Thriller

Title: The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa: With E. D. Swinton's "The Defence of Duffer's Drift"
Author: Michael L. Burgoyne and Albert J. Marckwardt
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Bob Flournoy

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0226080935

Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the U.S. military found itself in a battle with a lethal and adaptive insurgency, where the divisions between enemy and ally were ambiguous at best, and working with the local population was essential for day-to-day survival. From the lessons they learned during multiple tours of duty in Iraq, two American veterans have penned The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa, an instructional parable of counterinsurgency that addresses the myriad of difficulties associated with war in the postmodern era.

In this tactical primer based on the military classic The Defence of Duffer's Drift, a young officer deployed for the first time in Iraq receives ground-level lessons about urban combat, communications technology, and high-powered weaponry in an environment where policy meets reality. Over the course of six dreams, the inexperienced soldier fights the same battle again and again, learning each time--the hard way--which false assumptions and misconceptions he needs to discard in order to help his men avoid being killed or captured. As the protagonist struggles with his missions and grapples with the consequences of his mistakes, he develops a keen understanding of counterinsurgency fundamentals and the potential pitfalls of working with the native population.

Accompanied here by the original novella that inspired it, The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa offers an invaluable resource for cadets and junior military leaders seeking to master counterinsurgency warfare--as well as general readers seeking a deeper understanding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as its predecessor has been a hallmark of military instruction, The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa will draw the road map for counterinsurgency in the postmodern world.

Title: Argopelter: A Sergeant Sandy Coker Novel
Author: Ronald Smith
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Hodge Wood

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1451227841

Air Force Sergeant Sandy Coker, now retired, finally joins his families billion dollar lumbering business as its new Director, and immediately hires old military comrades to fill key positions. Two of them assisted Coker in the dramatic rescue of his wife, kidnapped by a maniacal industrialist while stationed in England; the third saved his life in 1968 in the jungles of Vietnam.

On a routine company familiarization trip to one of its plants in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula forests, Coker and his friends finds themselves suddenly entangled in an eighty year old murder mystery which crosses borders and leads to a present day pattern of murder and violence.

Title: Gulf Winds
Author: J. M. Taylor
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Lee Boyland

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1879043238

Synopsis of the book, submitted by the author.

Title: Missing Sticks
Author: J. M. Taylor
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Larry Purcell

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1879043009

Faces streaked with soot or burnt cork, over six thousand paratroopers and glidermen of the 101st Airborne Division Screaming Eagles jumped or crashed into the swamps, canals, hedgerows and villages of the Cotentin Peninsular of France sometime after midnight on the sixth day of June 1944.

Over four hundred C-47 Dakotas carried the Screaming Eagles through the darkness and into a thick cloud bank that night. One load of pathfinders crashed into the English Channel. Planes were seen to explode in midair. Others crashed and burned past all recognition, probably due to ground fire. Just before dawn, the initial glider serials slammed between the hedgerows, into trees and each other. Many planes safely delivered their troopers to their designated drop zones. However, come dawn eighteen planes, each carrying a stick of fifteen to twenty paratroopers, were missing.

As so often happened that night, many paratroopers found themselves alone. Some quickly banded together, others wandered for hours, evading Germans and capture. Some were all too quickly made casualties, either by the hard landing or German fire. Others were taken prisoner. Some of the real stories are even harder to fathom than the stories in Missing Sticks, a fictional account of a handful of those missing men, representative of those declared casualties in real life.

Title: Terrorism's Shifting Winds
Author: Maurice H. Unger
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 160813413X

Islamic terrorists are running hand-in-hand with powerful drug trafficking cartels in the western hemisphere to launch new attacks against the United States. Terrorism’s Shifting Winds is an action/suspense thriller that takes this collaboration between Mid-East terrorists and drug traffickers and weaves a story of intrigue that entails not only drug trafficking but the smuggling of a weapon of mass destruction into the United States. Jackie Randolph, an impetuous but resourceful ex-special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, is rehired for an undercover role. Toss in the antics of some fearsome, erstwhile Tennessee moonshiners, Mexican drug traffickers and some not so innocent white-collar vacationers at a wilderness retreat, and you have a robust tale about heroes and villains.