help would arrive in minutes, or at least we would know it was on its way. Where we’re going, we may not be heard. And a more sobering question is, who could come to our rescue?” (p. 135)

Marc Liebman invites us to be part of the sophisticated team that goes on a dangerous mission in front of and behind the Iron Curtain, to render harmless the Nazi and Hitler errors still brewing within us eighty plus years later.

Reviewed by: Ron Camarda (2014)

Author's Summary

Car bombs set off by a group called Red Hand are going off all over West Germany, killing American, British and German citizens. Red Hand's manifesto reads as if it was copied from Nazi propaganda. Now, just four years after the 1972 Olympics massacre and three decades after the Holocaust, the West German government is facing its worst political nightmare: Germans are once again killing Jews and former Nazis who want to create a Fourth Reich are involved.

The West German police can't find the shadowy members of Red Hand, so the American and British governments decided to act covertly. Josh Haman, part way through an exchange tour with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, joins the team led by his friend and SEAL Team Six member Marty Cabot. The hunt takes their team into East Germany to execute their written orders which tell them "to find, neutralize and render harmless to the United States and her allies the members of Red Hand."