Thriller

Title: Darkness into Light: A Post World War ll Sequel and Thriller
Author: Richard S. Baty
Genre: Fiction
Reviewer: Cox, Ed (2012)

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 9781462022144

Darkness into Light is the story of a world trying to find its bearings after the upheaval of World War II. It is also the story of a man and a woman trying to find each other in war-ravaged Europe. The two go to unimaginable extremes to fulfill their objective, including stints in the intelligence world. The result is a stunning and unimagined conclusion.

Title: Barinelli's War
Author: Eugene Basilici
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0595385826

The Korean War rages in Southeast Asia. Every night the North Koreans hurl themselves against the outnumbered Americans who hold the Pusan Perimeter, and every night the overextended defenders are thinned even more.

Into this maelstrom lands Rick Barinelli, a teenager fresh out of Basic and is thrown immediately onto the front line. A natural leader with an innate understanding of combat, he’s able to command and hold the all-important “Bowling Alley” sector. Barinelli’s successes on the battlefield earn him quick promotions.

The Inchon landing relieves the pressure on Pusan and Barinelli’s platoon takes the point for an American offensive. At Hungnam, they’re ordered to the rear and reorganized as a reconnaissance company, while the Army’s Tenth Corps and First Marine Division advance to the Chinese border.

But a quarter-million Chinese secretly infiltrate the mountain passes and surround the Americans with orders to annihilate them all. The only escape route is along a narrow road past the Chosin Reservoir through the Funchilin Pass to Hungnam and safety. The Funchilin must be held. But when Barinelli’s company commander suddenly disappears, the survival of over twenty thousand men falls on him.

With fewer than two hundred men under his command, Barinelli faces the pressures of leadership in battle. More importantly, he learns of faithlessness and heroism and the inner gauntlet each soldier must pass through to survive.

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.