Defender of Rome: A Tale of the Ancient Republic


Ken Farmer - 2016
    Ever hear of the term Pyrrhic victory? A young Roman soldier is a part of history in which the phrase was created.

Blackbirds: A London Blitz Novel (The Bluebird Trilogy Book 2)


Melvyn Fickling - 2018
    Bryan Hale and Bluebird Squadron fight on into the autumn of 1940, chasing down the new threat of ‘Jabo’ hit-and-run raids by bomb-laden enemy fighters over the capital’s rooftops.Bryan’s chance encounter in a London pub with Jenny, an acquaintance from his school-days, starts them both down the road to a relationship that neither wants or can afford. But the deadly perils of London’s Blitz ignite a passion that neither can resist.Bluebird Squadron rotates out of the front-line to Scotland. Bryan transfers to night-fighters, partly to sate his desire for combat, but also to stay close to Jenny.Struggling with fledgling radar technology, Bryan and his operator, Tommy Scott, eventually become calculating hunters of the night, stalking and slaying Nazi raiders in a chilling, deadly game of cat-and-mouse in England’s pitch-black winter skies.The stresses of combat, the loss of friends and the daily grind of mortal danger weigh ever more heavily. As the new year dawns on the battered, bohemian streets of the blitzed capital, Bryan’s life begins to fray and unravel.

Crawling Out of Hell: The True Story of a British Sniper's Greatest Battle


Dean Bailey - 2017
    Craving the opportunity to finally see some action after a disappointing tour in Iraq, he now had the chance to put his elite marksmanship training to the test. To his disappointment, the Taliban proved to be nothing like a traditional enemy and their hit and run ambush tactics mean that more often than not Dean and his men are cooped up inside a Viking armoured personnel carrier, desperate to get out and take the fight to the Taliban on the ground. During one such ambush, Dean's Platoon is attacked from all sides, and Dean's Viking is immobilised. Going up on top of the carrier to fend off the assailants with his rifle, an RPG explodes next to him, covering him with burning diesel. Continuing his stubborn defence, and enabling his men to scramble out the back door of the stricken vehicle, Dean takes a direct hit from an RPG ending his brave covering fire. Dragged from the burning Viking, he is flown back to England with little expectation of surviving the flight home. Dean's next battle was the hardest he ever had to face.

The Alchemist's Revenge: The real game of thrones (Company of Archers)


Martin Archer - 2019
    This is another exciting story in Martin Archer’s continuing and action-packed saga about the men of a company of English archers in the medieval world’s very real game of thrones. It is by far the longest and one of the most action-packed and wittiest. Flashman would be proud, Tom Brown appalled, and the men of the Marines and the SAS would have felt right at home. The year is 1219 in Constantinople and the recently widowed English-born Empress of the great Latin Empire has donated enough coins to the Pope to have been chosen by God to be her young son’s regent. She, in turn, has hired George Courtenay’s Cornwall-based Company of Archers to help her defend her throne against the many kings and princes who are trying to replace her. This is the story of a real life game of thrones set in the early years when the first of the great heavily armed merchant companies were being formed and Britain was just beginning to grow into a naval and commercial powerhouse that would punch far above its weight in the centuries that followed. It is a good read.

Battle Climb


Richard Townshend Bickers - 2015
     Three squadrons - two Hurricane and one Spitfire - are recovering at RAF Longley from the battles of the British retreat from France. Pilots such as Officer Roy Taylor spend their days waiting for the telephone to ring and for someone to shout 'Scramble!'. But they will not be kept waiting for long. The enemy is preparing for a special mission, one that will hurt the Tommies close to home. In the eyes of the enemy, the British did not have the planes to replace those destroyed, or the pilots to take the place of those killed, in battle. It was time to deliver a final crushing blow. Major Sepp von Hondorf delivers the orders: a hit-and-run raid, concentrating on the aerodromes and the radar stations on the South-East of England. Their target: the Longley base. Their weapon: the deadly Ju 87 Stake dive-bomber. But in the ensuing battles between the Allies and the Enemies, Officer Taylor is shot down, landing in occupied France. His fellow pilots must set out to find and retrieve their lost friend. Can the Spitfire squadron exact vengeance against the Stuka men before they are hit once more? It will be a dangerous mission - one that will teach them the truth meaning of total war. 'Battle Climb' is an action-packed military thriller set during the build-up to the German invasion of England, and told with authentic and well-researched detail. Praise for Richard Townshend Bickers: 'A thrilling page turner.' - Tom Kasey, best-selling author of 'Trade Off'. Richard Townshend Bickers volunteered for the RAF on the outbreak of the second world war and served, with a Permanent Commission, for eighteen years. He wrote a range of military fiction and non-fiction books, including ‘Torpedo Attack’, ‘My Enemy Came Nigh’, ‘Bombing Run’ and ‘Summer of No Surrender’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

Sailing Orders


David O'Neil - 2013
    Following the life of an abandoned 13 year old who by chance is instrumental in saving a family from robbery and worse. Taken in by the naval Captain Bowers he is placed as a midshipman in his benefactor’s ship. From that time onward with the increasing demands of the conflict with France, Martin Forrest grows up fast. The relationship with his benefactors family is formalized when he is adopted by them and has a home once more. Romance with Jennifer the Captain’s ward links him ever closer to the family. Meanwhile he serves in the West Indies where good fortune results in his gaining considerable wealth personally. With promotion and command he is able to marry and reclaim his birth-right, stolen from him by his step-mother and her lover. The mysterious (call me merely Mr. Smith) involves Martin in more activity in the shadowy world of spies and secret agents. Mainly a question of infiltrating and extricating agents, his involvement becomes more complex as time goes on. A cruise to India consolidates his position and rank with the successful capture of prizes when returning convoying East-Indiamen. His rise to Post rank is followed by a series of events, that sadly culminate in family tragedy. Though still young Martin Forrest-Bowers faces and empty future, yet the mysterious merely Mr. Smith has requested his service. Why does the spymaster require of him, and what lies ahead?

OKAY THREE WIRE: BOOK SIX OF THE FIGHTING TOMCATS


M.L. Maki - 2021
    

BURMA - WW2 FRONTLINE STORIES


Ron Parker - 2012
    Into primary training, the voyage overseas, and being sunk in the Mediterranean sea. Resuming the voyage on a bluddy awful peacetime troop ship. Deolali, being held back for glasses. |No Jungle training, which it would seem most everyone else got. The siege of Imphal, then more than 500 miles chasing the Japs out of Burma. The dropping of the atom bomb which saved us from the invasion of Malaya.

Invasion and Conquest


Rob Buckman - 2018
    His mission was to retrieve an important package and get it to a secret military base in northern California. He was hundreds of miles inside alien held territory with no heavy weapons, no support, no Intel on the aliens, and no way to report the mission was a bust. Between him and the secret base stood the Sierra Nevada Mountain, four hundred miles of treacherous road and an unknown number of world destroying aliens. Any transport was immidiately attacked and destroyed, so the only way to get there was to walk. To even think about taking these women on a four hundred mile yomp was crazy at best, and completely insane knowing winter would catch them before they reached their goal. But ever the perennial sheepdog he didn't have a choice. It was either leave them to their fate, or take them with him. The only way to do that was to teach them. Not only survive, but to turn these inexperienced civilians into a snarling, battle hardened 'Wolf Pack', willing and able to take down the assorted bad guys and aliens that stood in their path. In the SAS, he'd done some crazy thing, and if there was a kindly God who looked after little children, fools and village idiots, John ‘Wolfman’ Decker hoped he was paying special attention right about now, because he was the biggest village idiot of them all.Cover Artist: Jesus Condi

Trial: An Action-Packed Legal Drama


William Harrington - 2018
     Richly plotted, Harrington’s novel is alive with a large cast of memorable characters and real, powerful issues, including destroyed careers, political upheaval, racial clashes, and a major scandal. At the centre we have a Lieutenant of Detectives with the job of bringing a murderer to justice, but he's torn between duty and his hatred of capital punishment. We follow the lives of those centrally and pivotally concerned in the case—the murderer and the murderer’s wife, lawyers and journalists, gubernatorial candidates and prostitutes—through the events leading up to the trial, the trial itself, and its grim aftermath. Praise for Trial: ‘Mr. Harrington blends all his disparate themes skilfully, holding the reader’s attention riveted and constructing his story tightly.’ — Publishers’ Weekly. William Harrington (1931-2000) was born in Ohio and studied law at Ohio State University. An attorney for nearly 20 years, he became a full-time writer in 1980. Harrington published almost thirty novels during his career, including The English Lady (1982) and a series of six novels featuring fictional TV detective Columbo.

Shaped by the Shadow of War


Don Catherall - 2017
    Don grew up in a world shaped by his father's silent grief, strict discipline, and painful lessons in survival. When his own turn came, Don joined the Marines and went to Vietnam. This book tells the story of his experience in Vietnam, as well as his father's experience in the South Pacific, especially the scorching battle for Peleliu. But this is also a story about family life and the way in which the shadow of war is cast beyond the individual combatants. Don grew up in the shadow of his father's war and parented his children in the shadow of his own experience in Vietnam. He saw war's impact as a child, as a parent, and in his work as a clinical psychologist. Ultimately, this is a story of generational healing and recovering one's humanity.

POINT: WILDERNESS WAR IN VIETNAM AND CAMBODIA - A MEMOIR


Jamie Thompson - 2019
    It’s a memoir of the author’s service as an infantry sergeant, squad leader and point man in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

The Cartographer (Complete Series)


A.C. Cobble - 2020
    A pair of unlikely investigators walk a dangerous path into the past, uncovering secrets best left alone in this dark, fantasy thriller.The fate of empire is to crumble from within.A heinous murder in a small village reveals a terrible truth. Sorcery, once thought dead in Enhover, is not. Evidence of an occult ritual and human sacrifice proves that dark power has been called upon again. Twisting threads of clues lead across the known world to the end of a vast empire, and then, the trail returns home.Duke Oliver Wellesley, son of the king, cartographer, and adventurer, has better things to do than investigate a murder in a sleepy fishing hamlet. For Crown and Company, though, he goes where he’s told. As the investigation leads to deeper and darker places, he’ll be forced to confront the horrific spectres rising from the shadows of his past. When faced with the truth, will he sacrifice what is necessary to survive?Samantha serves a Church that claims to no longer need her skills. She’s apprenticed to a priest-assassin that no one knows. Driven by a mad prophecy, her mentor has prepared her for a battle with ultimate darkness, except, sorcery is dead. When all is at stake, can she call upon an arcane craft the rest of the world has forgotten?The fate of empire is to crumble from within. Do not ask when, ask who.

Eisenhower's Spy


Noel Hynd - 2020
     “(Hynd is)…a few notches above the Ludlums and Clancys of the world." - Booklist. 'Eisenhower’s Spy' is Noel Hynd’s tough hard-hitting sequel to 'Truman’s Spy'. It is a major new work of action and espionage from the author of 'Flowers From Berlin' and 'Return to Berlin.' It is the summer of 1958. President Dwight D. Eisenhower personally enlists F.B.I. Special Agent Thomas Buchanan (the central character of Hynd’s 'Truman’s Spy') for a top secret assignment independent of the FBI and CIA. The President asks Buchanan to oversee the investigation of a perplexing murder in broad daylight in Manhattan. The best detectives in New York City cannot pull the case together. Or maybe they don’t want to. Was the homicide a random slaying, a gangland ‘hit,’ a drug deal gone wrong or a political assassination? And the further question: why is this homicide, which might otherwise be a state or city investigation, the focus of such close White House attention? Within days of starting his investigation, Buchanan finds himself, his life, his career and the woman he loves in jeopardy. He navigates a lethal web of Russian spies, local hoodlums, political provocateurs from the left and the right, the CIA, rival agents in the FBI, surly New York cops and Caribbean revolutionaries. The case is a nightmare, as are its ramifications. Equally perilous are the gritty gang-controlled urban streets where Buchanan must go to seek answers. Buchanan soon finds himself working with an unpredictable New York City police lieutenant named Paul Maguire. A beautiful but suspicious young woman named Laura Brookfield filters in and out of the case. Day to day, Laura either aids them or sabotages them. And yet, she may be the key to Buchanan's investigation. The story twists and turns from New York to Washington to Havana and back again. The case comes in and out of focus like a mirage on a broiling summer afternoon. Buchanan moves from the drug dens of upper Manhattan to the mob nightclubs of midtown to the edgy coffee houses of Greenwich Village. He visits the hot jazz joints of the West Fifties and the corrupt police precincts of the pre-Serpico era. Questions are many. Answers are few. Buchanan must make his own good luck. Meanwhile, the President is waiting for a report. To some, America of the 1950’s was a bright, optimistic and prosperous place. But in 'Eisenhower’s Spy' a deeper reality smolders beneath the surface. The decade had begun with two wars: a bloody conflict in Korea that stalemated in 1953 and a global cold war that would intensify through the decade. Berlin, Budapest and Taiwan were flashpoints of conflict and potential sparks for another world war. Americans passed the decade in fear of Soviet subversion from within or a sudden Soviet nuclear attack from afar. Worse, revolutionary ferment was as close as ninety miles south of Florida as Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army crept increasingly closer to mobbed-up Havana. 'Eisenhower’s Spy' is a spy story that buzzes with the energy of numerous intrigues, love affairs, memorable characters, remorseless criminality and quirks of fate set across a dark set of years in the middle of the Twentieth Century. 'Eisenhower’s Spy' will underscore the critics’ lofty assessment of Noel Hynd’s unique way with a tough hard-hitting spy novel: a full cast of memorable people, romance, uncompromising historical accuracy and heart pounding suspense. The millions of readers of Noel Hynd’s previous novels will not be disappointed.

Attack Transport (Illustrated): The Story of the U.S.S. Doyen


Lawrence A. Marsden - 2020
    Doyen is a fast-paced action-adventure story from World War 2 detailing the birth of modern amphibious warfare. The book follows the US Navy attack transport ship the Doyen (AP-1), the first of its kind, from its exciting launch on the California coast to its deadly assaults on the shores of Saipan, Leyte, Luzon, and Iwo Jima.