Night of the Fox by Jack Higgins

This is a world war two story and is a jolly good yarn. An American Colonel with all of the details about D-Day in his head gets torpedoed and ends up drifting to the German occupied island of Jersey. The Allies have to get him out... or kill him.

They turn to a man with a history. A professor that can act, think and behave like a true Nazi. He is smuggeled into Jersey and his mission is to get the Colonel out, or kill him.

The story is gripping from the beginning. I found that I was drawn to the main character almost immediately. As his history is revealed this apparently cold heartless man is proved to be anything but. Every page is full of the tension that Higgins is very good at creating. The bluff and counter bluff add interest and confusion to the story and the sense of impending doom keep even the most mundane of occurances a high tension moment.

I got through the book in just a few days and found myself staying up too late and suffering the next day because I kept reading.

7/10

Flash Flood by Chris Ryan

I picked up this book because of the authors name. I've read a number of "Ryan" books and love the modern military/spy stuff he rights.

However this book is different. It follows a young mans adventure across London during a tremendous natural disaster.

Although the book is not the military adventure as I was expecting, it is an adventure and the action is almost continuous. I sped through this book in just a few days. It's not a long book and appears to have a YA slant. The text is larger print than normal and when I thought I still had another chapter to go, I discovered that the story was over and the remainder of the book was actually a preview of another Chris Ryan book.

I hate it when they do that!

The story was good, and I really enjoyed it.

7/10

Sniper One by SGT Dan Mills

I was loaned this book by a pal at work on Friday. I took it back to him on Monday having finished reading it over the weekend.

It was terrific. It's another of the modern military memoirs that are coming out these days and tells what was to me anyway an untold story of the "peace keeping" in Iraq in the early 2000's.

It tells the story of the a sniper company garrisoned on the outskirts of a run down town in the Iraq interior. The whole area is riddeled with anti UK anti American groups who show thier displeasure with combat.

On their first trip out of the base the newly arrived sniper company gets into a serious fire fight and it does not stop after that.

The story goes on to tell how the British battle group is beseiged and culminates towards a full scale assault by the Iraqis to overrun the base.

This story is terrifying and exillerating at the same time and shows both the horror and the humour of modern urban combat. Literally, a must read!

10/10

Gods Smuggler to China

This book tells the true story of a man going by the name of "Brother David" who hears God telling him to go to China to distribute Bibles.

It reads like an autobiography, we get get to learn about his childhood and youthful problems. We even get told about how and why he turned from the church for many years and would have nothing to do with it.

That changes though, and the interesting incidents of his life that bring him around and send him back to the church and even into missionary work.

The majority of the book is taken up with his involvement in the smuggeling of Bibles into mainland China. This book was published in 1981 back when China was a lot more "closed" than it is now so some of the trouble he has to go through will seem odd or even strange to people who havn't lived through it. ( Try telling a 16yo about the Berlin wall, they wont believe it!).

The story is very focused on the spirtiual side of the Davids work and as such is what many might call a "bible bashing book". I found it very interesting, and that side of things did not put me off of the story at all, in fact it is the story, as Davids motivation and that of the people who help him is entirely driven by thier faith.

I dont suppose this book is still in print, but if you find it, pick it up, it's a good read.