Showing results for "Paradise" in War & Military

Alexander the Great's sudden and unexpected death has left the largest, most formidable empire the world has ever seen leaderless. As the fight to take control descends into ruthless scheming and bloody battles, no one is safe. As wars on land and sea are lost and won, and promises are made only to be broken, long-buried secrets come to light in the quest for the true circumstances surrounding Alexander's death.

They came by boat from a starving land, and by the Underground Railroad from Southern chains, seeking refuge in a crowded, filthy corner of hell at the bottom of a great metropolis. But in the terrible July of 1863, the poor and desperate of Paradise Alley would face a new catastrophe, as flames from the war that was tearing America in two reached out to set their city on fire.

A young ranger recon sergeant major, Danny McCarty, returns home following the apparent suicide death of his father. What Danny doesn’t know is that he’s being recruited by his aunt’s Forty Two club for his military and outdoorsman skills to root out his dad’s real killer and bring them to justice. A series of encounters follows wherein Danny goes to jail, breaks out, goes back in, and breaks out again. Between escapes, he wins a football game, blows up the mine with a homemade bomb, and has several confrontations with his brother, his girlfriend, and three persistent thugs.

John Mort’s compelling first novel embodies both the Vietnam combat experience and the sad aftermath for those who underwent it. Alternating between “stateside” chapters after the war and the Vietnam chapters dramatizing it, the novel creates a tension back and forth in time as well as geography. We participate in the trauma of combat in crisp and authentic detail, and we witness the effect of that experience on “Irish” Donnelly, a bookish, reluctant soldier, and his fellow infantrymen in the jungles and mountains of Vietnam.