Valley Vice

VALLEY VICE                                               STEVE GARCIA
Posted: Sept. 14, 2013

In Hollywood, it’s not just dreams that are easily snuffed out.

When a burned body is found on a studio lot, Detective Salvador Reyes and his partner Detective Philippa Wallace are on the scene. The mystery deepens when they identify the body as a felon named Bartholomew Pearl who should have been in jail for shooting a fellow detective. Then a city official, Theodor Simons, is found dead of an apparent suicide.

Convinced the deaths are connected, and not everything is what it appears, Reyes and Wallace investigate. Their inquiries take a dangerous turn, pointing to someone in the police department itself. Soon it’s hard to know who is an enemy, and who is a friend.


HUBBY'S REVIEW:

This was a good book and a good story. I will say this though it started a little slow for me. This might be because he was trying to get everything set up. For me I am use to getting right into the meat and potatoes of the story, action. Once he gets going the action is none stop up to the end. I can't remember when it was but I hit a point in the story and I did not put it down until I finished it. The end is also one that had a twist. I did not see it turning out the way it did but it was a good book. I really enjoyed it

ASSAULT FROM THE SKY

ASSAULT FROM THE SKY                        DICK CAMP
Posted: Sept. 14, 2013

This work describes U.S. Marine Corps helicopter operations, including their actions and evolution, throughout the Vietnam War. The book is divided into parts spanning the three stages of the Corps combat deployment: Buildup (1962-1966), Heavy Combat (1967-1969), and The Bitter End (1975). Each part includes chapters devoted to telling the story of Marine helicopters from the individual to the strategic level.

Vietnam has often been called our “first helicopter war,” and indeed the U.S. Marine Corps, as well as Army, had to feel its way forward during the initial combats. But by 1967 the combat was raging across South Vietnam, with confrontational battles against the NVA, on a scale comparable to the great campaigns of WWII. In 1968, when the Communists launched their mammoth counteroffensive, the Marines were forced to fight on all sides, with the helicopter giving them the additional dimension that proved decisive in repelling the enemy.

The author, a Vietnam veteran, uses his experiences as a company commander to bring the story to life by weaving personal accounts, after-action reports and official documents into a remarkably readable narrative of service and sacrifice by Marine pilots and crewmen. The entire story of the war is here depicted through the prism of Marine helicopter operations, from the first deployments to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) against the Viet Cong through the rapid United States buildup to stop the North Vietnamese Army, until the final withdrawal from our Embassy.

Colonel Dick Camp, a Purple Heart recipient, served 26 years in the U.S. Marine Corps before retiring in 1988. Upon retirement he served as the Deputy Director, U.S. Marine Corps History Division and as the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, Vice President for Museum Operations at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, Quantico, Virginia. Currently residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia, he is the author of ten books and over 100 magazine articles on various military related subjects.

HUBBY'S REVIEW:

A very good book about the men who flew helicopters and there crew members. The book is broke down by years from the build up through the different parts of the war years to the end. This book is filled with a lot of information on the history of the use of the helicopter. To the missions that were flown and the battles that they were in. At the of each chapter he goes over the after action reports and the different citations different personal were awarded. Of course there were parts that made me upset. One was about a LT. COL. House, who in 1966 lead a rescue mission for some trap special forces. After it was over and men were rescued he was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism. Then later he was given a Letter of Reprimand and was relieved of duty. So in 1966 the B.S. was all ready starting. This about men who would go in and drop off and pick up troops. It did not matter to them if they were Marines or Army. They just needed to get out of the area they were in or support. This was a very good book and touched closed to me for i had a Uncle fight with the Marines over their and a family friend who flew gun ship helicopters for the Army. This was a good book about there heroic deeds. Provided by netgalley.com

LIGHT OF THE WORLD

LIGHT OF THE WORLD                            JAMES LEE BURKE
Posted: Sept. 14, 2013

“America’s best novelist” (The Denver Post) and “the reigning champ of nostalgia noir” (The New York Times Book Review) introduces his most evil character yet in the twentieth thriller in the bestselling Dave Robicheaux series.A New York Times bestselling author many times over, James Lee Burke is a two-time Edgar Award-winner whose every book is cause for excitement, especially those in the wildly popular Dave Robicheaux series.

In Light of the World, sadist and serial killer Asa Surrette narrowly escaped the death penalty for the string of heinous murders he committed while capital punishment was outlawed in Kansas. But following a series of damning articles written by Dave Robicheaux’s daughter Alafair about possible other crimes committed by Surette, the killer escapes from a prison transport van and heads to Montana—where an unsuspecting Dave happens to have gone to take in the sweet summer air, accompanied by Alafair, his wife Molly, faithful partner Clete, and Clete’s new found daughter, Gretchen Horowitz, whom listeners met in Burke’s most recent bestseller Creole Belle.

“James Lee Burke remains the heavy weight champ,” says New York Times bestseller Michael Connelly, “a great American novelist whose work…is unsurpassed.” The master proves it once again with this harrowing novel that examines the nature of evil and pits Dave Robicheaux against the most diabolical villain he has ever faced.

HUBBY'S REVIEW:

	A very good story if you have read any of the books before. Not a story to start out with. This does pick up from the last book. There are other characters in this book that have been in other books. But once again the back and forth of their lives from past to present would make it difficult for people to follow along I think. A great book.

THE CHRISTMAS HE LOVED HER (BAD BOYS OF CRYSTAL LAKE #2)

The CHRISTMAS HE LOVED HER                  JULIANA STONE
Posted: Sept. 14, 2013

 All he wants this Christmas is her.

In the small town of Crystal Lake, Christmas is a time for sledding, hot chocolate, and cozying up to the fire with those you love. For Jake Edwards, it’s also time to come home and face his past. He thought there would never be anything harder than losing his brother. Turns out there is: falling in love with his brother’s widow, Raine.

Ever since they were little, Jesse was the Edwards brother who was always there for her, and Jake was the one who knew just how to push her buttons. Raine can’t imagine a life without them, which is why it was doubly decimating when Jake left town after his brother’s sudden death. Now he’s back and she doesn’t know whether to be mad or thrilled. Maybe both. Maybe it will be the perfect chance for both of them to finally find happiness again.

MY REVIEW:

Christmas He Loved Her what a fabulously written love story.  It was a heart wrenching, painfully honest look at what a soldier and his family goes through when he comes home with PTSD.  Yet, in this story it is even worse.  Jake was in battle with his fraternal twin brother Jesse who dies in the battle.

    And leaves behind Raine the woman they both loved so very much.  You see the twins were a part of the group the Bad Boys that were well known in the small town of Crystal Lake.  There was Jesse, Jake, Mac and Cain and one extra member that was an orphan that they all took under their wing, Raine.

   She did everything with the boys and she was just one of the guys.  Until the day she married Jesse.  Then, both the Edwards, boys went to Afghanistan and left her a widow.  In their sorrow Jake and Raine turn to each other after the funeral and then puff he is gone for over a year and a half now he is home and the anger they both have has to be worked through or can it? 

     I loved this soul searching, heartfelt, painful, loving, and tearfully happy Christmas story.  One that will stay with me for a while.  One that makes us forever grateful to the men and women that serve in the arm forces.  For all that they live through and for all that they have to see there and then again and again her in their nightmares.  I pray for your peace, joy and love that you mind, body and souls can heal that you too like this story can heal with a happy ending.  I thank the Author for a wonderfully written story with a joyful ending if they all could end so well.  This is some of the most heated up, hottest, sensual, emotionally binding sex scenes in a long time that it is gut wrenchingly hot.  Be warned ladies and gentlemen.  Provided by Netgalley.com