My Washington Times Review Of 'The Killer Across The Table: Unlocking The Secrets Of Serial Killers And Predators With The FBI's Original Mindhunter'

The Washington Times published my review of The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and predators With the FBI’s Original Mindhunter.

Who knows why a person rapes, tortures and kills countless men, women and children without empathy or remorse?

Well, former FBI profiler and author John Douglas has a fair idea, having studied and interviewed numerous serial killers and other murderers for nearly 50 years, often sitting about three feet across the table from the killers in a prison interview room.

In “The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI’s Original Mindhunter,” Mr. Douglas and co-author Mark Olshaker take a close look at four predatory killers while detailing the profiling process and strategies used to solve some of the country’s most complicated and heinous cases.

Mr. Douglas, an FBI profiler who became famous as the inspiration for the film “Silence of the Lambs,” the network TV series “Criminal Minds” and the Netflix series “Mindhunter,” has been involved in thousands of violent crime cases over the course of his 25-year-career as an FBI special agent and later as a private consultant. Along with Mr. Olshaker, he previously published “Mindhunter,” “The Anatomy of Motive” and “Law & Disorder.”

Although the four murderers interviewed and analyzed in “The Killer Across the Table” are not as infamous as Ted Bundy and other more notorious serial killers, Mr. Douglas reflects on his past encounters with some of the country’s most notorious murderers, such as Ed Kemper, Charles Manson, the “BTK Strangler” Denis Rader and David Berkowitz, known as the “Son of Sam” killer, and compares their actions and motives with the four lessor known killers covered in this book.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/10/book-review-the-killer-across-the-table-by-john-f-/

My Washington Times Review of 'Mafia Spies: The Inside Story Of The CIA, Gangsters, JFK, And Castro'

The Washington Times published my review of Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro.

Although mobster Johnny Roselli was murdered in 1976, his body discovered in a 55-gallon oil drum floating off Miami, Florida, this appears to be his year.

Lee Server wrote an interesting biography of the mobster, “Handsome Johnny: The Life and Death of Johnny Roselli: Gentleman Gangster, Hollywood Producer, CIA Assassin” (which I reviewed here). And now Roselli is also featured as one of the main historical characters, alongside fellow mobster Sam Giancana, President Kennedy, Cuban Communist dictator Fidel Castro, and Frank Sinatra and the other “Rat Pack” entertainers, in Thomas Maier’s “Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro.”

Although during his lifetime he was well-known in organized crime, gambling and Hollywood movie-making circles, the notably handsome, well-dressed ladies’ man was not as well-known to the general public as many of the other gangsters he was associated with.

That books have been written about his life, as well as an upcoming film about him, has to do with his association with the CIA and the failed plot to kill Fidel Castro.

“The original 1960s Castro murder conspiracy remained a secret for fifteen years, until Congressional hearings in the mid-1970s revealed the spy agency’s basic plot. More spy details were released in the years to come,” Mr. Maier writes. “But the recently declassified files about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, released in batches by the National Archives in 2017-2018, were the biggest help for this book.”

…“Poison bills, exploding cigars, lethal James Bond-like gadgets, midnight boat raids from Florida with Cuban exiles carrying bombs and long-range rifles — a veritable army of undercover spies, double agents, and “cutout” handlers — were all part of this ill-fated campaign emanating from the White House.” Mr. Maier explains.

… I only wish that they had succeeded. 

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/9/book-review-mafia-spies-by-thomas-maier/ 

My Washington Times Review Of 'Will Bill:The True Story Of The American Frontier's First Gunfighter'

The Washington Times published my review of Tom Clavin’s Will Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter.

The Wild West quick-draw showdown, a duel and test of speed, accuracy and grit, with two gunfighters facing each other on a dusty street in a Western frontier town, is a staple feature of nearly every Western cowboy film and TV series since the beginning of motion pictures.

This scene rarely happened, as gunfights on the American frontier were generally a more spontaneous affair of firearms drawn on the spot of the disagreement with shots fired wild and a few finding their mark. But James Butler Hickok, better known as “Wild Bill,” did face off famously against a man on a Springfield, Missouri, street in July 1865.

Wild Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt had a gambling dispute and Tutt took Wild Bill’s gold pocket watch in lieu of a gambling debt he thought he was owed. Wild Bill, then a former Civil War Union soldier and scout, wanted his watch back and faced off against Tutt in the street with townsfolk watching the gunfight from a safe distance. Wild Bill’s speed, accuracy and courage won the duel and he killed his opponent with his Colt pistol. This was the first recorded quick-draw street duel in history.

Wild Bill Hickok faced a trial and he was subsequently found not guilty of murder. After the trial, he met Col. George Ward Nichols, a fellow Civil War Union veteran and former newspaper reporter, who was then a correspondent for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. His interview and profile of the victorious “shootist” and frontiersman would do much to create the Wild Bill Hickok legend.

“It even contained a few facts,” Tom Clavin writes in his book, “Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter.”

Mr. Clavin, who also wrote “Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West,” writes in his author’s note of “Wild Bill” that before the heyday of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Doc Holiday and other iconic frontier figures, there was arguably the most iconic figure of all: James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok.

You can read the rest of my review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/25/book-review-wild-bill-by-tom-clavin/

My Washington Times Review Of 'The Moroccan Girl'

The Washington Times published my review of Charles Cumming’s The Moroccan Girl.

In Frederick Forsyth’s memoir, “The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue,” the author of the classic thriller, “The Day of the Jackal,” tells how he came to perform various functions for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as MI6.

He was working as a journalist in Africa when an SIS officer asked him for information about the war in Biafra. While working as a journalist and later a thriller writer, he continued to assist the SIS on numerous occasions, and the SIS returned the favor by providing Mr. Forsyth with information for his thrillers.

In a piece written at St. Martin’s Press, Charles Cumming explains how he was influenced by Frederick Forsyth’s SIS connection when he came to write his latest spy thriller, “The Moroccan Girl.”

“In my new novel, ‘The Moroccan Girl,’ a successful writer of spy thrillers becomes an agent for MI6. Kit Carradine is in his mid-30s. He lives alone in London, forever putting off the moment when he has to sit at his desk and write the required 1000 words per day which will allow him to meet the deadline on his latest book. Restless and easily distracted, Carradine is struggling to come to terms with what he calls the ‘Groundhog Day routine’ of the writer’s life. In short, he’s a bit bored,” Mr. Cumming writes.

Mr. Cumming has Kit Carradine run into a man named Robert Mantis in London who identifies himself as a British intelligence officer. Mantis asks Carradine to become a support agent for the Service and perform a couple of jobs while he is attending a book festival in Marrakech. Carradine, intrigued by the chance of becoming a bona fide spy, agrees.

“Could such a thing happen in real life? Does MI6 use writers in this capacity — or can I be accused of writing a 350-page wish-fulfilment fantasy?” Mr. Cumming writes. “The answer is: of course! MI6 has a well-documented history of recruiting novelists to its cause.”

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/4/book-review-the-moroccan-girl-by-charles-cumming/

My Washington Times Review Of 'Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story Of The DEA Takedown Of A Criminal Genius And His Empire'

The Washington Times published my review of Elaine Shannon's Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire.

Critics of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels often state that the late, great thriller writer’s villains, such as Goldfinger, Dr. No and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, were unrealistically grotesque and evil.

But consider real life villains, such as Martin Bormann, Pablo Escobar or Manuel Noriega, a drug trafficking Panamanian dictator who wore red bikini underwear to ward off enemies. (Top that, Mr. Goldfinger).

Or consider Paul Calder LeRoux, a slovenly, 350-pound narcissistic cybersecurity genius turned cold-blooded murderer and transnational drug and gun trafficking crime boss. Author Elaine Shannon called LeRoux “the creator of the Innovation Age’s first transnational criminal empire.”

Unlike most crime lords, LeRoux eschewed the flamboyant trappings of illicit wealth and lived in near-seclusion in sparsely furnished condos around the world, hiding behind his secure computer and the dark web. But his enormous ego and greed eventually brought him to the attention of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

In Elaine Shannon’s true crime book, “Hunting LeRoux; The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and his Empire,” we learn about the background and criminal enterprises of this oddball crook, and the efforts of the DEA’s secretive 960 Group to bring him to justice.

The 960 Group looked for high value targets and they had previously taken down Russian international arms dealer Viktor Bout, another outrageous criminal who seems to have been created by Ian Fleming. 

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/27/book-review-hunting-leroux-by-elaine-shannon/

My Washington Times Review Of 'Drug Warrior: Inside The Hunt For El Chapo And The Rise Of America's Opioid Crisis'

The Washington Times published my review of former DEA special agent Jack Riley's Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of the Opioid Crisis.

Mexican drug lord Joaqun “El Chapo’ Guzman, once the world’s most wanted man, was convicted of drug trafficking charges last month in New York and he will be sentenced this coming June.

Guzman will perhaps become an inmate of the “Supermax” federal prison in Florence, Colorado. Guzman, who previously escaped not once, but twice, from Mexican high-security prisons, will have little chance to escape from this prison. He’ll probably spend the rest of his life, 23 hours a day, in a 7-by-12-foot cell.

And so ends the saga of the infamous criminal.

Retired Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent Jack Riley offers a look back at his career and his three-decade long pursuit of Guzman in “Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of the Opioid Crisis.”

Mr. Riley, the grandson of a tough Chicago cop, tells of his life from a young DEA special agent working undercover on the streets of Chicago to the highest levels in American law enforcement. He served as the special agent in charge (SAC) of the El Paso Field Division and served as the first director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. A Chicago native, he went on to serves as the SAC of the Chicago Field Division and was later promoted to be the DEA’s chief of operations, the third-ranking position in the DEA. His last position was as deputy administrator, the number two spot in the DEA. He retired as the DEA’s highest-ranking special agent in 2016.

The book is mostly about Mr. Riley’s efforts to capture Guzman and smash his Sinaloa drug cartel. He calls Guzman a sociopath and a mass murderer but concedes that he was also a brilliant and innovative CEO of his illegal drug empire. He notes that Guzman recognized the growing abuse of prescription drugs in the United States long before law enforcement officials did. Mr. Riley called Guzman a marketing and logistical genius, a ruthless businessman, a born smuggler, and truly evil. He recalls how Guzman made it very personal by placing a bounty on the DEA boss’ head.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/10/book-review-drug-warrior-by-jack-riley-with-mitch-/ 

My Washington Times Review of 'Hunting El Chapo: The Inside Story of the American Lawman Who Captured The World's Most-Wanted Drug Lord'

The Washington Times published my review of Hunting El Chapo: The Inside Story of the American Lawman Who Captured the World's Most-Wanted Drug Lord.

Joaquin Guzman Loera was once listed by Forbes as one of the richest and most powerful businessmen in the world. Unfortunately for the world, Guzman’s business was drug trafficking and murder.

Former DEA Special Agent Andrew Hogan and his co-author Douglas Century have written a book about the hunt and capture of Guzman, better known as “El Chapo,’ or Shorty in English.

But this “Get Shorty” book is not about the final capture of the Mexican drug trafficker and murderer in 2016. That arrest landed him in a Mexican prison and he was later extradited to the U.S., where he now resides in an American prison and on trial for leading a multi-billion dollar continuing criminal enterprise responsible for importing and distributing massive amounts of illegal narcotics into the U.S., as well as conspiring to murder people who posed a threat to his drug trafficking operation.

 “Hunting El Chapo” is about an earlier capture of the wily criminal in 2014. Although we know that Guzman would again escape from prison in 2015 and be on the lam for another year until his final arrest, the book is still interesting and suspenseful, rather like Frederick Forsyth’s classic thriller “Day of the Jackal.” We know that Charles de Gaulle was not shot and killed by a Jackal-like assassin, but the suspenseful hunt for the hired killer was what made Mr. Forsyth’s first novel so fine a thriller.

“Hunting El Chapo” is the story of a former deputy sheriff from Kansas, DEA Special Agent Andrew Hogan. He graduated from the DEA Academy in 2006 and worked undercover in Arizona prior to moving to Mexico City to head the DEA’s Sinaloa Cartel desk in 2012. Working with the Mexican Marines’ SEMAR group, a special operations unit similar to the U.S. Navy SEALs, Mr. Hogan led the manhunt that captured Guzman in 2014.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/18/book-review-hunting-el-chapo-by-andrew-hogan-and-d/ 

My Washington Times Review Of The New Superpower For Women

The Washington Times published my review of The New Superpowers for Women.

“When I was seventeen years old, I was kidnapped from a shopping mall in broad daylight, taken to an isolated location, and sexually assaulted,” writes Angela Rose in her foreword to Steve Kardian’s “The New Superpower for Woman.”

“When I saw a man approaching me, all of my internal alarms went off. He looked menacing and walked in an odd way. The parking lot was empty. It seemed that he was following me. I had an urge to run but ignored the messages my intuition was sending me, partly because I didn’t want to cause a scene.”

Angela Rose, a survivor activist and the founder and executive director of Promoting Awareness/Victim Empowerment (PAVE), goes on to state that this event that happened 20 years ago had profoundly changed her life. She notes that when Steve Kardian heard her story, he told her that she was lucky to be alive. She learned that statistically, the chances of surviving such an ordeal was less than 5 percent.

“The New Superpower for Women” is a must-read for all women so that they will never have to hear the words “You’re lucky to be alive.” It is a must-read for all parents so that they will never have to go through what my mom and dad did,” Ms. Rose writes.

Steve Kardian, a career law enforcement officer, FBI defense tactics instructor, and contractor for the U.S. Marshals Service, specializes in crime prevention and risk reduction for women’s safety. In his book, Mr. Kardian offers a guide to assessing predatory behavior before something happens. He explains what criminals and predators look for when choosing a victim, as well as how a woman can master the cues her body language sends out.

… Trust your gut, Mr. Kardian advises. A woman is one step ahead when she uses her intuition.

“Your subconscious mind is wired for safety. It analyzes and processes your surroundings constantly without your being aware of it, and will send out an alarm when it registers that things are not as they should be,” Mr. Kardian explains.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/11/book-review-the-new-superpower-for-women/  

My Washington Times Review Of John Le Carre's 'A Legacy Of Spies'

The Washington Times ran my review of John le Carre’s A Legacy of Spies.

Although I don’t subscribe to John le Carre’s leftist worldview, I’ve been reading and enjoying his spy novels since I was a teenager in the 1960s.

I’m not fond of most of his post-Cold War novels, as his political and anti-American sentiments mar the stories for me, but I admire greatly his earlier novels, such as “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” based on the notorious British spy and traitor Kim Philby, as well as “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”

In his latest novel, “A Legacy of Spies,” his 24th, the 85-year-old author returns to the scene of the crimes, so to speak, from “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” and his other Cold War novels. His great character, the brilliant, bespectacled, physically frog-like master spy, George Smiley, appears in the novel, albeit briefly.

But Smiley is the center of conversation throughout the novel between former spy Peter Guillam and officials of the current-day British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as MI6, and formally known as the “Circus” in Mr. Smiley’s day. (The old headquarters was located at Cambridge Circus in London).

… Peter Guillam, now elderly and in retirement, is the central character in “A Legacy of Spies.” He is recalled to London by SIS headquarters to answer questions regarding the operation that resulted in the death of British intelligence officer Alec Leamas and his companion, Elizabeth Gold, who were shot and killed at the Berlin Wall in “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.” The grown children of the two are suing the SIS and intelligence officials have discovered that nearly all of the classified records of the operation were destroyed by Smiley, or by someone under his command. Guillam, perhaps?

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/31/book-review-a-legacy-of-spies/  

My Washington Times Review Of 'Three Minutes To Doomsday: An Agent, A Traitor, And The Worst Espionage Breach In History'

The Washington Times ran my review of Joe Navarro’s Three Minutes To Doomsday: An Agent, a Traitor, and the Worst Espionage Breach in History.

Clyde Lee Conrad and Rodney Ramsey may not be as well-known as Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, John Walker or other infamous spies and traitors, but according to Gen. Glenn K. Otis, the commander in chief of the U.S. Army European Command from 1983 to 1988, their acts of espionage had left the West so vulnerable and stripped of its own defensive capabilities that its defeat would have been assured had the Soviets acted on their intelligence and launched an all-out war.

Conrad, Ramsey and others in this spy ring gave the Soviets American’s defensive war plans, nuclear launch codes and other military secrets. It was a devastating breach of security.

As former FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro recounts in his book, “Three Minutes to Doomsday: An Agent, a Traitor, and the Worst Espionage Breach in History,” he became involved in this decade-long espionage investigation on Aug. 23, 1988 when he was instructed to locate and interview Roderick James Ramsey.

The message stated that Ramsey was last known to be living in Tampa, Florida, and Agent Navarro was to interview him “regarding his knowledge of or association with Clyde Lee Conrad, while stationed at 8th ID, Bad Kreuznach, West Germany: service years 1983-85. INSCOM (Army Intelligence) will liaise and assist: locate, interview, report.”

Mr. Navarro, who in 1988 served as a member of the FBI’s SWAT team and flew night aerial surveillance as well as his counterintelligence duties in the FBI’s Tampa, Florida office, located Ramsey, who was living in his mother’s trailer. He then began a long game of wits with the highly intelligent, narcissistic and manipulative former enlisted soldier.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/10/book-review-three-minutes-to-doomsday/  

My Washington Times Review Of 'The Black Hand: The Epic War Between A Brilliant Detective And The Deadliest Secret Society In American History'

The Washington Times published my review of The Black Hand: The Secret War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History.

My mother was Italian and I grew up in South Philadelphia, the city’s “Little Italy” section and the hub of the Cosa Nostra organized crime family in the Philadelphia and South Jersey area.

When I was a teenager in the 1960s I lived around the corner from Angelo Bruno, who was then the mob boss. I also lived around the corner from Richard Zappile, who became Philadelphia’s chief of detectives. He served as the city’s point man against the mob and in 1993 he broke up a particularly violent internecine mob war. The late Mr. Zappile went on to become the first deputy police commissioner and deputy mayor.

Yes, Virginia, there are Italian-American criminals. But there are also Italian-American law enforcement officers who are not afraid to take on organized crime.

Stephan Talty’s “The Black Hand” is about an earlier Italian-American police officer who faced a group of Italian criminals who were the precursors to Cosa Nostra. Italian immigrants in New York City in the early 1900s called these feared criminals “La Mana Nera,” The Society of the Black Hand.

The Black Hand members were extortionists, kidnappers, bombers and murderers. Initially they preyed upon the Italian immigrant community, but they later branched out. They kidnapped children and held them for ransom and they extorted money from small business owners.

…But there was one police officer, an Italian-American, one of the few on the force, who cared very much for the community and hated the Black Hand.

“Joseph Petrosino was the head of the famous Italian Squad, a short, stout, barrel-chested man, built like a stevedore,” Mr. Talty writes.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/11/book-review-the-black-hand/ 

Note: Below are photos of the late Joseph Petrosino:

My Washington Times Review Of 'The Operator: Firing The Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden And My Years As A SEAL Team Warrior'

The Washington Times published my review of Robert O’Neill’s The Operator.

On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, founder and leader of the terrorist organization al Qaeda, the man responsible for the horrific Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and the most wanted terrorist in the world, was shot dead by American special operators during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The story leaked quickly that U.S. Navy SEALs from the superelite group known to the public as SEAL Team Six were the operators who took down bin Laden and captured a treasury of intelligence about al Qaeda as well.

In 2012 Matt Bissonnette, author of “No Easy Day: The Autobiography of a Navy SEAL,” claimed that he was the operator who shot and killed bin Laden. Sources in the SEAL community, some of whom were outraged at Mr. Bissonnette’s breach of security, claimed that the “point man,” who has not come forward, was the actual shooter. In 2014 former Navy SEAL Senior Chief Petty Officer Robert O’Neill came out and announced that he was, in fact, the special operator who killed bin Laden.

Now Robert O’Neill has written “The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior.”

In “The Operator” Mr. O’Neill not only tells of the Abbottabad raid and his shots that killed the evil mastermind bin Laden, he also recounts his involvement in the operation to rescue fellow SEAL Marcus Luttrell of “Lone Survivor” fame in Afghanistan, as well as his involvement in the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips, who was abducted by Somali pirates. The book also chronicles lesser known, but equally interesting military operations.

Mr. O’Neill’s book also tells of his Butte, Montana boyhood and how he came to join the Navy in 1995 and became a SEAL in 1996. He describes in harrowing detail (and abundant humor) his SEAL training and how he went on to join the SEALs’ most elite unit.

… I contacted Robert O’Neill and asked him why he wrote the book. He said the book was an American piece about a kid from Montana who didn’t know how to swim but became a Navy SEAL, rose to become a member of the SEAL’s most elite team and then found himself on some of the most historic missions in recent history, including the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

“The story and my name had been out there for a few years and there have been movies and books made from the story,” Mr. O’Neill told me. “I wanted to tell a different part of it — my part.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/22/book-review-the-operator-firing-the-shots-that-kil/ 

Note: Below is a photo of Robert O'Neill:

My Washington Times Review of 'Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, And The Wickedest Town In The American West'

The Washington Times published my review of Tom Clavin's Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West.

For those of us who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s, popular TV programs were our introduction to Dodge City and Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, two of the Wild West town’s legendary lawmen.

As a kid I was a huge fan of Hugh O’Brian’s portrayal of Wyatt Earp and Gene Barry’s portrayal of Bat Masterson. I was also a fan of the long-running TV series “Gunsmoke,” which featured Dodge City as the town where James Arness’ fictional U.S. Marshall Matt Dillon had his many adventures. A new generation of fans now watch and enjoy the old reruns of these shows on cable stations.

Although the TV shows were entertaining, as I grew older and read history I learned that the shows about Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson were historically inaccurate and they were based in large part on books that had exaggerated their life stories. Mr. Earp and Mr. Masterson in their golden years also told exaggerated tales about themselves and each other.

The odd thing is that no exaggeration was truly necessary, as the true exploits of Mr. Earp and Mr. Masterson are certainly dramatic and interesting enough, as we learn from Tom Clavin’s excellent book, “Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West.”

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/19/book-review-dodge-city-wyatt-earp-bat-matterson-an/

My Washington Times Review Of "Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion And The Destruction Of The Japanese Navy'

My review of John Prados' Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy appeared in the Washington Times.

I didn’t much care for John Prados‘ “Vietnam: An Unwinnable War,” from the title on down. I haven’t read the anti-Vietnam War activist’s books on the CIA, but a friend who is most knowledgeable on intelligence matters called these books “rather foolish.”

Yet I tackled Mr. Prados‘ latest book, “Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy,” as I have a strong interest in the October 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf, an engagement that has been called the largest and perhaps the greatest naval battle in history. I’m also interested in the naval battle as my late father, a U.S. Navy UDT frogman, participated in the invasion of the Philippines.

Other historians have covered this famous battle extensively in their books, including Samuel Elliot Morison and John Toland, but Mr. Prados provides the most up-to-date information from diaries, recently released government documents, declassified intelligence reports, and postwar interrogation transcripts.

He also offers more information than most books on the key role of intelligence in the battle. I found his passages on the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific Ocean Area (JICPOA), called the “Zoo,” the Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC), and other intelligence units to be most interesting.

“The focus here on intelligence opened the door to a huge array of information that was unknown or poorly understood. That carried us a considerable way towards providing a fresh view of this crucial battle,” Mr. Prados writes. 

The heroes of the sea battle are the gallant and bold sailors and pilots who fought on aircraft carriers and other ships, but this book also offers the contributions of unsung heroes — the intelligence officers, Japanese linguists, cryptologists and radiomen who provided the American commanders with critical information about the Japanese Navy.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link: 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/8/book-review-storm-over-leyte-the-philippine-invasi/  

My Washington Times Review Of Ian Rankin's 'Even Dogs In The Wild'

My review of Ian Rankin's Scottish crime novel Even Dogs in the Wild appeared in the Washington Times.

Ian Rankin’s character Scottish Detective Inspector John Rebus was a 40-year-old detective sergeant when we first meet him in 1987’s “Knots and Crosses.” As Mr. Rankin has aged his character in real time through his 20 crime novels, the crime novelist was compelled to retire Rebus from the police force and from the center of his novels, despite his popularity with readers.

Rebus is a flawed man. Brooding and sarcastic, Rebus only finds solace only in music, smoking, drinking and his job as a detective. He is estranged from his wife and daughter and has few friends. A former British soldier who served in Northern Ireland during the violent era known as “The Troubles,” Rebus joined the Scottish police and was successful as a detective. But in addition to battling organized crime members, serial killers and corrupt politicians, Rebus also took on his own police bosses.

After Mr. Rankin retired Rebus in 2007’s “Exit Music,” he continued to write additional crime novels that featured Rebus‘ partner and protege, Detective Inspector Siobhan (pronounced “shi-vawn”) Clarke, as well a new character, Malcom Fox of the Complaints Bureau (which is the equivalent to Internal Affairs in most U.S. police departments). Due to his unpopular job in Complaints as well as by his nature, Fox is a righteous, sad and lonely police officer.

Now in Mr. Rankin’s “Even Dogs in the Wild,” the curmudgeonly, cynical Rebus is back in the forefront. Rebus is serving as a consulting detective (like another popular fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes) for the police in Edinburgh, Scotland. Rebus is aiding Clarke and Fox in the investigation of a high profile murder of Lord David Menzies Minton, a former senior government prosecutor.

The murder looks at first as if it was a random act committed during a burglary, but Clarke wonders why nothing has been stolen and she is curious about a threatening note found on the scene. Despite her youth, English background, a university degree and an interest in technology — things that are repugnant and alien to Rebus — she became his trusted friend and colleague in the earlier novels and Rebus helped her become a fine detective.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/3/book-review-even-dogs-in-the-wild/