Fiction

Title: No Time for Ribbons
Author: Craig Trebilcock
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: Rob Ballister

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 059549286X/

War-weary Army Sergeant Gus Warden mistakenly kills an Iraqi civilian on his final mission. Returning home to Texas, guilt-ridden and unable to turn off the war, Warden struggles to rejoin a society where he no longer fits. When his manipulative brigade commander uses the shooting to nominate Warden for the Silver Star, Warden is trapped between becoming a fraudulent war hero and betraying the wartime buddies who covered for his mistake.

This thought-provoking novel is built upon the post-war experiences of US Army troops who served in the Iraq War. This is the second installment in the One Weekend A Month Trilogy.

Title: The Scottish Thistle
Author: Cindy Vallar
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Historical
Reviewer: Joyce Gilmour

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1592797121

Loyalty and honor. A Highland warrior prizes both more than life, and when he swears his oath on the dirk, he must obey or die. Duncan Cameron heeds his chief's order without question, but discovers his wife-to-be is no fair maiden. Although women are no longer trained in the art of fighting, Rory MacGregor follows in the footsteps of her Celtic ancestors. Secrets from the past and superstitious folk endanger Rory and Duncan as much as Bonnie Prince Charlie and his uprising to win back the British throne for his father. Rory and Duncan must make difficult choices that pit honor and duty against trust and love.

Title: Bear: Flight to Liberty
Author: Miguel Vargas-Caba
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Rob Ballister

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0595681670

In September 1976, Viktor Belenko defected to Japan in his MiG-25 Foxbat jet fighter, one of the most well-known defections from the Soviet block. But in that same year, there was another defection so embarrassing to the Soviets that its particulars remained a secret for more than twenty-five years. All media accounts of Soviet TU-95 flights participating in the Okean 76 naval maneuvers mention only two planes. Whenever they were confronted in private, however, the Soviets acknowledged that in reality, three planes took off from Russia, with the third aircraft crashing at sea, killing everyone aboard. Since it sank in deep waters, no one attempted to salvage the wreck. But what the Soviet authorities never acknowledged -publicly or privately- was that the third TU-95 made a bold and risky flight from the USSR to Canada. Because its crew defected, the Soviets never admitted that such an event happened. Bear: Flight to Liberty tells the third crew's thrilling story.

Title: The Blackened Canteen
Author: Jerry Yellin
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: Jack Woodville London

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1421890194

This book is about five Americans: Jack O'Connor, Monroe Cohen, Ken Colli, Newton Towle, crewmen on B-29's and were killed in a mid-air collision on June 20, 1945 and buried by Fukumatsu Itoh alongside the 2,000 Japanese killed in the raid, and Richard Fiske, the bugler on the battleship West Virginia when it was sunk at Pearl Harbor. It is also about three Japanese: Hiroya Sugano, 12 years old when his city was bombed in 1945, Takeshi Maeda, the navigator on the torpedo bomber that sank the West Virginia, and Fukumatsu Itoh, a city councilman and Buddhist priest. Only two survive today, Dr. Sugano, who is 74, and Takeshi Maeda, who is 89.

The Blackened Canteen is written by story teller, Jerry Yellin, with many voices. It shows that he has listened to the cultures of both his land of birth and the adopted land of his son.

Title: The Traiteur's Ring
Author: Jeffrey Wilson
Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1936564173

A man who has spent his life defending his country discovers that fate has presented him with an even higher calling. Ben Morvant is not what you would call ordinary and as a Navy SEAL, he never expected an ordinary life. But when a routine mission to protect a local village in a war-torn region of Africa goes terribly wrong, Ben is presented with truths beyond what his military training and experience have prepared him to accept. With his dying breath, a village elder passes to Ben a gift--a simple ring, unremarkable except for its ever changing color and the feeling of power emanating from within.

Soon after accepting the ring dark visions begin to haunt Ben's dreams. Images of pain and death, of evil and destruction. But some of the visions are hauntingly familiar. Soon Ben must return to his childhood home in Louisiana to face a dark secret from his past, one that may explain why he has the power to heal with a touch of the hand . . . or kill with a single thought. After discovering the truth about his family and himself, he comes to realize that he is a soldier in a greater battle than he could ever have imagined. And if he cannot find a way to wield the power concealed within him, the forces that prey on mankind's anger and fear will destroy not only him, but everything he holds dear.