Fiction

Title: USERNAME
Author: Joyce Faulkner
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Reviewer: Jim Greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 9780983493020

Identity theft, scams, and a serial killer. Username is a must-read for every person who has a credit card or uses the Internet. Who’s using your name? Your username? You may not know until it’s too late. See yourself as a mark through the eyes of Maureen and Jennifer, master identity thieves. Their scams will shock you as you realize how vulnerable you are. Then there is the nice gentleman you could meet in a chat room, or perhaps he sends you a persuasive e-mail. He couldn’t possibly be a serial killer … could he?

Title: The Dying of Mortimer Post
Author: Barry Ozeroff
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Richard Barone

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1603182020

A tortured soul spends a lifetime struggling to make sense of a senseless world...

Mortimer Post is the quintessential product of late 1960's America. A college-bound physics major from a good family, he is engaged to his high-school sweetheart and is at the forefront of the American dream. That is, until twelve short minutes mark the end of his living and the beginning of his dying. But some deaths are slower than others, and Mortimer's takes a lifetime to complete.

Spanning four of America's most significant decades, The Dying of Mortimer Post takes the reader from the protagonist's coming of age in the Pocono Mountains to the massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. After the searing end of his military career, the reader accompanies Mortimer on a nationwide quest for understanding and healing. On this journey of discovery, he finds both happiness and sorrow in the backwoods of rural Mississippi, then a much darker side of himself on the unforgiving streets of Los Angeles. Only when he has lost everything and is finally ready for the release of death, does Mortimer discover he already has the one thing he's spent a lifetime seeking, and with it, the chance to finally live again.

Title: The White Train
Author: Larry Purcell
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Rob Ballister

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0595288510

A secret train-carrying nuclear missiles and protected by the most lethal anti-terrorist devices available-has vanished without a trace.The President receives a fax in the Oval Office, the contents of which carry an impact of icy terror. His efforts to place nuclear warheads in the hands of an unfriendly Third World nation, to achieve a strategic advantage for the United States, has started to unravel.The fax, signed by a mysterious militant group, has a simple ransom demand-one the President can neither meet nor acknowledge.The President must rely on a shady cast of unscrupulous advisors and ruthless agents to effect the return of the train to its mission, without going public, alarming the American people or incurring the wrath of the Congress of the United States.All that stands in the way of this highly illegal and clandestine mission's success is a strange alliance between an Air Force special operative, an investigative reporter for the Washington Post and a world-renowned anthropologist.

Title: The Nearly Perfect Plan
Author: Karl Boyd
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Reviewer: Joyce Gilmour

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0557034981

A lighthearted fiction crime thriller, The Nearly Perfect Plan is the first in a trilogy chronicling the adventures of Roger Booth and Carl James, two young ambitious confidence men.

Fate works overtime when Roger and Carl stumble upon the perfect way to hijack three Brinks armored trucks in broad daylight on the open highway and make them and their $34 million payloads disappear in a matter of minutes. They enlist the aid of twenty of their ex-Army buddies from the Kuwaiti war to pull off "The Perfect Plan".

Everything goes as designed, until the gang is celebrating their victories over the law enforcement agencies of two states and the FBI. Then, the fickle finger of fate steps in and they are captured.

As a result, their spoiled venture soon becomes known as The Nearly Perfect Plan. But sometimes, (as you will see), if you are clever and resourceful, nearly is close enough.

Filled with suspense, thrills and a little romance, The Nearly Perfect Plan will tickle your funnybone and make you ask for more adventures with Roger and Carl.

Title: The Overcoat
Author: Conrad Larson
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1931916535

I would like to have a couple of points made about this book. THE OVERCOAT

1; the character of Charlene in this book represents a lot of the character that makes this area special and the heritage of the Midwest special.

This character Charlene endures nearly impossible circumstances to live to her eighties and leave a heritage of warmth, love, a witness of strength of character through her life, daughter, and grandsons.

This individual could be recognized by many of your readers and they will attest to the above statements. All of the tragedies are real but the circumstances have been changed for purposes of the fictional plot of the mystery novel. The struggles of character Charlene are almost impossible to believe and the depiction through the historical fiction style makes the telling of this story easier to divulge the magnitude of pain and suffering in this manner.

The book was written to make a source of knowledge for heirs of the main Character in the book.

The family which this historical fiction is based had nearly been lost through the years. The ability to find information about the family tree is left to searching historical museums as very few acquaintances might know much information. The current generations will have very limited access to information in 20 years when there interests start to peak.

My next book will be an intense biography which is nearly complete as we speak and will be based on the daily logs of the trench warfare of WW1 veteran about his personal time in war with written experiences by and of Oscar Dahlgren of Nora Township , Lowry, and Pope County. Every effort is being made to represent the actual feeling and stresses of the war by duplicating the journals as written. The journals surfaced within the last five years and are very valuable, fragile and very old. The book will preserve this piece of history for ever.

Additional research at Pope County Historical Museum found a similar report of some of the same incidents mentioned in these journals of other local WW1 hero's. This set of journals includes a lot of mention of other local WW1 soldiers from this area. The hero's of this era are now down to one living soldier alive as we speak. The details of this war are compelling and worth understanding for us to understand the character of our families that sacrificed so much for our freedom and good life we now have.

Further research is planned to see if a map of Oscar Dahlgren's war encounters can be put together to add proximity to the cities in a map for Belgium and France that his Company had been engaged in warfare activities. Some of the communities listed in the Journals were completely destroyed and the maps aren't listing the old names.

The title of the next book will be "CARRY ON Pvt Dahlgren"